Dark Circumstances

     Young Officer Rays was oblivious to so many details that night—things hidden by darkness and circumstance.  His mind registered that the building he was standing in front of at the time was made out of brick; however, he didn’t remember the number or the fact that there were actually two kinds of brick to be seen.  There was the rough, brilliantly red façade that covered the majority of the building, giving it a new, edgy feel that greatly attracted college kids, whose temporary existence in such a small town required little more than a stylish apartment.  Behind the untrimmed hedges lay the history of the building, its 100 year history told in ten registers of the foundation, each dusky-colored brick smoothed under the stripes of rain-worn paths.


     All of this poetic, soul-riveting experience was lost upon the twenty-eight year-old that night.  He was unmindful of the cracks in the walls, the pealing of white paint, the mismatched species of untrimmed hedges.  He remembered his senses, exposed to the chill and excitement of the night air, were unfamiliar to him.  So was the lingering feeling of soft skin under his hands.  It—she had escaped from his car only moments before, laughing,  his LED flashlight in hand, and a mop of brown hair bouncing behind her.
     
     With slow, deliberate footfalls, Officer Rays made his way after her, up the wide concrete steps, tracing his hand along the coolness of the black iron railing. He paused at the screen door to sigh and hang his head in mock frustration before pulling it open and pushing past the old glass door to the stairwell beyond.
    
     The smell of beef stew and brownies lingered in the air.  To the left there were four, open-top mailboxes with names scribbled upon them.  Officer Rays reached beyond the old push-button door buzzers for the light switch.  A beam of light from a street lamp caught the glint of a ring on his finger.  He paused, wondering if a flashlight was worth the trouble he was libel to get into.


     The officer was startled from his thoughts by a giggle and the creak of a door closing at the top of the steps.  He smiled slyly in the shadows, and began feeling his way up the steps like a kid sneaking up on one of his playmates in a game of Hide and Seek.  The stairs creaked, complaining that his tall but nimble frame was asking too much of them at one o’clock in the morning, but he continued noisily up to the top of the steps until he arrived at the old wooden door with a brass number four tacked onto it.


     “I really shouldn’t be here,” he murmured to himself.  Then he smiled at his own boldness.  “But then again, I guess Marcy was right about me playing with hand cuffs leading to all kinds of trouble...”


     With that, he slipped into the apartment and gently shut the door, disappearing into the dark circumstances behind it.