The Town

This piece of fiction written by me was inspired by Kazuo Ishiguro’s short story, ‘A Village after Dark’. 

The man had spent his whole life in a town that clung to the edge of a cliff. Below the very last houses was a black nothingness that gaped like an open mouth, and it was impossible, even on the sunniest of days, to see what lay at the bottom.

He had arrived with only the light suit he wore, and a comb inside a briefcase. Standing on the edge of the town, he could see the clutch of stone houses glowing orange in the late afternoon light, and he set off towards them with purpose. When he had reached the door of the very first house he stopped, unsure. The houses all looked the same to him. It was impossible to tell one from the next. All of them stone, all of them with the same low roofs pulled over the walls like a hat. No numbers, although this did not make much difference; he could not remember an address. He started to make his way through the narrow streets, stepping over water and filth, followed by some of the town’s stray dogs, who sniffed at his suit, their muzzles dark with mud, or, he thought, blood.

He was making no progress, he could not see the edge of the town anymore, or the way he had come from. All around him rose the walls of the stone houses, and he was beginning to feel disoriented.  Besides this, the group of mongrels was growing every minute, and they seemed restless, some of them daring to nip at his pants leg before he kicked them away. He felt he had been walking the streets for days. Tired, he sank against the wall of one of the houses, keeping the curious dogs at bay with his suitcase. A door opened, and a woman appeared through it. The man stood with relief. Now he could get help, get directions to where he was going. As yellow light from the house spilled out onto the street, the dogs started to leave, tongues lolling out, as though grinning at their own bad behavior from earlier. The man walked over quickly, before the woman had finished putting out an empty milk bottle. She wore an apron and had tired, lined eyes. When she saw him her hands dropped away from where they had been smoothing the top of her head. Her chin began to tremble. She held her knuckles up to her mouth, and bit them, as though trying to keep something from coming out. Then she flung her arms around his neck.

After a moment of shock, the man pulled her hands from where they were digging into the skin of his neck, and held her at arm’s length, afraid she would embrace him again. Her eyes were wet and startled.

“I am looking for…” he began, but he realized the sentence had no direction as soon as he had said it, and it hung between them like a question, growing more and more meaningless as seconds, and then minutes passed. It was then that he noticed that the day had begun to grow dark. He stood there feeling like an intruder in the town he had lived in his whole life, with the woman before him, looking as though she might start weeping. The town was spread all around them, and it was getting dark.