Alone

It was a dark night, it was a green night. The trees were verdant and full, lushly whispering words of their own coming death, of the falling to come. The stars were bright; too bright. The sky the deepest blue of the velvet cushions in the bordello across the way. And soft, so soft. Soft enough to absorb even the longest sort of pain. It was a night when she walked alone. It was a night when alone was the only way for her. And as she paced through the thick, thick night, the darkness thick like rope is thick, her spine was straight, her brow cool. Her neat, light, cotton dress moved about her, wafting waves of lavender into the evening scented of lilies and cinnamon.
She looked straight ahead, but now and then her chin tilted, she saw the stillness around her. She saw the movement within the bellies of the houses. She walked quiet, silent by, her feet making no noise. She felt the breeze shift to notice her, and then move away, uncaring. She watched the silhouettes in the burning windows with luminous, unjudging eyes. Only the night watched her.
She saw the white smoke from a cigarette float into the slightly rotting orange light of a streetlamp. Her gate smooth, she continued on, looking forward steadfastly. Her eyes did not waver. Her hands were relaxed beside her. A cigarette butt lit like the flash of a neon sign for a moment and then faded. She saw the fade drop to the ground, she saw the ground devour it in darkness.
A hand shot around her neck, another around her waist, and she was pulled into the shadows, the deep, eating shadows.
But her white, careful dress still gleamed out like a pearl. It seemed to light around her. It was the luminosity of a fish in deep, deep water. Suddenly, the white of it, like the waving of seaweed, straightened. The dark lines that had bound her faded, a sigh of death escaped the shadows for one moment, but was quickly absorbed by the pillowy night. She moved back into the light, and kneeling suddenly, gracefully, she picked up the cigarette butt and it turned to ash in her white hands. She let the ashes fall without expression; the breeze sniffed them, carried them away. She was alone again.