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Flash Fiction- Forgotten Dreams
Thinking back, " She remembers vividly the first day she'd found this dirty haven of rest.
Nellie sat down on an old mattress someone had tossed haphazardly in the alley of forgotten dreams. She felt comfortable here, away from prying eyes and pointing fingers.
Thinking back, " She remembers vividly the first day she'd found this dirty haven of rest. "
She'd tried desperately to find a publisher who would like her poetry and stories enough to at least read them. Instead, she was told over and over again, " Writers and poets are a dime a dozen. "
She was standing in front of a restaurant with a wishful look on her face when a middle age man approached her asking, " Are you hungry? " That was the beginning of her downward spiral into prostitution that has lasted twenty years.
Her day's of attracting men were slowly waning. Her beauty fading, her step somewhat slower as she paced her ' spot ' beneath the downtown Chicago lights.
On a good night, she might make a contact with two men, enough to buy food and split half with her pimp who kept a room for her in the red-light district.
This past week, not even one trick, plus her pimp told her, " No money means no more paid room, you're on your own. "
Nellie was not feeling well. She'd developed a nasty cough and a high fever.
She often thought about going back home, but her folks were long gone. Nothing left but the old farm house that was slowly rotting away. A roof that leaked, the white paint that once shined brightly was now faded and peeling. The front porch cracked with missing boards. Her Mother's old rocking chair broken just like the windows where she used to sit and write poetry and stories by candlelight.
The old discarded mattress felt especially good on this cold, damp night.
She stretched out to rest, offering a prayer for forgiveness as her eye's closed, never to dream again.
Old Wild Billy raised up from his cardboard bed to take another swig of wine. He rubbed his eye's repeatedly and yelled, " I see an angel carrying Nellie to heaven. "
All the misfits in the alley roared with laughter, saying, " Take another swig Billy, you're seeing visions again. "