The Pillowcase

I was climbing up to the sixth floor of this decrepit old apartment building in the city. I had to trudge up the stairs that spiraled around the large open stairwell in the center of the building. I had received some sort of mysterious summons to meet someone, and when I reached the landing on the sixth floor, I saw that the door to the first apartment at the top of the stairs was wide open. I crept into the apartment, and I saw that the place was empty. There was no furniture, just a few boxes and other discarded items left behind on the hardwood floors. Across the room, the double doors to the balcony were standing open, and out on the balcony I saw a woman with black hair standing at the railing. She stood with her back to me, and I could see the view beyond her as she stood looking out at the bay that the city had been build around, watching all the little boats with their white sails as they drifted into the harbor or sailed back out to the open water on the horizon.

I raised a finger, and I was just about to call out to her, but then I heard the sound of a car alarm going off down in the parking lot below. I knew it was my car. I knew someone was messing with it. This was a bad neighborhood, and I had taken a risk coming here. I wanted to get down there quickly and catch the person in the act of breaking into my car, but I knew I’d never get back down all those flights of stairs in time. But then I noticed a pillowcase sitting on a stack of boxes just beside the door to the apartment. The pillowcase was decorated with cartoon cows and sheep and other farm animals grazing in the rainbows and the clouds. I grabbed the pillowcase, and before giving the idea any real thought, I ran back out into the stairwell and jumped over the railing, holding the pillowcase over my head and hoping to use it as a makeshift parachute.

Luckily, the pillowcase popped open with a snap and it eased my descent as I dropped down the shaft in the middle of the spiraling flights of stairs. But I looked up and I saw that there was a small rip in the stitching along the seam of the pillowcase, just big enough to poke a finger through. The pillowcase deflated a little as some of the air escaped though this hole, and I felt myself dropping a little faster, but the pillowcase was still doing a pretty good job of catching the air. And I figured this would be even better. The landing might be kind of rough, but I would be alright, and I would get down to the parking lot even sooner, with even better hopes of catching the person breaking into my car.

I did a tumble and a roll to break my fall as I hit the ground, and then I flipped back onto my feet and I ran for the back door that led out to the parking lot. But I was too late. The thieves had already disassembled my car and they were scattering in all directions, carrying off different pieces of it, tires and fenders and rims and taillights. One of them hooted and hollered as he ran off waving the radio in the air, the wires hanging from it, music from the classic rock station still playing from the speakers that someone else was carrying off in the other direction. Another one was giggling hysterically as he made off with my steering wheel, holding it out in front of him and weaving in a zigzag pattern across the parking lot as he pretended to steer himself one way and then the other. There was nothing but a dented bumper and a few greasy nuts and bolts left sitting in the space where my car had been.

My shoulders slumped and my arms dropped to my sides, the deflated pillowcase still gripped in my fist. There was a little boy standing there next to me on the sidewalk. He had been watching the whole thing and just shaking his head. He turned to me and pointed at something on my shirt, and I looked down and noticed that there was a silver badge pinned there. I touched the badge with my finger and he nodded and looked away back out at the parking lot. He asked me why I never did anything about the crime in his neighborhood, why I just stood there and let things like this happen right in front of me. I started to say something, but I stopped and my shoulders slumped again. I had no idea what to tell him.