The Dimming of the Blue Eyes

    There atop a steaming sewer vent, beside a murky gutter, laid a rat burrowed in a heap of filthy blankets. Its face coarse, its claws yellow from grime, its fur stained by seeping garbage bags and its tail severed. A beautiful mind however this rat possessed. We tend not to look behind someone else’s eyes to see and feel their pains. Though what else could it have done? Who listened to a nomad of the garbage? Beauty within we believe; thwarts deformity. The rat’s body chilled and shivered, its claws held the ragged coverings over its face, defending it from a viciously cold world. Then a shot of sunlight pierced through a crevice in the rags. Emanating between its skeletal fingers were a pair of gleaming blue eyes. Its mouth toothless and wordless, but the amulets spoke. Occasionally, a passerby spit and snickered. Another wouldn’t even look twice. One took a second glance and her eyes glossed over, looking away by the insistence of the world. This sewage rat was alone.

      Promenading up the very street was a finely coated fox lashing a flock of sheep who dared not step out from his long, dark shadow. Clearly astute to epicurean manners before ladies and prominent others, this gentleman had a stone for a heart. He has green eyes that burn red in the purity of the sunlight. He wears a brimmed billy-cock hat, his eyes gleaming like two distant stars within the shadows beneath the brim. His coat was flat and silky of a chestnut-red hue, and his ears tapered to a sharp point; richly black on the tips. He dons a gold chain watch that winks in the eyes of immoral young ladies. Under his coat he had a white silk shirt. His well-built legs sheathed in polished leather jackboots that shined in the sun. This finely dressed gentleman had a body void of kindness... His ears flickered. Hearing a strong beating heart… no heart from his flock. The finely coated gentleman’s nostrils flared, sweltering in anticipation. Those red tinted eyes fixated on the heap of worn blankets. This stalking fox then educated to his flock of sheep with his lash to halt. His ears flicking, his slender muzzle sniffed a foul odor emanating from the gutter across the street.

     “What a sickly ridiculous, ragged puppet of welfare! Filth!” hollered the epicurean gentleman. His herd of sheep cackled.
     “What a repulsive fellow!” one sheep followed its master’s mockery.
     “Not even a fellow!” the gentleman exclaimed.

     They shifted their black eyes away from what another in the flock called “an insane lad…” another cackle, save one. A lone sheep. She was a loner even in her own flock and secretly despised her master. She shifted her focus from within her master’s shadow to the rest of her flock and to the heap of filthy coverings. The rat parted its claws and peeked through a crevice in the blankets and saw her looking at him. Lifting his claws from his face, he saw such beauty he could never touch.
     “By what name does your master call you poor sheep?” the rat’s voice was raspy from disuse.
The flock pretended not to hear and promenaded on. Surprised, the lone sheep answered swiftly;
     “by none sir.”
With a great snap from his lash on the cobblestone the master halted his flock. Shifting his attention on the lone sheep and scorned her;
      “sir? You call that thing a ‘sir!’” The fox’s red eyes seared into the timid brown of the lone sheep. She only dared to speak with her silence.  
  
  “What say you idiot!” scowled the fox at the rat. The rat quickly closed the crevice and burrowed within its warm, safe home.  
    “An insane lad indeed… dumbstruck!” the gentleman declared. He shifted to the lone sheep with his glaring red eyes and then to his flock;
“what did that idiot say to my flock?”
The flock banded closer together, mocking the ‘lone idiot’ and cheering their master. Their hooves stomped the cobblestone as if it were the steps of a scurrying herd. Hideous giggles hissed amongst the herd, save one.
     “I said nothing of offense” answered the rat to the gentleman.  
The fox glared at what he didn’t understand. He looked down at the gutter which was damned by piles of litter. Within this murk the ends of the heap’s blankets dipped and saturated in waste. The fox added the murk with a glob of spit, which flowed round’ the corner of one blanket before sticking to the other. With his lash the gentleman motioned to his flock to carry on their walk. As the flock’s hooves clapped over the cobblestone, the lone sheep lagged behind in a meandrous route, heaving away from the herd.

     “I am but a gentleman myself!” declared the rat.
His body emerged from the heap, his charcoal fur coat encrusted with grime.
The flock halted in a catatonic gaze at him. Chin up and without turning cheek, the fox stepped a few heavy paces more.
     “What did you say idiot?”
The flock shifted focus from their master to a dirty, blue-eyed rat.
     “I myself am a fox! Swift, smart and obstinate!” Countered the rat.
His raspy voice fighting the long disuse. The flock gasped, turning to their master. The fox spun to his flock, their timid legs trembled beneath the domination of those towering red tinted eyes.
     “You’re nothing I must tell you!” lashed the fox. “Nothing more than these” pointing his lash at his flock.  Some chuckled, but the lone sheep dipped her head.
     “My, your gentleman’s quite prickly! As well as a belligerent bastard!” the blue-eyed vagrant declared to the flock. The fox snarled, the red of hell in the in the shadow of his face was profound. The gloss in his eyes boiled, as if they have been overcome with rage.
     “You cannot be of sane mind lunatic!” the fox declared.
     “I’m more of a gentleman than you’ll ever be,” the blue-eyed vagrant retorted.
A sharp snickering pierced the air from the flock, save one. The fox himself had a chuckle. The blue eyes noticed the lone sheep that stood reticent, unfortunately eyes don’t scream.  
     “You’re a piece of refuse!” the fox scorned.
     “And you’re a narrow-minded fool!” retaliated the blue-eyed rat. The flock jolted and gasped, save one. As for the gentleman, he lashed a howl and made no reservation as to the weight of his jackboots upon the cobblestone and briskly drew closer to those daring, intrepid blue eyes. A moment and the fox stood beside the very spit-ridden gutter.
     “What in the bloody hell did you call me?”
The rat withdrew beneath its heap where there’s warm silence.

     The gentleman kicked up a brown splash of gutter stream onto his coverings. Silence... Then the gentleman prodded the saturated drapes with his lash and with no response, he prodded more forcefully. The gentleman turned to his gang and affirmed; “you see! Garbage doesn’t speak!” The flock roared in amusement, save one. “Speak!” the fox snarled.
     “To whom… a bastard such as you?” a voice muffled from beneath.
The gentleman ripped the coverings from him, whipping his lash across his body, a body of many past scares and bruises. In frightened response to this, his face sought refuge behind the pair of his tattered gloves. The whips and jackboot bruised and lacerated the flesh of his body as his rags tore easily under the brute strength.  

     A pair of blue gems emerged from beneath his bloody hands. Drips of blood beaded down over his face. Still, silent and obstinate, those eyes fought back. The gentleman towered over him. That vagrant stained in his black shadow appeared impotent to the gang. Those green eyes themselves unsheathed and stabbed with daggers. The gentleman’s appearance calmer, mind and speech keen and quick, he granted no clemency to the poor man in heaps strewn over the sewer vent by the gutter.
     “The sewer heat keeping you warm eh? Refuse!” the gentleman kicked up more gutter stream into his face, diluting the streams of blood as much of it dispersed down his swelling cheeks. The gentleman stomped his face again at the inciting of his gang, all save one. The lone girl dared not to look, fearing her memory would scar. The gang’s snickers were hideous to her.

     The gentleman’s hat dropped, illuminating the stone face to his gang. They knew too well to try to flatter him. The gentleman’s chest swelled and breathed out an opaque stream of smoke from a cigar. The gang continued to mock the man, their leader spit once more into the bleeding face of the blue-eyed gentleman. Those eyes dimming yet still defiant, those jackboots kicked more, the gang cheering and laughing, save one.
    
     The gentleman, sure of victory, turned and left the heap of blood, spit and bruises in the gutter. The need of a fine polishing for his boots came to mind. The fox leapt onto the opposite curb and strolled on, his gang following in his long, dark shadow, all save one.

    The lone girl deserted the gang, perhaps one or two noticed but they cared not in the shadowy sanctity of their gang leader. Moments passed… She stood in paralysis, gazing at the bloody heap of blankets, waiting for some sort of stirring from the beauty beneath. And there she stood a few moment’s longer, brilliant white woolen coat, glossy brown eyes and soft breath. Then a shudder from beneath the blankets or maybe it was her aching heart, she couldn’t tell. But she did know somewhere beneath, those brilliant blue eyes sought refuge from a cold world. She waited moments more in vain.

     Her pristine boots tapped the cold cobblestone, closer to him. She respected his persistence against that foul-hearted man hidden beneath flashy attire; she couldn’t be more disparate to those rigid green eyes. She caught sight of some sort of notepad jutting out from beneath a blanket. Halfway in the gutter; its pages were saturated. She opened the cover delicately as not to tear the pages. First page showed his words still legible. Out of a swollen conscience, she felt beholden to his journal. She nudged the pile and no answer ever came. For being a coward minutes before, she berated herself for letting his pretty blue eyes die. Her heart itself bleeds through her eyes, streaming over her cheeks, beading over her jacket, plummeting onto his blankets. Those blue eyes dimmed.