Death in the City - Prologue

Good day folks. I apologize for being gone for so long from the blog. (It won't happen again....I promise.) Writing "Death in the City" consumed all of my days and my nights for months. To be honest,  I didn't have any creative juice left to write any blogs. Those of you that have been waiting for my next release will be happy to know that it's finally done. As soon as I receive my 1st shipment, I'll be sending out autographed copies to the readers who were supportive and pre-ordered the novel. I loved writing it so, I hope you guys out there love reading it! Here's the prologue. (Keep checking back as I add samples from some of my favorite chapters.) Enjoy. 

“It’s called The Greatest City in the World. Murderers, monsters and innocent folk all fight for their lives within the confines of its concrete walls, in the shadows of skyscrapers, all trapped by their circumstances with very little hope or real chance of escape. I know all of their stories and where they all end. I see The Grieving Mother who turned her back on her God and abandoned her mourning husband as she struggled with her own pain. I’ve watched The Detective, unable to solve his own mysteries as he fought to face his own ghosts, real and imaginary. I understand the mad dance of All the Criminals and petty peddlers of false paradise as they pirouette and twist around in endless, senseless circles that all lead to the same terrible place. I hear the screams of Victims as they cry out so loudly that they become just as savages as those who ravished them. I’ve witnessed The Seductress gamble recklessly with The Heartless Assassin and offer her life as a bargaining chip to a man who end’s lives for coins. I understand the world as The Madman sees it, even though, to everyone else, he appears completely insane.

I’ve always disliked the big cities the most because most of those I come to collect see my face after hard lives that ended in sad and very undignified deaths. People in quieter parts of this place die much more peacefully, absent the panic, desperation or the infernal stench of regrets. A simple life often ends in a tranquil passing. Those who dwell in the sprawling, monstrous, Gothams die slowly and painfully under the crushing weight of their struggles, constantly reminded how small and insignificant they are in relation to the phallic structures their oppressors erected as a blasphemous insult to the heavens. They die from awful diseases, choking on the fumes produced by the unnatural industrialization of their overpopulated homes. They fight to feel important while drowning in a sea of people who mostly won’t be remembered two generations after the time I claim them. Great-grandparents become old photographs that future generations hardly look at while their bodies decay under the ground until all that is left are old bones that will eventually become dust in graves that no one will ever visit.

I observe their lives and wonder if it would be more merciful if they were never given this mortal life to live at all. They exist in constant fear of the finality that I represent because once they are gone, it won’t be long before it will inevitably be as if they never existed. So, before their lips meet mine for that final kiss, they do everything in their power to leave immortal footprints. I often wonder if they even realize how little any of it matters.” – Death

Copyright © 2016 Keith Kareem Williams

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