Monument - 27

She stared up at its spiraling peak with gleaming eyes. The sheen of the brilliant sky reflected off her eyes and her sweet mouth curved into an innocent smile. She grasped her mother's hand as the tour guide opened the door and showed them into the monument. Inside, the floor was cast with marble and she saw other children with their mothers and fathers. Her smile flickered like an old tape and her mother kissed her tenderly on her forehead, an apology. She bounced into the magnificent lobby and her pigtails shook with the movement, swaying like soft curtains. The tour guide gathered them together and they stepped into the elevator as a group.

Slowly they rose to the peak of the tower in the glass cage. She could see the view for miles but all the beauty of nature was suppressed into roaring civilization. From her perch she could see all that was wrong with the world. In an alleyway, an innocent man lay gasping for breath as he watched his assailant break into a stumbling run, carrying his wallet away into the dark underground of Utopia. They reached the top and stepped onto the windy height, swaying as a group before the majestic carved angel that rested at its tip. As the guide began to explain its significance and how it came to rest just so, she grew bored and began once more to examine the streets below. At the base of the building, she saw a fight break out.

As the two men pummeled at each other, a crowd began to gather, obviously excited by the violence. They watched with eyes that glowed with a dark fervor, screaming vulgarities as the men pummeled at each other, driving fists home in each others frames. Her eyes began to blur as she watched the terrible scene. She clenched the railing so tightly that the edges of the nails driven into the metal began to dig into her young fists. Her jaw began to grind almost imperceptibly as a blinding headache crept into her mind. She edged slowly closer to the edge until her feet rested half on the building, watching in horror as she realized the men were brothers. She wiped the tears from her eyes and turned away to face the angel once more.

As her eyes swung around and met the angels', she lost her footing and slipped off the edge. Fear froze her body and the ice-cold fingers of death gripped at her insides, holding her scream inside her. Her small body landed right next to the growing circle of people watching the fight with a sickening crunch.

As blood began to blur her eyes once and for all, she saw the onlookers scream and their demonic faces turned to horror. The brothers themselves stopped fighting to stare in mortification at her mangled frame. Men and women clutched at each other, suddenly bound together in grief where earlier there was nothing but a fevered lust for the violence before them.