The street lamp, a conceptual piece about street lamps.

The street lamp, a first draft of an intriguing concept. I wanted to tell the story of a street lamp witnessing a murder, with the street lamp being the most important character.

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The Street Lamp

The inky dark was broken only by a single light. Its amber glow pierced through to the recently disturbed side walk. The concrete had only one tenant, a young man who could barely have broken into his twenties. The lamp post stood above him, a sentinel in the dark. It had done its job well.

The lamp’s amber light fell upon the messy mop of hair that capped the still head of the young man. His increasingly pale skin given life by the glow, but the end was drawing near. He was well lit, not an inch of the boy was outside the reach of the street lamp’s light. Its mercury vapor bulb continued to shine. Years of wear had done little to hamper its effectiveness. It was a good lamp; it did its job well.

As the night drew on, the ground beneath the boy darkened. This was not the fault of the lamp. The new dark spot shone and sparkled with reflected light. A deep red hue, the darkness continued to spread. The boy began to stir.

His eyes fluttered open, catching the beautiful amber glow. His ragged breathing started to ease, and his tensed shoulders loosened against the grey steel of the lamp post’s supporting pole. It was a very sturdy pole, and it had aided the lamp in its years of hard work. Held aloft by the pole, the lamp shone on in the dark night.

Now his breathing slowed; likely caused by the dark hole through his abdomen. The bullet wound was ragged and deep, and well lit on the surface. The depths of the hole were lost to the pervasive dark. The deep red of his blood had begun to dry to a crusty brown. Perhaps a surgical lamp would have revealed more of the grievous wound, but the lamp had done enough.
 

The cold sweat of a dying man slid down to the end of his sharp nose. His unremarkable brown eyes began to glaze, and the light of dawn tinged the sky. His breath rattled once more, and his life left him as the surrounding dark peeled away like an orange, revealing a fresh day, a fruit ripe and tender. The streetlight fell dark. It was a good lamp; it did its job well, and now that job was done. Now left in the brightening world was a cold corpse against an equally cold grey street light.

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