the black and white picture show

[Zen]

Down the ways on the road I saw headlights shining from a muscled grill, staring back at me and huffing with each rev of the engine.

I kept walking on the sidewalk, the rain pelting the hood of my raincoat.

The diner was to my right. Through the windows I could see the clerk at the desk. She was middle-aged and plump at the hips with a sad smile across her face.

The “Open” sign blinked red near the door.

The girl was standing down the road a bit under the porch of a house I could just make out through the rain.

The car drove past me, humming and growling.

There was a cigarette in her hand. A thick cloud of smoke puffed through her lips, grey, but almost blue in the night.

I looked back down at the ground, shielding my face from the rain. Puddles were in the cracks of the sidewalk, the yellow of the streetlights glaring back at me from within it.

The wind was picking up as I passed her home.

I walked the streets until there were no cars going by. It was early in the morning. Some say it’s the loneliest time. There were birds in the air…somewhere, I couldn't see them. They were probably hanging out on a power-line dreaming of what it must be like to crawl. I’d tell them it’s no life at all and they’d fly away not believing, and I’d just walk.

I checked my phone and it was two o’clock and there was two text messages that I was too drunk to read. Put it back in my pocket and walked the streets.

The signs shut down, and I saw how dark the night can be.

Up ahead was the man in red hunched over.
“Everyone’s dead. Kill yourself,” he said.

[Pharaohs Army]

There's got to be a reason you ended it that way. I just don't know it. My first instinct is to tell you that it'd be much better without the last 2 lines...
I mean I could speculate a lot on it, including that maybe you just put it there to fuck with people, or that the "I" (you) in this piece is insane, or perhaps I'm not knowledgeable about a tv or movie- man-in-red... I lean towards my first guess


As far as the rest of it
There were birds in the air…somewhere, I couldn't see them. They were probably hanging out on a power-line dreaming of what it must be like to crawl. I’d tell them it’s no life at all and they’d fly away not believing, and I’d just walk.
^This is vintage Zen tbh and it's an example of just really good writing.

my neurological pleasurechemicals perked up when I read clerk at the desk / plump at the hips in that third line there.

Content-wise? it's good descriptions. i get a melancholy vibe, and a sense of just... "Just".. but this is not a negative; you are usually able to dig into the mundane or unnoticed things in the world, both tangible and human interactions- and make them interesting to analyze or describe. On a very basic level that is what writers do.

Of course that whole paragraph above was kind of like, me denying in my head that the ending happened and just analyzing the "build-up"... I can't help it.

[Zen]

I agree about the ending. It blows.

[Pharaohs Army]

Tbh it's cool from a rhyme perspective.
And maybe you threw it in there subconsciously as a frustration of how dark the night can be and how "empty" the world can be when viewed through a certain lens.
Or it was written first and then you just made a good but totally unrelated verse above it.
Or maybe it was, more generally, a sort of purposeful anarchy to contrast with the rest of the story.
Do you like how I'm still speculating? It's fun. And maybe that's why you wrote it-- to have the reader speculate.

Or maybe, as I contend, "for the fuck of it".
I still stick by that one.
Close thread plz (< jk on that part).

[Pharaohs Army]

or maybe i might encounter the man in red tomorrow night, and what he said is spot on