The city longs for me with the smothering songs of the blood-splattered streets and vomit inducing smells of the dead bodies found in the docks rotting away for the gulls to feast in a cheerful delight. Another long day in the Emerald City, cheating husbands sniffing viridian dust off the hookers’ thighs, innocent damsels standing in a harm’s way with a barrel of a gun as their sole confidant and silent warden. The city never changes; no one does if they can help it. I know I wouldn’t.
[icon]http://i.imgur.com/M0CQXIh.png[/icon][nick]Tinman[/nick][status]Dead men are heavier than broekn hearts.[/status]
The sign on the front door to the lobby of the Williams & Valente Building once again has a green paint splashed all over it. Emerald City my ass! Third time in two weeks. And since the last Animals were evicted more than a month ago it has to be a message to me personally. Humans seem to be truly preoccupied with this master race mentality rush these days. No one gives two shits if you are legally recognized, as one of them, unless you have a beating heart to rip out of your chest and a set of bones to crush.  I smile politely at a concierge lady scrubbing away the thick paint off the sign, she grants me a stern look and grumbles something under her breath. She hates me and doesn’t make a secret of it. I like her for that.

No correspondence for me in the carefully organized mailboxes on a wall of grey concrete and flaking patches of green paint. As if there ever was. Sometimes I wonder why do they even bother to have this display of social services lack of giving a fuck about these parts of the City. Hundreds of buildings with their own leery residents and fishy landlords. However, the rent is low and the clientele is in abundance. Beggars can’t be choosers in this neck of the woods, beggars are happy if they are not devoured by the rabid wolves roaming around the place.

The office is on the last floor. Hefty wooden door with a stained glass window, green lamp in the corner of the desk and window shades preventing the City to pry about the place. Everything is in order. Everything is in its place. The only thing missing is trouble. And if I know a thing about troubles they don’t like to be missed.

She walked into the room like she owned the building and I have not paid rent for a year. A strong icy vodka with tonic in a tall glass of trouble. She smelled of poppy and regrets. I was not afraid of the latter and the former did not do much for me in my state of being. She graced to the only chair in front of the desk and flipped her hair for the show. I swear to gods if I had a heart she would walk all over me in those heels and I would have been happy to keep her feet from touching the scorched earth. Alas, I don’t and I hope to keep it that way for as long as I can.

- You never bother with introduction, pretty face. – I keep the lonely whiskey bottle with a label so faded it is almost grey in one of the table’s compartments just for her. – No ice, sugar. Plain old whiskey and a story that’s all I have. And I don’t think you came to listen to one of those. – The glass slides to the side of table almost falling but she catches it with a grace of a cat lazily playing with a mouse. I like that. She knows I like that. – What brings you hear ms. Fatale? Will Emerald City see the light of the next morning?

She has a name. A real one. Given to her by her parents, printed in all the forms and, perhaps, engraved on her gravestone one day. However, she doesn’t use it, neither am I. Two nameless hermits in the search for a better life. She calls me Tinman, I call her my Femme Fatale. The bringer of distraction and death. The things I need to feel alive. It is pretty hard without a live cell inside you if I say so myself.

[icon]http://i.imgur.com/M0CQXIh.png[/icon][nick]Tinman[/nick][status]Dead men are heavier than broekn hearts.[/status]

There is a thing about living without a heart. You get used to it. The whole world crumbles in front of you and you don’t even flinch as the debris is scratching your cheeks. Piece by piece. One after another. You just dust off your coat and keep on walking. You numb your senses, shove your humanity in a back pocket of your leather coat and keep your eyes open not to miss a thing. And boy, was there a thing to keep an eye on.

Blood splattered dress falls to the floor like the burned wings of the ancient fool who tried to reach the sun hit the ground. She doesn’t flinch a muscle under my gaze. Dark orange scars sing me the songs of her life and I listen. God only knows what she had to endure; God only knows how long it will take her to finally snap. I know I will be by her side when she does. The last rusty knight of the lady wrapped in green velvet and blood soaked.

Old duster smells of smoke and she drowns in it without a second of hesitation. She trusts me, and this can’t be bought with all the jewels this rotten city has to offer. Her silhouette is black in a cracked window frame and her words bring green poison to the heart I don’t carry in my chest.The coven. Elphaba. The words I never want to hear come like an avalanche and smother me to the point where I wouldn’t be able to breathe if I had to. I hit the table with a fist and it cracks with the thunderous echo from the outside storm.

- She’s dead. You know that.

[icon]http://i.imgur.com/M0CQXIh.png[/icon][nick]Tinman[/nick][status]Dead men are heavier than broekn hearts.[/status]

She drowned the room in pain and remorse with her words of truth. With her words of wisdom, which she couldn’t have had at her age by any means. Alas, here she was, shattering the dim stained-glass windows of my life with a smile on her angel face facing the storm outside. She knew everything. How could she not. Everyone new. No one talked about it. But they knew.

I don’t have a heart for a reason and her name is Elphaba. The witch. The savior. The damned. I still try to catch a glimpse of her face in a crowd. She haunts my dreams and tortures my memories. The witch who died for our sins. But I wouldn’t say that out loud, for I am not worthy of her name on my lips. I let her down too many times. Not today. Today is a chance to do something right.

I saw her last time in the storm just like this. I remember digging the grave. She was so peaceful, so innocent. I could not have been wrong about it. I know jack shit about life, but I be damned if I don’t know a thing or two about death. And she was. Dead. Cold in a ground. Six feet down. A gravestone with no name. I remember the place.

- We gotta go. – She doesn’t move a muscle. Another lightning strike lights up her silhouette in a window frame and I touch her shoulder. My duster feels warm on her skin. Why do you came here? Do you want to see me fail or help me getting up from the mud i'm stuck in? I honestly don’t know and don’t want to care. My hand finds hers and I whisper almost touching her ears. – Now. - Another thunder cracks in a distance.

[icon]http://i.imgur.com/M0CQXIh.png[/icon][nick]Tinman[/nick][status]Dead men are heavier than broekn hearts.[/status]