This week's prompt from Write on Edge was the first line: 'Two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane.' The limit was 500 words. I wrote about an early visit to Jerusalem in 1981.
Please visit the link and see what other writers came up with.
***
Two men
appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit
lane. I could see the lights of my hotel, the Jordan House, twenty
yards behind them; people on the patio, a waiter passing with a tray
of drinks. Plaintive music drifted from an open window upstairs.
Behind me lay the still-unknown streets of East Jerusalem – finding
my way in the dark had been an endless journey through the winding
alleys of the Old City, up half-lit lanes, and along unfamiliar
streets of iron-shuttered shops until at last I found the Albright
Institute on the corner of Salah-ed-Din Street and knew I was nearly
safe.
The men
had seen me. My choice lay between a brazen forward approach
and flight back into the labyrinth.
I chose
the former. Perhaps they were on their way home too, late for their
families, imagining dinner. Only the prickling on the back of my
neck told me that they were a threat.
Without
breaking stride, I moved into the lane, out of the moonlight and into
the shadow of a parked tour bus. The men were still in front of me,
perhaps ten metres away, in the moonlight until they melted into the
shadow of the wall. Losing sight of them, I felt my heart and
breathing quicken and my eyes dart, striving to pierce the blackness.
My ears strained for the scuff of footfalls, my nostrils widened, trying to sift human scent from the background city smells.
Nothing.
Another two steps, three. They must be very close now, the distance
between tour bus and the wall was hardly more than two metres and I
had been moving steadily forward.
I was
nearly out of the shadow.
A hand
snaked from the side, grabbing for my arm. I whirled and roared, turning in towards the figure darker than darkness, slamming into his
slight body, my jacket slipping from his loosened grip as I smelled
sweat, cigarettes, and cheap cologne. Then I roared again, and teeth
bared headed for the bigger figure looming on my other side. The
momentum carried me into the moonlight in front of the hotel and I
heard the patter of running footsteps, a slither on loose stones, a
muttered curse in Arabic, then only the chatter of the other hotel
guests discussing their day in the City of Peace.
