“Nuuhh! Urrh nurh thuth thuth thuuurrr”
She looked up, “Hur?”
“UUUHHH!” She looked at him, fingers caught up in his neck tie. He could never manage them. She grinned. He was as beautiful to her now as he was when she first saw him – his lower jaw missing, his tongue lolling uselessly against his neck, straining and flicking like a blind snake when he tried to talk.
She grinned. She knew she shouldn’t but he was so cute in his grey suit with his grey tie and that helpless look on his face. That, and the fact that she didn’t have any lips.
“Nuuuhhh,” she told him, hobbling over. She wasn’t happy about the high heels she was wearing.
There was a crack and she tipped over onto the bed.
She looked down at the floor. This time it wasn’t the heel that had broken. Inside her grey shoe sat her foot, cleanly broken at the ankle.
“nuurrh?” His voice was quiet.
Maybe they’d have to give The Walk a miss this year.
***
They massed at Central Station. Somehow it seemed appropriate. Those that could scavenged what they could. They arrived dressed up like dinner – in ill fitting suits with buttons undone, or shirts ripped; some in jogging gear, most of them in clothes too big, or put on backwards.
Towards the back, and looking dead bored, were the hipsters – all the skin ripped off their waists, ear pods jammed into their heads, congealed blood oozing from busted ear drums.
At the front, on a burnt out car, arm pointing the way, groaning as loud as his deflated lungs would let him, was the walk leader. He flopped his arm around, trying to point out a route, but soon gave up and decided that he should lead by example.
He stood, poised, lifted his leg and placed it in front of him. Then lifted the other and placed that.
The others watched for a while before copying the movement.
Even the Hipsters managed to do it. While still looking dead bored.
And so it started – The Great Annual Human Walk.
