Shh - 1 by Pawl

There was no life in the apartment and the people in it stumbled around dead. There was the tall skinny girl Jackie, her boyfriend Kent and his old friend Tim. They stumbled around in the dark wading in their pipes and cigarettes and funny ashtrays. The place was a dark pile and it was cold, but they didn't know. When they bumped into each other they would grunt and frown, though the other couldn't see it.
One day, Kent bumped into Tim in the dark and Tim spoke. He said, "What we need is life."
Kent, surprised by the voice, agreed. "Life," he said, "Would be best."
His girlfriend, dead in the dark across the room, sqeaked. Kent asked where she was, but naturally, she did not answer.
"But you've said this before, Tim, and you never have gotten it."
"Ah, but now I know where w can get it. Life." Tim said again. "I know where we can get life. I hear that they've got life next door. I can just sneak over and grab a piece of theirs. I hear their life every night. I know they've got it.
Kent tried to get up out of the pile of cigarettes on the floor. "I'll go get it. I think I've heard it too. I'll get it good, I've got good hands."
"To hell you do!" his girlfriend cried. He ignored it.
"They might not want to give it" Tim said, all sleepy. "Might be greedy."
"No need for people to be greedy with life" Kent yawned. "They'll be fine."
Kent came out of the door as a piece of the dark he had come from. He had to slip between the door itself and the frame to even get out into the hallway. He wondered how he had bumped into anyone or even moved in the dark if it was the same substance as him. He shrugged and trudged all dead and black towards the life. He could see it growing, spilling out from under the door of the next apartment, yellow and rich like dense cake. He tried to scoop it up with his hands, but the light seemed to avoid them, to travel around his fingers and shrink back. Kent grabbed the knob instead, turned it good. It didn't give. He had to slip between the door and the frame again.
It was all bright inside, the house split off like a horseshoe. There was the main room he was in, then a kitchen to the left and a bedroom to the right, all open like a dollhouse. Kent stayed in the shadow like an old man in the bath.
He could see a nice woman washing dishes in the sink. There was a coat draped over the big chair in the main room. The woman was all sorts of colors, he thought. Wasn't just another thing cut out of dark. She was moving all fast and textured. Finished the dishes and walked right by him dusting stuff off. Drinks were set out still, all on the left of one tray. Some of them were spilled, some weren't. When the nice woman walked by to get them, Kent snatched at her from the shadow he was in, the little one behind the sofa. He caught a piece of her life and ran out, slipped by the door and back into his. He heard the drink platter fall and got back into his place.
"You got it? You got it?" Tim said in a slow normal voice.
"Yeah." Kent said, glad they had thought to talk now. He tried to open his hand, but it was all ruined, all sticky and falling apart like melted wax. He could feel his middle finger almost broken off and stuck to his palm. He could tell Tim was waiting.
"It won't come out of my hand," Kent whispered.
Tim waited harder.
"No, it really won't."
"Buy you said you had good hands!"
"My good hands..." Kent whined in a hollow whisper.
Kent's girlfriend laughed from the corner. "There's too much pressure in here. You need to get more life in here for it to do anything. All the death is pressing at it too hard, like like," she coughed dryly, still sounded like she was laying down. "Like when you swim down too far in the ocean and get crushed."
Kent looked at her like she wasn't there, felt deader than ever.
Tim slipped out of the room and out into the hallway. Came back with a a handful of the stuff, but the room ate it up quick. Kent lit a dark cigarette, deadened the place harder. His girlfriend fell asleep smoking her pipe. When Tim came back again carrying the woman and knocked down the door with her, both Kent was revealed, opened eyed and dead as ever. Tim dropped the woman on the floor in the middle of the room and blam lit the place up, made them all disappear. Kent’s girlfriend burned against the light of the life, a twig on the couch. No one felt the heat. Tim and Kent were somewhere hidden, down in the cigarette butts, maybe disappeared as dark does against the light. The woman from next door stood up and brushed the grit off of her dress, said she had things to do. Asked how she had gotten into the apartment. Kent and Tim peeked out from under the cigarette butts and said nothing, loudly. She said she would be back and she would bring her husband.
“Good” Kent’s girlfriend tried to say. She was the shadow between the cushions.
When the woman left, they were happy she had taken her life with her. Left them some dark to hide in. They didn't move for hours, let the light fade out of the room.
"Life," Tim breathed, down under the cigarettes, "Is for the birds."
Kent sat dead and didn't say anything. His girlfriend breathed in dusty bursts like a billows for a fire, nodded her head, although none of them cared to look. Sat silent, comfortable as a bowl of fatty noodles left out to harden.