Blood Innocents

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Watching it from his window, Reardon saw the city only as an immense patchwork of random sound and directionless movement. It had not always been like this for him. In his youth he had walked the streets in his dark-blue uniform with shining badge as a protector of a wild and famous city. He had not forgotten that what he felt then was a rapture so heedless, asking so little, that even the loss and butchery he saw in the course of his duties could not permanently overwhelm it. He had been a serious protector, one who must love what he protects.

He lit a cigarette. The flame gave off a pale, orange aurora in the morning fog. He watched the match burn down almost to his fingertips, then quickly waved it out. He smoked wearily, pleasurelessly. This would be his last cigarette, and because of that he could not savor it. In his mid-fifties now, he had come to fear the slow, strangulating death of lung cancer.

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