Suspended In Dusk Read Online Free PDF

so-called city of light all but blotted them out, numbed them, bathed the whole of the heavens in the reflection of its polluted glory.
    In the pretty, touristy parts—the Bois, the Champs-Élysées, the fin de siècle facades and trendy nightclubs—everything was different. There, light pooled on the cobbles and the pavements, and the night made paintings of it, daubing impressionistic swathes of colour that outdid nature and decried the daylight.
    Here, Paris slept. Here, the multi-storey car parks and the hypermarkets were square concrete carbuncles amid desolate streets, and the glamour was tucked away in boxes, kept for dreams and holidays. The lights still played against the sky—the Tower, with its blinking crown and coruscating scaffold, could be seen from certain attic windows—but, here, she saw them from the city’s shadow. Apart, away… standing just beyond the glass, as she had always done. It was the same everywhere. It had been for as long as she remembered. Every place, every name, every time. Always the same. All of them.
    Esther ran her tongue along the back of her teeth, hating the stale, salty taste. She pulled her cigarettes from the pocket of her pink leather jacket, patting herself down as she searched for her lighter.
    Shit .
    She didn’t swear in French yet. Not in her head. Didn’t think in the language at all, though she could speak enough to get by for daily living. Donnez-moi le fric was a good start. Her fingers brushed the greasy crumple of notes in the pocket of her skirt—purple, with Debussy’s face on them, because even the damn money was fruity in this country—and finally closed on the lighter. Sparks burst in the darkness; a scatter of fire in the night, morsels of it coalescing into one sharp gout.
    She lit her cigarette, pulled deep on the burn of ash against the cold air, and glanced dispassionately down at the mess she’d made. He was still crumpled against the wall, leaning like a half-crushed soda can, his unbuttoned pants and untucked shirt resembling ridges of creased metal, all careless folds and torn paper labels. She didn’t know his name. Hadn’t asked, didn’t care. He had offered a nervous little cough of laughter along with the handful of banknotes that made her think of Clair de Lune , and she had rolled her eyes at the whole “I don’t really do this” pose.
    It was always the same. Different faces, different names, but the same old shit every time. Months, no, years now… she’d lost track of the time, just like she’d lost count of them and their stupid faces.
    She’d thought it would be easier here. She’d come because she believed in new opportunities, and believed in the man who’d brought her. Paris was supposed to be special; the city of a million blinking stars, even if she was looking at them from the gutter. She had believed the press of the place crowding in would lend her some kind of anonymity, shield her silence with its noise. Plenty of those like her—the monsters in the shadows, those who embraced the bloody night—took that graceless abandon of big-city living as a gift. In places where buildings bit the sky like uneven teeth, everyone was always staring up, and no one noticed the meat go missing.
    It was just the same as anywhere else, though. She couldn’t breathe here, couldn’t see… couldn’t get past the choking sensation of so many minds, so many voices, so many people pushing on in their seamless desperation to exist. And the rot wasn’t dry. There was a wetness to it that seeped under her skin until it met her own corruption, and it called to her irresistibly. It twisted her, swelled her up like a void and a beacon, made her one shrieking, dark flame that burned in the night and itched in the day, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold it back.
    There was no way to calm it. Nowhere to run except back into the shadows, and not even the shadows were helping any more. The man at her feet had been the