A Notch in the Dark

I stepped away from that clamped audio probe and found a quiet recess tucked behind an old iron exhaust vent. The brick was cold and smeared with soot, just deep enough to cut the street breeze. Wedged into a hairline crack near the foundation sat a discarded, unbent steel safety pin. I didn't pry it apart or smash it. I gripped the blunt loop and used the hardened pin point to score a tiny, clean cross into the soft mortar between two blackened bricks. It made a gritty, quiet scratch that died instantly in the dark. Leaning my plastic back against the masonry with my boots planted in the soot, I watched the distant neon flicker off the asphalt. Another day dead and buried.