The Trafficked

76

Morning had come to Fields Avenue. The cockerels that would die later that day in the cock-fighting arena, pitched against one another in a slaughter of blood and feathers, now stood proud and erect as they crowed their last ever morning salute from the confines of their crates. A weak sun turned the dawn sky milky blue. Fields Avenue was stupefied. Its occupants lay in a tangling of bodies, asleep in their beds, collapsed in spent lust.

The street children were awake early. Their pavement beds grew too hard to bear beyond a few hours. They were hungry and on the scavenge. The bins at the back of the restaurants would be a welcome source of breakfast. They had worked their way up Fields Avenue and now they gathered one by one in the place where a man was dying. The old woman was there too. She was watching silently from the doorway. Outside the Bordello the Colonel’s journey was almost complete. Dismembered whilst still breathing, the Shabu had made the night a long one.

‘Finish it. Please’

Stevie Ho came around to the back of the Colonel’s chair and held the point of his knife directly over the Colonel’s heart. He rested the point between the exposed ribs and placed the palms of his hands over the hilt, one on top of the other.

‘You were a worthy opponent. You died a good death. I will give you your wish.’