What's Written on the Walls

As I walk down the cold, dark, damp, lonely alley I can hear the voices of the downtrodden, the angst, the scared, the angry and the hopeless. All spray painted on the walls. Some of the messages crass. Some are oddly profound. But they all speak the same language. That language being...Something isn't right. Something is off indeed. Ms. Rosalyn is gone and there is a certain heaviness to the surrounding atmosphere. Almost as if she brought a certain balance to the universe, and now everything is off kilter. I read the paint soaked walls.  There is one image that particularly sticks out for me. It is a silhouette of man wearing a cowboy hat and smoking cigarettes. He reminds me of the Marlboro Man. Though the sketch was probably just a doodle and nothing more, I can not help but wonder maybe this character is symbolic. He stands around all this chaos of graffiti as he casually smokes. There are no other drawings just him. Maybe he is a boss of some sort. Maybe all the surrounding graffiti is his minions. Or maybe he is me surrounded by chaos at every step, yet trying to keep my cool. Trying to keep my head. I look to the pavement by the sketch. A pack of cigarettes. A calling card maybe? I pick it up. It's practically a full pack. It may be a calling card after all. No avid smoker would leave behind a near full pack.