Chains clatter and slide off each link, much like the coins dropping from fat hands and into my purse. Money accepted, fee paid. Everybody has a price.

Feet shuffle across weathered boards, eyes blank. They’ve come to accept their fate. The fee must be paid. Their faces melt together, black skin into white, blue eyes into brown. I’ve seen them all, watched them contort.

The way their eyes surge forth from the bone casing around the fragile globes, and their tongues swell. The jitters of feet, and the chink and clang of chains dancing against one another. Links of life and death intertwining in a dance as old as time itself.

Everyone pays the fee. At my hand or God’s. They choose, the rich condeem, and the cycle goes on. Chains still drag behind shuffled feet, and blank eyes still look out over crowds of people. The floor aways falls out and the body always follows through. Tongues poke through parted lips and eyes glass over, faces swell and bodies are cut down. We all pay the fee.