Ragstock Alley by Chipka
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Description
“It’s not so different,” he said. “Pekkur, I mean. It’s a city. One-million people; most of them locals, a few expatriates. Tourists too, but they’re a different group, a different population all together; there’s maybe seven million of them in any given summer.” He spoke quietly, giving shape to numbers with his hands. It was dark. Clouds promised rain, but the only sparks came from blocks away: irregular electrical strobes from mass-transit trains clattering along their elevated tracks.
“But there’s a lot,” he said. “Like this.” And for just an instant, they paused at the mouth of an alley, bright with pole-mounted light, and dark with shadows that might have been alive. It was hard to imagine what Pekkur was like: old. That much was certain, but beyond that…?
“Pekkur is a city of archways and bricks,” he said. “Everything’s crusty and black with mold, or green with that tarp stuff they put over scaffolding whenever they’re repairing a building but don’t want you to see what they’re doing. The city’s full of traps, too: weird little boxes like the traps they use here for rats, only they’re bigger and when you walk by them wearing headphones, you can hear a buzzing noise. Some kind of electromagnetic interference. They draw succubae,” he said, as if his words made absolute sense. “The females, at least…the males are only secondary predators. Ugly as hell, but nobody really pays that much attention to them. If they do, it’s usually kids, throwing rocks at them, or addicts looking for hunting females.”
Pekkur: so far away; and yet his descriptions addled the mind and threw monster shapes into the alley-trapped shadows as if Pekkur (and the whole, odd country of Agara) loomed just over there. By the lake…somewhere between here and Indiana. It wasn’t hard to imagine that. Nearly everyone who’d been there (to Pekkur, to other cities in Agara) said that it was a strange place, a quiet place that seemed to exist wherever you happened to be. It was, by the sound of it, a disconnected country: a shifty, twitchy nightmare on the eastern fringes of Europe, the western fringes of Asia…or there…right over there…between here and Indiana. There were no succubae, however: no monster things, yowling in the night.
“Come on,” he said…shuddering as if confronted by something in the alley. “Let’s go get coffee.”
* * *
I have no idea where the fragment above came from, but I suspect it has something to do with a random, truncated alley in the BoysTown area of Chicago. Ragstock (upstairs if you read the glare-obscured sign) is a second-story store, entered, not through a front door, but through a side alley. It is a neighborhood fixture: a second-hand shop specializing in retro-chic…the kind of retro-chic that neighborhood residents and regulars recognized, long before it became oh-so-suburban-fashionable.
I suspect that this alley, bordered on one side by arches and a walkway, was captured because of the response it engendered in me as I passed it. I thought, not of Pekkur, but of Prague; the alley, as you see it here, is as wide (and perhaps wider) than a few of the streets I prowled in late night hours, or in the wee-dark-hours of the day. There were no succubae in Prague, but maybe there was a golem. As Prague and Pekkur are linked in my mind, it seems only fitting that a dark and brooding alley (in Chicago) should remind me of both.
As always, thank you for viewing and reading and commenting, and I hope your week is off to an excellent start.
Comments (31)
caviedes
Excellent shot!!!!
RodS Online Now!
Man, I just love photos like this! I'd try to get out and shoot a few night photos in Kansas City, but I'd be worried about getting mugged.... Superb photo and writing, Chip!
Richardphotos
outstanding night shot and imaginative writing
flavia49
fantastic image and splendid prose!
Orinoor
I've always loved alleys, couldn't really tell you why, except it was always a place I could explore, usually without interruption. Yours is decidedly CLEAN. Fantastic shot, lovely snippet of a story!
MrsRatbag
Your brain must be a very entertaining thing to carry around. Mine never comes up with anything a fraction this entertaining! And Ragstock was my favourite shop in Minneapolis when I lived there eons ago in my youth...I didn't realize there was more than one, and I'm glad to know it's still around and still furnishing our nation's youth with Hawaiian shirts, kimonos, old flannel and cowboy couture!
Sea_Dog
Well done - I think MrsRatbag says it nicely; your words always seem to add some depth to your images.
KatesFriend
The narrative and your photo work well together. One of those dark lonely passages of Pekkur where one might spy a wary succubae scuttering from one shadow to another. Your description of Agara is rather intriguing. Areal place with real people but with only a vague location. Maybe the train goes there today but tomorrow it never did. And yet one might walk for a few minutes and find oneself right in the heart of it.
Jean-Luc_Ajrarn
Wonderful story and photo. :)
Ink_heron
its always good to read subtitles and see your photos ... makes us travel without going anywhere ..
jocko500
love the lighting here. cool and sublime look to it.
Sepiasiren
the lighting in this so rawks and the post treatment amber/sepia tones really give this alleyway the moody feel it so deserves! All around nice
mgtcs
Gorgeous picture that exudes an atmosphere with a strange combination of nostalgic and new, comforting and unsettling. One also has the feeling that a wrong turn was made and that one is now in some sort of "twilight zone". Perhaps one of your best pics so far. Excellent!
Feliciti
well seen and a great capture !! like the moody lights and all details !!
auntietk
You turn the corner into Pekkur ... I turn the corner into Chicago. I see this photograph, and it's a warm September evening in the midwest. Our tummies are filled with chicken in pomegranate-walnut sauce and delicious Persian appetizers. Music floats out from nightclubs, girls trip over their own impossibly high-heeled shoes, and life is just about as good as it gets. Only now, a year and a half later, it's starting to dawn on me: that magical weekend might not have happened in Chicago, it might have happened in Chicago. I know you know exactly what I mean. In which Chicago is this alley? Mine, I think. The one I shared with you and our ninja friends. Ahhhhh ... it's all making sense to me now ...
kgb224
Would not like to walk through that alley my friend. I do like more opened space buildings. Stunning capture my friend. God Bless.
helanker
OH !It looks so lonely and abandoned. I hope you were not alone there. :-) Excellent shot and mood.
durleybeachbum
So rich in images and half-forgotten bits of past...makes me want to visit the store, peer into the 'traps'.
whaleman
I enjoyed that!
fallen21
Awesome capture!
Anna-Victoria
Excellently captured atmosphere &...with a touch of 'glamour' :)
thecytron
AmaZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzing illumination fX!
three_grrr
How strange .. when I saw it, before I really examined it .. I thought, oh .. he's posted a picture from Prague .. then I read and went back to the photo again. Living in your mind must be a wonderful thing, no matter what you write, it's like your using words instead of paint ...
geckogr
nice atmosphere/mood in your photo. as my english is not enough for stories i skip on this and comment only the picture. available light, handheld so you shaked it a little (or was it fear ? don't know this neigbourhood ;-) perspectivic distortion at point of view is OK but its tilt to the left. to adjust this it does not make the photo any worse.
bobrgallegos
Awesome perspective of this alley! Love the lighting and shadows created by the light. The arches add dramatics to the overall mood and atmosphere of this awesome photo. Once again Your narative hooked Me into Your way of descibing the city. Very well done!!!!
sandra46
AMAZING IMAGE!
tennesseecowgirl
Well you know from the post I did on night shooting that you commented on in my gallery recently, that I have a new appreciation for this type of work/scene. Great job, I am drawn in, there seems to a lot of mystery here, it makes me wonder what is around the corner, who is hiding out under the arches. Terrific work, lets see more!
beachzz
One world or another--who knows? But Ragstock, now THAT'S a place I'd like to see!! lol
nikolais
another fine study to add to your wonderful night-street travelogue, Chip!
danapommet
Nice shot of this street Chip and I like the archs on the left. Dana