Trick Of The Mind A West Side Chicago Story - by Quincy Leonard Its a rainy night in Chicago, 2001, around 1:00 a.m, as a 26 year old African American male named Travis Westbrook walks at a fast pace up a dark Chicago block in an area locally known as k-town on the West Side of Chicago. He walks with his chin tucked to his chest in an effort to dodge the rain blowing in the breeze towards his face. In the distance he notices a strange dark hooded figure dressed in all black walking slowly in the rain towards him. This figure was walking as if he did not have a care in the world. off first sight Travis knew something was very different about this person. As Travis passed the strange being he could see through his peripheral that the figure had stopped and was turning towards him staring him down with a feeling of anger and resentment. Travis turned to fully look at him and the figure was gone, completely gone as if he vanished into thin air. Travis was frozen still as a chill was sent through his entire body. He no longer noticed the pouring rain drenching him as he stood in a daze swarmed with flashbacks and emotions of his past sins. Then he quickly shrugged it off as he thought 'maybe too many blunts' and continued walking home quickly. Arriving at his apartment Travis could not help but think about the incident with the strange black hooded man. I had to be tweaking Travis said to himself as he paced back and forth through his dimly lit 1 room apartment in which he lived alone, but in the back of his mind he knew he saw something. Upon thinking back on what hed seen he was struck again with a flashback of bad things he'd done in his past. Travis was a violent individual and did not get along with others too well. he was the secluded secretive type and made his money by robbing drug dealers or anybody he felt had money or something worth money. He was about 510, 170 lbs, brown skinned with small deceitful eyes that did not blink as he was once again stuck in a daze flooded with flashbacks. He reminisced on a robbery he did a couple months ago where he had to shoot and kill one of his victims. surprisingly Travis did not really reflect on the murder until this day. He could still hear his victims last words bro this is all I got as the victim was sneaking reaching for a gun on his waist. Travis realized what his victim was trying to do so he shot him two times point blank range in the face. He could still hear the sighs let out by the dying man as his consciousness left his body. Travis had shot and hurt people in his past but this was the first time hed killed someone. 'Damn maybe I just need to get some sleep' Travis thought after a long night of smoking and drinking. He prepared himself for bed, he carelessly tossed his half lit blunt onto his dresser which rolled onto the floor as he sat down on his bed, realizing he had not had an appetite all day. All he could think about was the strange man as he said aloud in a low stern voice how could a person just disappear like that. Once again he tried to shake his thoughts off and get some rest so he said his prayers before he laid down but felt as if his prayers were falling on deaf ears. as he just laid in his bed in the dark he eventually began to fall asleep. Almost instantly he is plagued by the nightmare of the murder he committed but in his dream it was as if he was seeing it from a third persons view watching the whole thing. Bro this is all I got POW!! POW!!! The gunshots in his dream woke him up in real life. He popped out of bed feeling his way through the dark to the bathroom in the pitch black apartment. He goes to the sink and takes a sip of water then goes to the toilet to urinate. While Travis pisses he notices a low voice choking as if the persons being suffocated. 'It sounds like a mans voice' Travis thought. The sound seemed to be coming from next door. He walked into his living room and noticed the sound got louder. Shit I know Im tweaking now that shit sounds like its coming from the closet he said to himself, and his closet was diagonally across from the doorway entrance of his apartment. Travis always walked around his apartment with his 40 caliber handgun close so he felt fairly safe opening the closet door. He swung the door open only to find an old shirt and a couple hangers but he noticed the choking sound had stopped, Could this just be all in my head? Maybe Im just paranoid Travis said looking at the empty closet, when BOOM!!! his front door flies open with a black hooded figure standing in his doorway. The same black hooded figure he walked past earlier. He knew it was the same figure because he felt the same anger, fear, and resentment that this figure had towards him. There was an intense warmth that took over the room as if hell had been delivered to his front door. He could see the strange figures head twitching side to side. This was an entity, the body of the entity shot towards Travis at the speed of light with a devilish growl. As the entity came closer and closer the warmth became more and more hotter and intense and he noticed that the strange entity had 2 holes in its face with dark voids for eyes that were darker than a solar eclipse. this was Traviss murder victim coming back for revenge. Third degree burns covered Traviss body as the energy of the entity passed through him. Within less than an hour the entire apartment was filled with smoke. Neighbors rushed from their homes in fear their apartment would catch fire also. Fire fighters and ambulances rushed to the apartment where they discovered Traviss body. Travis and his house were severely burned. Autopsy report read Traviss death was due to a house fire. Coroners investigated the apartment and later concluded that the fire was started by the half lit blunt Travis had tossed onto his dresser, unaware it was still lit, which set the apartment ablaze as Travis slept through the roaring flames in a drunken nightmarish realm of reality. The mind had indeed played a trick of karma on him.                                                                                                 -QLakaLz