Runner-up | A Semple Street

I spit on the uneven, cracked sidewalk and watch as the pink-red domes spread flat. I watch some of the spittle run down a crack and think of beginnings. I used to look at that same street outside my window and think of the mindless people who walked it before me. I was eight when I first argued for that street, insisting and pleading it was in pain. I would stand outside, forbidding passersby from accessing that particular splintered section. Of course, it bothered the wretched neighbors greatly to take a slight detour into the one-way road. The neighborhood allocations committee apparently didn’t feel that paving it was of need. A nuisance, a failure and a great oversight on their part.

How cruel these people were. I would be brought to apologize to our neighbors with flames of determination and a promise in my eyes that I would soon be there campaigning for it tomorrow, as my mom stood behind me clenching my shoulders so forcefully with her blood-red nails that I felt the pressure could slice into the bone. Only Mr. Harkwell would solemnly cut past me and acknowledge the concrete as more than a slab. He’d bow his head as he shuffled past, allowing me to see the greasy combover of shit brown splintered with metallic silver roots. My mother would respond to the protest with a soft caress to my cheek and a smile so sad, with frown lines cracked so deeply that all I could see was that street. “Sweetness, it’s not a living thing.” 

A living thing, an unliving thing. Everything. Too many things. That was the problem. I refuse to believe that life starts with cells. What a stupid unit! Biologists are our new priests and oracles, telling us the content of life. Years had passed, I still talk to my sidewalk, and now I was granted the privilege of having it to speak to me! What great joy that street is, the things it taught me. Mother no longer leaves food at the table for me. The sadness in her sapphire eyes had splintered into a million other crystals, and her back is now permanently in a state of hunched weariness. Our street isn’t as busy anymore, and I daily press my ear down to its stone to hear it sigh in relief and thanks for peace after so many years of ruthless stampedes.

Today I lie down, and I press down my ear again. “Well, how was this one? You know they had a nasty crash on the way down. Wasn’t even sure if you would have to do the work. I can almost try and taste the blood tainted with how pathetic and frail they were. Tell me, please, how was it?”

I move my head to the side so that my lips face the street and press in a kiss.

“Oh, how I wish you had a mouth, a pair of lips, a tongue, and teeth! It was marvelous, simply one of our best.”

I lie down next to the street and look at the crescent silver stone moon.

The street seems to smile next to me. “I’m glad. You must sleep soon, however. We have much to do tomorrow.”

I excitedly nod and shakingly get up, almost crumbling with the kindness the street had shown me today.

“Yes, yes, you are right. I will see you tomorrow. Much thanks for today.” 

I enter home and turn on the faucet. Mother wasn’t home yet. It wasn’t unusual; shifts could sometimes go into overtime. The sick and dying do not respect time. Death was a constant, but only works and respects its own schedule. I relax into the bath, breathing the steam in deeply. A tickle into my throat turns to wheezing; I cough and sputter out a red stiletto-sharp nail.

Grimacing, I chuck it into the wastebasket.  After drying myself off and putting on my tartan pajamas, I enter my room. The window open, I see Mr. Harkwell smile at me, all teeth and with eyes wide. I smile back. Tonight we were all full of life.