Day 444
One of the sadder and likely unnoticed bit of community missing from Suburbia is the alley. Two grey gravel ruts divided by a hump of green crabgrass and punctuated with muddy-water puddles that know all your backyard secrets would do more to melt the plastic neighborhood than any number of rec-centers.
Streetside you prune bushes and mow lawns and paint trim. You primp marigolds and hang wreaths and put numbers on your mailbox with gold-on-black stickers from the hardware store over there a ways. The street is your lying face that says, “We’re all fine in here. Nothing to worry about. We’re just like you are over there.”
The alley whispers that you’re never gonna take the tarp off that motorcycle. That you get dirty, sweaty, and red-faced when you plant tomatoes. That you don’t like trimming after you mow. That you drink beer in your kids’ plastic pool in your underwear in July. The alley is your truthful backside that says, “We’re all fine in here. Nothing to worry about. We’re just like you are over there.”
A Tattered Blanket
Day 445
The four day stale snow covered the land like a tattered blanket or corpses on a battle plain. Overnight chill froze the horse-trod slush in the roadway and crusted the still white lumps under the shadowed firs. The sun may have risen or it may still be mired in the horizon. Either way, grey clouds had hammered the earth shut in a dim lit coffin.
Back from the empty serf-road Jora squated to see below the branch-line. A small dark-metaled dagger appeared in her hand. If you hadn’t been just hovering over the narrator’s shoulder you’d be dead now. Jora ranged ahead of her three sisters scouting. Sometimes she waited for them to catch up and sometimes she traveled back to them. She waited.
In this weather Jora’s ears picked out voices in the distance with preternatural ease but the clarity cheated distances and timing. Jessa, Jemma, and Jia arrived later than Jora anticipated. Jia clomped down the road because she just didn’t give a shit. She could kick your ass if needed too.