![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm7.staticflickr.com\/6194\/6110601972_4e69c41ca3_z.jpg?resize=640%2C426\" "\\"By")
<\/a><\/p>\nOutside, an empty street. This could be the end of the world, with one sole survivor. Cars: Toyotas, Fords, vehicles vacant of their families all covered in puckered dirt left by rain. Fine sand, or salt, traces picked up from the sea and dropped in a storm, remaining on the cars when the carrier water evaporated, last night or this morning. The air still has a minerality; the rain was recent or is returning. For now the sky is story-book blue. Clouds linger on its periphery, towards its horizon which is penetrated by trees (green) and roofs (slate). There is no reason to be out in the street at this time. Everyone should be indoors, at work or at school. Sandy deposits have gathered where the road meets the kerb. Kick at the sand in the street, kick at the fucking sand in the fucking street. Ambient ions, harbingers of the storm, tingle just at the edge of perception. In this direction, towards the park, the sun spreads heat across shoulders and creates rivulets of sweat which drip down the gap between back and shirt. The park\u2019s empty as well, not even a mother and pram combination. But that\u2019s not quite right, there\u2019s a man on a bench towards the shaded rear where bushes extend scabby branches anarchically over the path. His feet worry at the ground in shoes tied around with plastic bags. An idea of what he smells of is discernible even before the smell itself. Head bowed at first, the man mutters and his patches of greasy brown hair seem to steam in the afternoon humidity.<\/p>\n
— Bastards, bastards, the man mutters.\u00a0— Idiot bastards. The man looks up, – and there\u2019s you looking. What at? You haven\u2019t read a book in your life. Bastards.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s too late to look away, his flow won\u2019t be diverted now.<\/p>\n
— You\u2019re the same as all the rest of them. I used to be like you, you know, wouldn\u2019t give another person the time of day. The man sneers, — smile for fuck\u2019s sake. You don\u2019t know what there is in the world to be sad about. I know plenty.<\/p>\n
His teeth glisten between his lips, which are coated in a spitty glaze. When he says \u2018smile\u2019 he extends out his arm, and splashes of Special Brew spray around in grand arches. He seems like he would say more, but the humidity works on him and he curls up. — Bastards. Same all over.<\/p>\n
In the centre of the park there\u2019s a roundabout. Old fashioned, it still has dimpled metal plates for its base, and metal poles for its exo-skeleton. It\u2019s a friend from childhood, although now its paint is flaking and it will surely be deconstructed soon and replaced with something safer. Years ago Tunde broke a front tooth when he jumped off the roundabout at full speed. Another past summer saw Maisie Dukes catch her shoelaces in the underneath machinery. The centrifugal force of the roundabout, pushed by kids who either hadn\u2019t learnt about consequences or didn\u2019t care, twisted her ankle and she had to take her bloodied knee back to her mother\u2019s house. She wasn\u2019t allowed near the roundabout after that so it took her a while to work up the courage to jump back on and sit in the middle watching the world turn about her. Lying back on the roundabout with an adult’s body means that it can be pushed around using the feet. Looking up at the unpunctuated sky movement around and around can only be registered by the stomach: the sky gives no points of reference. With eyes closed, however, the spinning is more apparent. Push harder, faster, push through.<\/p>\n
— I\u2019ve been looking for you. It\u2019s Wilson\u2019s voice,\u00a0forever with a rasp of uncleared throat phlegm.\u00a0— I\u2019ve got a job for you. Wilson\u2019s always direct to his point. The sun bleeds red light through my eyelids. I open them up a crack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the afternoon. Air too still in the house to breathe. Blood stopped in veins, backing up, thickening. Go into motion; push through.\u00a0Fingers into fist. The muscle doesn\u2019t rise like it used to. Moles slide along skin under which a bicep is now less visible. Push through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[21,25,42,43,61,62,65,71,114,116,118,133],"class_list":["post-241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories","tag-broke","tag-childhood","tag-fiction","tag-first-person","tag-humid","tag-jobless","tag-kids","tag-life","tag-short-story","tag-story","tag-summer","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p78u9e-3T","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arikewrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arikewrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arikewrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arikewrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arikewrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arikewrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arikewrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arikewrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arikewrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}