By Gabby Price, Staff Writer
An infamous hill on Summerset Avenue slopes aggressively upward. At the peak of its incline sits an old Gothic Revival-styled home obscured by tall foliage. Twin lion statues ostentatiously rest atop two fluted stone pedestals that decorate the entrance to the house. Each lion holds a knight’s shield with its front paw. These antique sculptures stare the girl down as she makes her way up the steep road.
At the end of the street, a certain lamppost casts a warm amber glow onto the pavement. It has rained all day, and the asphalt concrete glistens like sequins in the night. As she walks on, a curious impulse pulls her into standing atop a passing sewer grate. She peers down into the obsidian abyss, feeling unsteady and unusual with no foundation beneath her feet.
Stray thoughts run aimlessly around her mind. She recalls an idea she had for egg-flavored chips, which seemed perfectly fine in the moment when it had come to her. She recalls pieces of her dream too. Last night she dreamt of a grotesque swollen blister. It sat in the space between her thumb and pointer finger, obscenely apparent, bulging and fat. From within the skin of the blister had emerged a round, shiny, wet eye.
Without her realizing it, the shuffling of her coat and the pattering of her footsteps create a steady and soothing palate of background noise. From amidst the foreground of her thoughts, she hears distant chewing accompanied by a breath of heavy bubblegum that wafts by, lurching her back to reality.
In a recliner chair tilted back, she faces the grandfather clock, watching the minute hand inch its way to 1:35 pm. From the window, a gust of December wind topples a trash can onto its side. The sky is cloudy and gloomy, appearing smooth and milky white like a bride’s veil. Today she wears the same outfit she wore yesterday. Her thoughts twist in knots, and she leaves them there, all tangled with no desire to unravel them.
Several of her friends sprawl themselves out naturally on the lobby couches. To her right on the couch, she watches her friend stare cross-eyed at her gum as she blows a bubble that expands and pops. They all lie there wrapped in a thick blanket of time. The room is simple. There is no elaborate narrative full of anticipation or tension. There is no romanticized plot full of drama and embellishments. They all exist there for the sake of existence, embracing the ordinary with no need for embellishments.