by Foster Trecost
It wasn’t until I walked outside that it occurred to me. The unfamiliar hum of streetlamps settled on my senses even before I perceived the darkness, telling me what my watch already knew, if only I’d bothered to look: it was earlier than my usual time of departure. I thought to waste a few minutes with another cup but instead used the extra time to explore a new route, nicer streets with well-kept row homes, no cracks in the sidewalk. The setting was nearly perfect, even in the lack of light, only marred by the presence of trash, but not the kind carelessly tossed to the ground. It was garbage day, the great equalizer – for nicer streets and the not-so-nice, it comes once a week.
Movement up ahead pulled me to a lady sifting through the refuse. My intent to pass without notice knocked on impossible when our eyes locked, but with neither prepared to see someone so early, they unlocked just as quickly. I didn’t expect her to speak, even hoped she wouldn’t, but she did: “My husband never gets it right. They give tickets, you know.”
Her appearance fit the hour, hair a mess, no make-up. I should’ve nodded at most and kept walking, but something bothered me, not in the sense I became aggravated, but something seemed out-of-place, so I asked: Tickets for what?
“You can’t put recycling with regular trash and regular trash with recycling. You got to separate them. They give tickets if you don’t.”
Her reply satisfied my question but the words, when paired with her appearance, answered additional questions I chose not to ask. Relieved the conversated had ended, I continued in the general direction of my office, but it hadn’t ended, at least not for her. “It’s just that they give tickets,” she said again, louder this time since my stride had moved me along, but she needed the pretense, to believe it or make me believe it, and kept it going even after I was gone. I could’ve glanced back, a wordless way of saying I accepted the deception, or at least that her secret was safe, but quickened my pace instead. And in my silence the street lost its appeal, but it wasn’t the trash that chased it away. Morning light had sifted in to reveal yet another blemish, a crack in the sidewalk I didn’t know was there. Extra time or not, I don’t walk that way anymore.
Foster Trecost writes stories that are mostly made up. They tend to follow his attention span: sometimes short, sometimes very short. Recent work appears in Club Plum, Flash Boulevard, and Roi Fainéant. He lives near New Orleans with his wife and dog.
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