3/6/2022 0 Comments Navajo RoadNavajo Road
Hannah Anderson The whir of a/c units from the houses down the street converges with the music of the Buddhist temple next door. The lifeless, white statues are illuminated by the festive colored lights hanging from above the temple grounds. Singing, or chanting, whatever you call it, fills the chill night air. Ritual drums -pounding pounding pounding- overriding all other sounds, overriding one’s own thoughts, come and go. Across the street, the stain of blood can still be seen in the dim yellow street light. It's been there since late summer. Will it always be there? Has it become a permanent fixture of this neighborhood like the bicyclists at midnight, the sounds of poverty-stricken cultural diversity, and the potholes constantly overlooked by the city? It's nearly midnight, but the street is still busy. Busy if one counts the man with the backpack speeding past on his bike, or the other man with a bat dragging on the ground, as “busy”. They ignore each other, they ignore the watcher on the porch. The floorboards of the porch stop creaking when the rocking chair comes to a halt. It's best to be still when the neighbors pass by, especially this late at night. Behind the front door and the mauve-colored adobe, the sound of dog nails click click on the floor. In the room that opens to the porch, a woman rests behind broken windows, old character blankets, and cardboard window panes. The chain-link fence only offers safety because of the large dogs it cages. The youngest has annoyed more than one passing neighbor during her days patrolling the perimeter. The yard within the fence of the frankenstein house is full of weedy, brown grass. Broken pavement and red bricks once lain to represent someone’s idea of an artistic garden path are interspersed in the grassy carnage. In the moonlight, a broken wooden chair sits, waiting. Perhaps the ghost of a young student rests lightly upon its weather-beaten seat, carefully balancing so as not to overburden the dry, rough legs. The shadows of the trees next door wave and mottle the yard, the pavement, the chair. From the depths of the darkness, one might imagine a predator waiting, prowling. But predators don’t wait here. They strike when angered and flee, slinking back into their homes after a delivery, or fight, or injury, has been completed on a too watchful neighbor. On a neighbor who doesn’t ignore them. Observation is the true threat here, ignorance is safety. Next summer, when the monsoon rains come again, that blood staining the street will finally be washed away. The street will flood and rush. Navajo road will become the Navajo river, even if only for a day or two. You do not play in the river. The rushing waters carry too many sins, too many secrets. Empty plastic dumpsters will float down the block, and that blood-stained pavement will finally be free of its mark. But the muddy waters will block the driveways, cars pushing through will send waves up the sides of the street. In all its washing, it will leave debris and garbage piled, stuck along fences, and carts, and huge steel dumpsters. This is no cleansing rain nor purging river. It is a mask to cover the scars and the putrid of sins. It covers up lies, pain, and people no one will care to remember or heal. How much blood has washed away in the waters of Navajo river? How many sins erased? How many secrets forgotten? For now, such knowledge is beyond the reach of the watcher on the porch. The winter holds no foreshadowing of the stain’s fate. All the night holds are those pounding drums and the chanting down the street. The wind, empty of spring, continues to give life to the shadows across the yard. The porch boards start to creak under the renewed movement of the rocking chair. The neighbors have passed, and the watcher is safe from detection. Above, in the clear midnight sky, the chalky moon is far and cold and heartless. But the moon cannot touch the watcher on the porch, hidden in the shadows of the house. Welcome to Navajo Road.
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AuthorThese are just short pieces I wrote during my time in a Short Story class. During Fall 2021, I was exposed to several different approaches to writing. Within the above pieces, I started experimenting more with flash fiction. I stopped aiming to write a "traditional" story and decided to let the words spill upon the page how they so chose. There is still so much to learn, fine tune, and develop, but here is start of my experimentation. |