Bruno Major, Adrián Berenguer - Remember To Dance (Little Things) | [Inspired Fiction] A Short Walk Before the Rain Starts
A Short Walk Before the Rain Starts
Remember To Dance (Little Things)
Bruno Major, Adrián Berenguer
I watched a man trip over a curb on 43rd Street this morning. He didn’t fall, but he dropped his folded newspaper and didn't stop to pick it up. He was in a terrible hurry to get somewhere, checking his bare wrist while leaning forward, letting sheer momentum carry his body down the block. Everyone is rushing to an appointment, pressing the crosswalk button four or five times, staring down the avenue as if sheer willpower will make the traffic lights change. They are running from one point to another, terrified of missing whatever they believe is waiting for them at the end of the day.
There was a man playing a brass trumpet near the subway stairs. He wasn't playing loudly, just blowing a slow, steady tune that curled up around the iron scaffolding and the exhaust from the city buses. Hundreds of people walked past him in the span of five minutes, fast-forwarding through the noise of the morning. The brass notes hit the pavement and rolled into the gutters, entirely ignored by the men in heavy coats pushing toward revolving doors.
My neighbor spends his weekends pulling weeds out of the cracks in his driveway with a pair of rusted pliers. He bought a massive house on the corner, the kind with a wide garage and a pristine lawn, and he looks deeply tired every time I see him. He wants the perfect patch of dirt. We spend so much energy hoarding space, piling up heavy furniture and putting our names on brass plaques by the front steps. The heavy furniture stays behind when the house is finally empty.
I sat on the park bench and watched an elm tree shedding its leaves across the pathway. A kid in a yellow raincoat was stepping on them, trying to find the dry ones that cracked under his rubber boots. The leaves were green just a few weeks ago, and now they were brown, drifting down to the mud. The boy wasn’t trying to stop them from falling, and he wasn't trying to gather them up to keep in his pockets. He was just stepping on them, twisting his heel, swaying a little bit when the wind blew through his open coat. I stayed there for a while, watching the pile of leaves get thicker on the sidewalk.
The Puddles on the Pavement
I walked back toward the avenue when the streetlights flickered on. The trumpet player was gone, leaving only a damp spot on the concrete where he had been standing. A few stray newspapers were blowing against the chain-link fence, scraping along the ground. I didn't hurry to the train station. I took the long way down the block, and at some point, without quite deciding to, I stopped stepping over the cracks and started stepping on them instead.
A Few Doors Down from Here
Lord Huron — The Night We Met
Tracing the quiet, luminous stillness of the night we first met, lost in the fading echoes of a past season.
S. Carey — Fool's Gold
The transparent and honest solitude that remains in one’s palm after the glittering promises have all scattered away.
The Cinematic Orchestra — To Build a Home
As the wind passes through broken bricks, I realize that an empty space is, in fact, the most complete sanctuary.
Novo Amor — State Lines
Standing with my back to the receding landscape, chasing the warmth of a longing that blurs beyond the horizon.
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