What's The Worst... Chapter 02

The street was wide; the pavement was separated from the road by a three foot grass verge. The verge was continuous, not broken by the regular pattern of concrete driveways that one would expect of a modern town. It was however punctuated with maturing trees, mostly sycamore, mostly twelve to fifteen feet high, and mostly round balls of foliage on simple trunks of grey-brown wood; each tree aligned with one of the gardens it stood before.

The gardens were all separated from the street by a run of chain link fence, each fence three feet high and supported by concrete posts; a uniform patchwork of individual lawns and gardens, some well manicured, some less so, but all showing the controlling hand of man.

Each patch was separated from its neighbour by more chain link fence.

A metal gate opened onto each of the lawns, each one with a latch that was prone to clanking when the wind blew and simple hinges that were prone to squealing when the gate was opened or closed.

Plain grey concrete paths ran from the pavement to the front door of each house, although they weren’t houses, they were bungalows.

Each had walls of a uniform sandy colour and a roof of concrete grey. The windows, doors, guttering, all the ancillary detail was white, not brilliant white but that weathered off-white that indicated occasional care and attention, but not ownership and protection.

As your eye moved up the street, not drawn by any particular feature in such a nondescript and uniform vista there was just one anomaly, but anomaly was the wrong word...

Scar, deformity, darkness, these were much more apt.

Here the tree was stunted. It had probably been vandalised as a sapling and was now sprouting deformed extensions in various directions. The usually bright green, broad leaves appeared to be permanently yellowed, moth eaten and sparse. What was left of the trunk was very much greyer than brown, the bark split and peeling.

The associated gate was hung wide open and had lank, overgrowing grass entwined in the lower half. Where it was still visible the gate was excessively rusty and twisted.

The lawn had long since devolved into a jungle of thistles, nettles and rye grass, occasionally populated by assorted abandoned plastic and metal remnants of someone’s early childhood.

The chain link fence separating this mess from the adjacent properties provided a demarcation that was clear and definite, with the lawns on each side successfully avoiding any major concession to the weedy domain they bordered.

The bungalow itself looked structurally sound but seemed tired, somehow slouching between its neighbours.

The colour was the same but decidedly more weathered, with vertical streaks of dark grey that corresponded with the insecure looking joints in the guttering above.

The windows sported net curtains of grey that might never have been white, but this seemed unlikely, a rapid degradation from white to dirty seemed much more in keeping with the tone of the place.

It was still early, the chill of the night and the dew still lingered on the grass, and the weeds. The sun was rising, but it would be a little while yet before here would feel the benefit.

It was quiet and still; up and down the street there was little movement, except for a cat, quite a way down, sauntering back to its day time retreat.

The rattle and bang of the front door as it was torn open and slammed shut caused the whole bungalow to shake, just a little. The cat paused, looked down the street toward the sound, and bolted.

A dark and furious shape hurtled out into the brightening day on a gust of warm, damp and cloyingly sweet air. The pungent scent of cheap air freshener, cheaper perfume and the dank undertone of stale sweat, damp walls and fetid illness that it was trying to cover swirled around the figure as it stormed along the concrete path toward the pavement.

Behind him, barely audible through the now closed door, a screeching banshee berated his worthless existence!

Damned the long forgotten name of his no good father!!

Cursed him to suffer an equally painful old age with nobody to care for him, or about him!!!

He hunched his shoulders. Head down, eyes never rising to look beyond the next few feet of ground, he stalked off into the distance, wishing for nothing more than a little peace, a little quiet, and some time to think, to straighten things out in his head.

It was all getting so very confusing.

There was always so much noise.

There was always the screeching... and the keening wail that came and went, the one that everybody else ignored.

“Just a little peace, just a little time...” he wasn’t sure whether he was mumbling, or just thinking the words, but it didn’t matter, nobody listened; they normally didn’t even hear.

He just kept walking.