It wasn’t anything special. Just another place where the world’s slow death had opened into a wound.
Festering the way only brick and time could. The wall rippled and repeated, losing its pattern in the effort of trying to remember it. Bleeding mortar onto the sidewalk, where it traced perfect rectangles in an effort to still have a purpose.
And laughed. Someone had been happy there, when the world last remembered clearly. Someone had laughed as if they had nothing to fear in the world, and the air remembered it.
Repeated it. The sound without the cause, in the greying sunset, seemed almost like a sob.
The cause felt almost close enough to touch. She didn’t step close enough to touch it.
Open sores could be infectious, after all.
