Weekly Writing – November 25 2023

Children still played in the street. That seemed to be the only thing that hadn’t changed.
The entire face of the neighbourhood had been torn away and rebuilt, maybe more than once. The optimistic patchwork of houses built with whatever means, whatever materials new families had had on hand was gone, replaced by grey rows he wouldn’t have known if not for their names. The patchy grass that had provided a carpet on which thistles could lay their leaves was now a brushed velvet green, no doubt soft as a kitten’s fur to the touch.
Horns bayed where dogs had barked in the distance. Not all of the changes grated on his senses – the sky was bluer, scrubbed mostly clean of the smog that had been allowed to roam free in what might rightly have been called his day.
But it was all relentless different. All except the children. They still shrieked like murder over whatever ball they were chasing or stick-sword battle they were winning. Maybe children were timeless, at least for the few years before they really looked around and understood what sort of world they’d been birthed in and how it wanted them to act.
Maybe he could take a little comfort in that. Over a hundred years since his heart had last beat, since he’d breathed that smoggy air for life and not just to pretend at it, but children were still the same. The blood he’d shed so both he and that town could go on existing past their natural time hadn’t been for nothing.