The Man, the Siamese

The children are still skimming the ball back and forth along the tarmac. A bit away from them is a group of three youths. One leans against a wall tilting his head back toward the sun, heating himself up like a lizard, his skin slowly turning into caramel in the light. The other two are laughing, their voices fighting with the music coming from their friend’s car, which is teetering on the pavement beside them. The young mother drags herself up and curls her fingers round the net curtains, spying on the noise that set off the screaming ball of nerves in its crib. Frustrated, she starts cursing at them through the glass, her pitch getting higher and higher as her breath starts condensing in front of her on the window.

One of the youths turns his head and spots the frantic mother silently shouting. Her mouth opens and shuts, whirring away like an irate ventriloquist’s dummy. The youth nudges his friends and they turn to watch the woman gesticulating wildly in front of them, caged behind the glass. They laugh again and the bass from the car resonates harder down the street. Tears are streaming from the young mother’s eyes. She feels the anger strangling in her throat as her cries try to push through the window, the bass pushing it back into her. She feels her face turning hot as the blood beats its way to the surface of her skin. The youths continue to watch the molten mother who has become a scarlet flurry of emotion.

The twisted woman who was propped up against her porch has been watching. She witnesses the fights between the bass thudding away and the silent screams crashing in the muddy air. Grappling for the doorframe to steady herself, she forces the handle down and edges herself behind the safety of her door. She spies from her window the youths rolling about with laughter as they finally tumble into the car, which is still shaking with beats. It thuds down from the pavement and sends the children playing in the street scattering like pigeons. The young mother crumples on the floor, her chest heavy with sobs whilst her child’s plaints recede with the gradual distancing of the car’s basslines. The wife next door is still knocking back the beads of sweat forming on her brow. The smell from her kitchen is still weaving its way out of her open window and into the hot air outside. The man, the Siamese, are still looking for nothing on the corner.

Biz Huthwaite is currently a Manchester expat in Paris for a bit, returning in March to the rainy city that cries tears on my face for me. http://www.strictlybiznesss.blogspot.com/

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