without. And her cat. She had to take her cat. A cat was what made a place a home.
She left everything else in her house to her neighbor, whom the House Blight had not touched. “Take it all. Just pay whatever you can.” she said. Seeing her desperation, he wrinkled his forehead and shook his head, as if making a huge sacrifice, and gave her three dollars for most of her belongings, while secretly rejoicing about the profit he would make at his upcoming garage sale.
She spent all the savings she had to buy a used car in good enough condition to make the trip and still had to borrow for other expenses. By moving day her walls were so thin, she could almost see through them.
Unable to afford a moving truck, she spent the morning packing all she could into her new car until at last she got inside and drove away. It was night when she and her cat arrived at her new town.
She found an affordable place to stay in the upper floor of an old inn. The first thing she noticed was how solid everything was. Even before the Blight, her walls had been thin. When the wind blew, the floor rattled and the house shook.
Here, it was different. Only the strongest materials had been used. The floor was solid granite. The walls and doors were heavy and massive. A wind would be no threat to them. Even the Blight would take a while to burrow through the solid material.
She also noticed how quiet it was: no more crumbling, groaning, creaking things in the night. In the backyard was a pretty lake, with an inviting bench in front.
A neighbor, an elderly woman, was sitting there the first day, and asked her why she had come from so far away. The girl said, “Walls evaporate sometimes. You know how it is.” This was such a common saying in her home town that she was surprised when the neighbor looked at her strangely. “Come again?”
“They evaporate. The walls. They go away. At least where I come from, they do.” The lady shook her head, pursed her lips, pulled her purse into her lap and rose. As the lady shambled away, the girl tried again: “Not all at once.” But the lady did not turn, only hurried her steps. “The Blight eats them slowly,” she whispered, the words trailing away.
Unheard, she went to her new home.
Her new home had a fireplace and big closets and a high window so that she could sit in her living room and watch the clouds, just as if she were outside.
Despite these luxuries, she had no bed at first, so she slept on the hard floor for the first few weeks until she could afford one.
Money was tight. To make matters worse, a nasty note appeared in her mailbox from the person who had sold her old house to her, demanding that she continue the high monthly payment. She called and told him she could not afford to pay for an evaporating house plus rent. He said, “Well you should have bought the House Evaporation Insurance.”
He had a point; she had to grant him that.
She unpacked her things. The cat began to sniff everything and decreed the new place worthy by rubbing against the door posts and scraping its claws against the carpet.
After finding a new job, a temporary one, she bought some bargain furniture and had it all moved inside.
She felt a click of satisfaction as they days went by. There was nothing she could have done at her old place she could not do here. Caught up in her routine, she barely saw her surroundings anymore, the lake or the fireplace or the clouds.
She wondered if anything had really changed, except the walls.
One day while reading, she shut her book, put it down, and left the inn. She wanted to see more of her new town. She had heard there was a beach nearby. She bought a map and set off in search of the ocean, which would show her once and for all that she really was in a new place.
As she neared the beach, she began to see more palm trees. The wind rushed against them, and they leaned away from it. The buildings were scattered far apart, allowing her the first glimpse of the sea.
Far away, it was quiet, but on the beach, she neared the ocean and its sounds opened up. The waves roared and splashed and pulled away. The wind grabbed her long hair and pulled and whipped it against her face.
She thought about the home she had left, but could only summon vague images.
The House Blight was a thing of the past, a distant memory, and all that mattered now was this, the cresting, splashing, and pulling back, the wind in her face, the sand on her feet.
The place she had called home was far away, and she wondered if she would ever feel home here. But maybe all she needed was a place to sleep, and walls.
Which walls surrounded her was unimportant, as long as they stood. Outside, inside; what did the words really mean?
At night she took comfort in the thickness of the walls, the heaviness of the bricks. Until she began to hear the rumors.
Sometimes, in this town, people said, the ground collapses without warning. It is the heavy solid things that are most in danger, the things that press and weigh that most easily fall.
Giant signs, plastered everywhere, proclaimed the new horror, a word she dared not speak. Sinkhole? See the Sinkhole Guy!
She could not believe her bad fortune. A new House Blight was upon her! Even when neighbors told her that sinkholes only affected a few, she would not calm down.
She considered moving again. She even packed a few boxes. She remembered her fear of the ceiling collapsing, knew too well the treachery of shelters meant to protect.
Where could she go where she could rely on surfaces to bear her weight or walls to hold the ceiling?
She thought about her sturdy new walls that blocked the rain and wind, appearing so stable.
And she remembered the ocean, too, so near, with all of its wild beauty, unpredictable, unsafe, but still comforting in the rhythms it did have.
She sighed in resignation. Walls evaporate sometimes, she thought, and the ground — it turns out — sometimes disappears.
But for the time they were there you had to trust them, the ground that might give way or a ceiling that might fall. The timeless strength of walls and surfaces was an illusion. But it was one you had to have.
She began to unpack the boxes she had filled in her haste to escape the Sinkhole Blight. As she did, she thought of the ocean, alive and constantly moving.
Meanwhile, her walls and floors stood still, and she congratulated them for that.
The Outfielders
“Catch the ball you idiots! See? Very simple.” The boy tossed the ball into the air. “What goes up –see? – goes down. When it goes down you hold out your arms and you catch it. Like this.” He spat. “What were you two talking about anyway?” He stared at blond headed Roxanne. “And keep your hands free. What are you holding, a dandelion?” He grabbed the flower from Roxanne and snapped its stem in two.
The girls, Roxanne and Mila, both eleven, looked at each other. Roxanne laughed behind her hand. Mila stared at him in mild amusement. Matt glowered at Mila. “So? What are you talking about? Tell me.”
“We are discussing the origins of the cosmos and the meaning of life,” Mila said. “And why people like you have no hope of ever finding it, or even coming close.”
Matt gaped at Mila. “Just catch the kickball when it comes your way!” Matt stomped off.
Laughing, Roxanne gave Mila a hug. “Good going, Miles. That will teach him to interrupt. Now, back to what really matters: Jeff or Shane? As I was saying, I like them. They both like me. Which one?”
Mila shrugged. “Maybe try eenie-meanie-minie-mo?”
Roxanne sighed, bent over, and plucked another dandelion. “Life is hard,” she said. “So very hard. Good thing I have you. I wish I could be more like you, Miles. Smarter.” Roxanne sighed again. “You are so lucky to not have any boys like you.”
This time Mila sighed. “Never thought of it like that.”
The red ball was hurtling overhead, toward them, tracing a perfect arc against a stretch of blue sky. They both looked up and watched as it passed them. Mila watched it fall and bounce a few times. Matt was back and glaring at them with disgust as he grab
bed the ball.
Mila looked amused as she watched Matt stomp away, his head turned and staring at her. “True, life is hard, but sometimes the problem is with people, not life. Take him. He thinks that what happens in this game actually matters. But look over there, at him. He knows better.”
Mila pointed to a boy at the second place position. He was balancing the wooden rectangle of a base on his head. A girl was shouting at him from across the field. “Put the base down, you dummy.” The boy grinned and flicked his middle finger.
“See?” Mila said. “He plays the game, but he doesn’t care about it. He just wants to make everyone mad. No loyalty. A mercenary type, for sure. Trust me. I can spot them.”
“I never liked him,” Roxanne said.
“No one likes him. But I like him better than Matt, who is a prisoner of his desires. Matt bases his happiness on something beyond his control. He can catch the ball and tag, but he is part of a team, so he can never control every player. Like us, for example.” Mila shook her head. “All he can do is yell at us and act like a tyrant.”
“Yeah,” Roxanne said. “He is such a jerk. It would be so easy not to choose him, if he liked me. He really needs to lighten up. Someone needs to tell him what a stupid game this is, so he can stop hating life.”
Mila nodded. “What difference does it make who wins? After the game is all over, we go back to class, listen to more lectures, then we go home. No matter what, life goes on the same. The game only matters if you tell
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