Rain Village - Carolyn Turgeon [50]
My heart danced in my chest as I gazed at the city; the skyline seemed like a cluster of gifts under a Christmas tree. As I walked closer, with each step the dry grass became sparser and the houses turned to buildings and then to enormous silver fingers that pointed to the sky. Men and women rushed by me dressed in formal clothes, and they would have trampled me had I not taken to moving from doorway to doorway, out of their path. The farther I went, the more the world closed down until I no longer had spaces to run and hide in. I walked until the city pressed into me so tight I couldn’t breathe.
The delicate streams that ran through Oakley, the swaying vegetables and buried potatoes, the weeping willows that fell over the river, the endless grassy fields—everything was blotted out by the city, by stark concrete and stone.
My head whirling, I stopped and sat on a set of stairs that led into a small building. I dropped my sack to my side and only then realized how tired I was, how hot and damp my face was despite the cold. A woman stepped out of the building and brushed past me, followed by a dog on a leash. I turned around and looked: it seemed unimaginable that life could exist inside buildings like this. A train whistled nearby. Cars clattered down the street. The air seemed to get chillier by the moment, as the sun fell in the sky. I couldn’t believe how a place so full could feel so empty. I pressed my palms flat against the stone of the steps I was sitting on, breathed in the gritty, smoke-filled air. I felt exactly as if I were a character in a book I’d read, and the idea was as weird as it was thrilling. In some ways it seemed unreal, all of it, like I was lying on my back in Mercy Library the whole time, listening to some story; in other ways it seemed like all I’d had to do, all these years, was walk right out of one life and into another. Like Oakley, my family, my past were all things I could have just blinked away.
I stood up. I pushed past people and ducked under railings, looking all around for some way in, some crack in the city’s ferocious, dirty facade. A few blocks later I saw a sign, and my heart leapt: Apartment for Rent. I had plenty of money. I took a deep breath, walked up the stairs, and pressed the doorbell. I’ll be okay, I thought. I patted my pink lace skirt, reaching unconsciously for the weighted-down hem. After several long minutes, an old lady opened the door and peered down at me.
“I’m here about the apartment,” I said quickly, before she could shut the door again.
She laughed. “Girl, where are your parents? Is this a prank?”
The woman slammed the door shut and did not open it again, though I stood on her porch for ten minutes more, ringing her doorbell and trying to hold back tears. For a moment I thought longingly of my bed in Oakley, my warm covers and Geraldine snoring across from me.
I turned back to the street. By now it was practically dark. All the streetlamps had snapped on, and the car lights bounced off the pavement, confusing me as I walked along, dragging my sack. Brightly lit stores lined the main streets, which swarmed with men and women who fell against me as they pushed past, on their way to the next place and the next. I glanced into windows to check that I was still there, that I was there at all. I cursed myself for having timed my arrival so badly and being so lacking when it came to understanding the world and its ways.
I walked on, past sleek silver buildings and squat brick ones, open-faced mansions and run-down tenements. Every single thing was like a new description from a book I’d read, come to life.
I turned off the main avenue and onto a narrow side street. After what seemed like hours, the city seemed to quiet down. The streets widened and turned desolate. The buildings expanded and