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Buckle

Three decades ago I sank my hands into new, wet cement. I etched my name with a twig.

It's not just us who grow old, brittle bones and clogged arteries, flesh sagging off our faces like slow-motion mudslides. Our world grows old as well.

The men who laid down the sidewalk in front of my parents' house, I wonder if they knew how it would look some 30 years on. They probably imagined lemonade stands and water balloon fights and kids learning to ride their bikes without training wheels. They thought they were extending a small length of civilization. But their construction is just geology now: pitted and buckled, tufts of grass growing from the cracks.

I can't find the place where I left my hand print.

If I go down the walk far enough, picking my way carefully over the jagged concrete slabs, maybe I can find a path not yet shattered. I spend my life looking for places to splay my fingers and leave my record in a cool, giving surface. I tell myself that if I do it often enough, my path might remain unbroken.