A Short Walk In The Urban Mush

I prepared to pick up the artist's daughter from a party. She looked fabulous when she left and I was hoping she was having a great time. The artist's son meanwhile had already built his space rocket and was about to begin painting. It stood in the middle of the room like a souped-up grandfather clock. As for the artist, she was approaching her work when I pulled shut the door and left. I buttoned up my coat and turned up my collar and headed like a pilgrim into the soft drizzle. The tarmac outside was covered in damp brown leaves and I gently kicked them away. The placing of the new paving stones underfoot looked rushed and slightly inferior. A bonus-based deadline? At the lights, a maniac driver insisted on revving up his engine threateningly, but I sensibly declined the opportunity to educate. The artist's daughter meanwhile was at a party about a mile away and I decided to walk an unfamiliar route there, threading my way through largely residential streets. I was the only person walking. (Even without rain, it is like this.) Most people in the city drive and as a result find pavements superfluous. I see them every day. They rush from their heavily-locked and often reinforced front doors into their stubbornly-appointed cars, and heaven forbid if they have to converse with a human without one. I passed a large house where peacocks once roamed the garden. Now, there's just barbed wire. I walked down a street full of For Sale and To Let signs and made my way to a busy main road again. Everyone in their cars looked dead this time and stared straight ahead, catching the eye of a pedestrian obviously tantamount to an invitation to murder. But when I reached our daughter's party I was met with a barrage of smiling children's faces and my heart immediately lifted. Child surely is the father of man, I was thinking. Without them we are nowhere. But the girl giving the party, I also remembered, had just changed schools because of bullying at the last one. She is only 8-years-old. Anyway, I asked our daughter how the party was as we headed back up the road together. 'Fine,' she smiled, skipping. 'Has he made his rocket yet?' I smiled broadly and placed my hand on her shoulder.