aesthetique

There’s a fruit stand on the side of the back country road with a migrant worker that always seems to have the fruit you wanted the most, no matter what season or time of day it is. You tell a friend about it and they say the only thing they’ve ever seen on that roadside is an empty lot.

Wind and rain blow away the settled dust and smog and for once and you think you might see the stars at night, but when you go out all you see is a hazy orange glow, despite the smog being gone.

The orchard behind your house has been abandoned by the farmer due to the water shortage, but instead of dying the trees are all thriving. Nobody can tell what kind of fruit is growing. 

At night the coyotes scream in the distance, and you can swear you can hear words in the yips and the howls. 

On the first foggy day of the year you wake up before dawn without having set an alarm. You look out the window and you can’t even see the houses across the street. The fog pushes up against your window and the wall buckles.

There is always an ice cream truck jingling cheerily somewhere in town, no matter what season it is. Even in the dead of winter an ice cream truck is out. No one can remember the driver’s face. 

The canals running through town have run dry and kids have taken to exploring the empty underpasses for fun. Despite having been underwater for years, they find that the walls bear thousands of written messages - and claw marks.

The thickness of the air, you think, doesn’t all come from pollution. You breathe in, and bad feelings seem to come with the dust particles. Some kind of despair has settled here, in the air and the soil. Maybe that’s why no one ever seems to leave.

Your city’s population hasn’t changed in 10 years, but new houses are always being built. They spring up quickly and nobody ever buys them, but the yards are always green and there are always cars parked outside.