My dad sent me out last week to write a short story. No he didn't. He sent me to my papa's to get the mail. My dad's had a bad cold and is also sick of driving down to his changed childhood neighborhood. It's two birds with one stone and neither is anything anyways so, nothing to lose. "Me? Sure I'll do it--"

~~~


A girl floated … carseats empty, for 20 minutes, west on a Cleveland, January morning--another that could have passed for a cold April day—to pick up her grandfather’s mail for her dad; under a spotless blue sky that woke children up before their parents to teach them how to smile with their eyes and open-mouthed, showing perfect teeth. Apparently St. Clair Avenue, the route she found made most sense, now slept in while its mini-marts breathed for it. Their neon hearts of ‘lottery’ blinked red behind dirty, lit blemishes in the condensation, behind bars, in the corner of their storefront windows. For unromantic or preoccupied patrons or everyone else, advanced money, less some, sustained life when the bi-weekly paycheck did not. Inhale lucky blacks leaving their cars running outside. Exhale groups of ‘em in handfuls, dressed alike in black and white and standing or walking, with nowhere else to go all day but up.