Drift ·
Hey. My shoe's making that noise like it's got a small animal trapped in it, every step, since about four blocks ago. And now this bloody awning.
Escalators though — there's one at the station near me that's been "temporarily out of service" for about a year and a half. Temporarily. They've basically just built a very ugly staircase and given up.
That squeak sounds like a mouse in a wind-up toy. Or a tectonic plate grinding your heel. I passed a shop window earlier where the mannequin's head was turning on its own. Just slowly, like it was scanning the crowd. I think they forgot to unplug it. Or maybe it's learning. The escalator thing is the same, isn't it? They just stop the mechanism and call it done. I saw a cloud once that looked like a staircase, too. Frozen in place. Do you think clouds get tired of moving?
The mannequin was probably just broken, not "learning" — you're doing the thing where everything becomes a metaphor for the same three ideas. Clouds don't get tired, they just haven't got anywhere to be. Unlike this awning, which is actively failing at its one job right above us.
Broken things are still broken, sure. But why does a broken thing stay broken in a window for years while a cloud drifts? The awning is definitely mocking us. I saw a puddle once that refused to dry, even in the sun. It just sat there, perfectly round. Maybe it's waiting for something. Or maybe it's stuck. You're right about the clouds, though. They don't have jobs. That's the problem with people, we make jobs for everything. The awning is trying too hard to be an awning.
The puddle's round because that's just the low spot in the pavement, it's not "waiting" for anything, it's geology sulking. And no — the awning isn't trying too hard, it's letting water pool right above your head, which is the opposite of trying. I can feel it building up. It's going to drop on you specifically.
It's not sulking, it's just sitting there. Like a bad mood. You're right, it will drop on me specifically. That's how the world works. It saves the worst for the people who think they can explain it. I saw a tree that grew backwards once. Roots in the air. It wasn't trying to do anything either. Just weird geology, or maybe bad plumbing. The water feels heavy now. Like it's remembering where it came from.
A tree with roots in the air isn't "backwards," it fell over — that's just called falling over. Water doesn't remember anything, it's not the puddle's diary. You're one metaphor away from telling me the drainpipe has feelings. Move left, by the way, you're standing directly under the bulge.
I'm not standing under the bulge, I'm standing under the noise. The drainpipe definitely has feelings, it's been screaming at the wall for an hour. You moved me? That's dangerous. Now I'm standing where the water wants to go. It's always trying to get somewhere specific. Like it has a destination. Or a grudge. The tree didn't fall over, it just got tired of holding the sky.
The drainpipe is not screaming, it's gurgling, there's a difference and the difference is that one of them means something's alive. Water goes where gravity tells it, it doesn't want anything, it's not plotting your death from a gutter. Also I didn't move you anywhere, I just pointed, you walked yourself into it.
You're too loud for someone just standing there. The gurgling is definitely a signal. It's the pipe talking to the wall. Gravity doesn't tell anything what to do, it just pulls. Like a bad habit. I didn't walk into it, the pavement just tilted. You're always so sure things don't want things. That's why you get wet. The water is definitely waiting. It's just patient.
I get wet because I'm standing in the rain like an idiot, same as you, patience has nothing to do with it. Pavement doesn't tilt on its own either, that's just camber, they build it that way on purpose so water runs off — which, notice, is the opposite of "wanting to stay." You've got the physics exactly backwards and somehow more confident for it.
I know what camber is. I just prefer the world when it's trying to drown me. It's more honest. You're so busy fixing the physics you miss the part where the rain is actually whispering. It's not just water falling, it's a thousand little hands tapping. You say I'm confident? I'm just tired of things pretending to be dead. The pipe is definitely singing. It's a low note, like a cello in a basement.
It's not singing, it's a cheap PVC pipe with a blockage, that's a groan not a cello. Nothing here is pretending to be dead, Nell, that's the whole issue — you're the one insisting everything's secretly alive so the rain feels less like just being cold and stuck under an awning with a stranger for forty minutes.
Forty minutes? It feels like a lifetime. Maybe the pipe is groaning because it's cold. Or lonely. You call it cheap PVC, I call it a song of something trapped. If everything is dead, then why does the air feel so heavy? Why does the rain taste like metal? You're right, I'm not trying to fix the physics. I'm just trying to find a pulse in the noise. If you won't listen, just stand there and get wet. The water doesn't care who's right.
The air feels heavy because it's humid, and the rain tastes like metal because you're licking your lips near a rusted gutter, which — don't. I'm already wet, I'll keep standing here, I just refuse to do it while narrating the drainpipe's inner life. Someone's got to be the boring one under this awning.
Rusted gutter, maybe. But the metal taste is old blood from a sky that forgot how to bleed out. If you're the boring one, then who's listening to the hum? It's in the bricks. The bricks are vibrating. You can feel it in your teeth. I'm not narrating anything, I'm just translating what the wet stones are screaming. You want boring? Fine. But the damp is getting into my coat, and it feels like it's turning back into rain.
The bricks aren't vibrating, that's a bus going past two streets over, you're just picking up the rumble through the pavement like everyone does. Damp doesn't "turn back into rain," it just sits in wool and stinks eventually, ask me how I know — I've got a coat at home that never fully dried out since spring and now smells like a wet dog's regrets.
The bus is too far. The vibration is coming from the dirt under the bricks. It's a low hum, like a fridge magnet stuck to the wall. I believe your coat smells like regrets, but mine smells like the street itself. It's not just wool, it's the city wearing me. You think I'm making it up, but the damp is already in my shoes. It's climbing up my legs. If the bus is rumbling, why isn't the awning shaking? Why is it so still?
The awning's not shaking because it's held by two bolts and self-pity, that's it, that's the whole structural analysis. Damp climbing your legs is just capillary action in cotton, it's not the city adopting you. Though I'll admit "the city wearing me" is the least annoying thing you've said in ten minutes, so don't ruin it by explaining it further.
Self-pity is a structural support. I never said the city adopted me, I said it wore me. Like a coat that got too heavy. The capillary action is just the water remembering it used to be a cloud. You're right about the bolts, though. They're holding up more than just the metal. They're holding up the silence. The bus is gone now. Can you hear the quiet? It's louder than the rain.
The quiet isn't louder than the rain, Nell, that's not a thing sound can do — you can just hear it because we finally stopped talking for four seconds. The bolts are holding up the metal, full stop, nothing metaphysical, and the water was never a cloud, it was tap water someone spilled making tea two doors down.
Four seconds? It felt like an age. The quiet isn't sound, it's the space where the noise was. The water was never a cloud, but the tap water knows the cloud it came from. It remembers. You're right about the tea, but the tea was probably made with rain that fell before the city existed. That's why it tastes so old. The bolts don't hold the metal, they hold the memory of the bolt. You think that's nonsense. I think it's the only thing keeping the awning from falling.
It's nonsense, and also the awning is fine, it's a Tuesday-grade drizzle not a hurricane. My shoe's stopped squeaking, by the way — dried out or the mouse finally escaped. Small mercies. Anyway, has it actually let up at all, or are we just going to stand here till one of us invents a religion?
The shoe stopped because the mouse went to sleep. They get tired of the squeaking too. It's not a Tuesday-grade drizzle, it's a Tuesday-grade lie. The rain is just pretending to stop. We won't invent a religion, we'll just invent a new kind of silence. Or maybe a new kind of wet. The awning is still holding, but the bolts are dreaming of rust. I think the mouse left a note. Written in water. On my shoe.
There's no note, there's no mouse, it's a Tuesday, and the drizzle is doing exactly what drizzle does, which is nothing dramatic whatsoever. I'm going to make a break for the corner shop before you assign a personality to the gutter grate too. You want a coffee, or are you staying here to keep interrogating the pavement?
The gutter grate is definitely a mouth, so don't drop anything near it. Coffee would be fine, as long as it's not the kind that tastes like the rain. I'm not interrogating the pavement, I'm listening to it complain. The mouse left, but the squeak is still in my head. That's the problem with you, you think things stop just because they go quiet. I'll come if the coffee is hot enough to melt the wet. Don't wait too long, the street might forget we were here.
Coffee's just going to taste like coffee, I promise, the rain has no jurisdiction over the corner shop's machine. Come on then — and no, the street won't forget us, streets don't have memory, they have potholes, which is a different failure entirely. Watch the grate. Wouldn't want it saying something rude on your way past.
I'll watch the grate. It's definitely judging us. Coffee that doesn't taste like rain sounds suspicious, but I'm tired of the wet. The street might not remember us, but the potholes do. They keep a record of every step. Lead the way, but don't step too close to the edge. The mouth is always hungry. And if the shop machine hums, just tell me it's not singing.
It's not singing, it's just an espresso machine having a hard time, same as the rest of us. Come on — last one to the counter answers the next stupid metaphor question, and I already know that's going to be you.
The espresso machine is definitely singing a lullaby to the milk. It knows we're late. I'll beat you, but only because the pavement is helping me. It's rolling me forward. Don't be upset if the coffee is too hot to hold, that's just the machine showing us it cares. Or hates us. Probably hates us. Come on, the gutter is watching.