The sun pokes out between a fire hydrant and the stack of brush piled against the curb amongst dry leaves and wrappings from fast food vendors of assorted local and national brands in various states of decay. Halves of a box from a rival national vendor sit interspersed. The curb gives way to a jagged drain where metal threatens passers by with abrasions and tetanus. A spoke waits in the gutter. It belonged to a 1979 Firebird named Lucy. There was 23 cents, 3 bent paper clips, a bent berrett and the casing from a .22 caliber. The patchy lines on the street dashed and streaked along the residential road, around the corners and out of sight. A bent can rattled along in the breeze. Commuter traffic hummed and bumped along nearby, but this patch of trash had its own beating path to pass the time. The birds tweeted, chirped and cawed, scrumming over their morning meal in the fresh cut grass. Mr. Jones' morning cigarette was interrupted the glaring gleam of the morning sun off his neighbor's storm door from across the street as it swung shut. It was a still morning save for the occasional blowing of the wind with it's "can do" attitude and the grind of the consumers' souls against the pavement on their ways to work. The murder pecked and cawed in the street. A wind chyme glistened as it clanged and the resident hound "relped" once as her paws kicked in her sleep. Beside the dog dish in the corner was a bit of old newspaper, a key and a stapler. The room was a pastel blue and a spartan decorating scheme. Tussled grey hair floated over an old wiry frame though Age had been kinder than it had to most. The hazel eyes adorned scowled at the morning's Post. Growling he wrapped up and scratched behind his ear. Patting the old mutt he stroked his furry chin. Mutters of "Chinbaums" and "Roses' Glass Half Full" and "Scuttlebossoms" followed, intermittently. Scabs on his elbows shrunk to nearly nothing clung now mostly to the hair on his forearm. His bathrobe fell open again, letting the chill of the natural air brisken his skin. Carefully he feels around his sleeve down from his wrist to the el below. The scabs had mostly peeled off where the skin had healed, though they hadn't managed to run far as they quickly fell into the snare of the coarse carpet of body hair installed in their neighbors' homes. Scabs are generally lacking in agility and dexterity and intelligence, but these scabs knew they were on the day's picks for elimination. Something had to be done. Survival is the natural instinct, but what does they prey do when it is far out matched? It must hide. If possible they must regroup and overtake the predator through strength in numbers. The mushy oatmeal crawled around his tongue as if searching for a lost key in tall grass. Ambivalent to the struggles of scabs, he subconsciously pulls at the hair sheltering the loose dead skin from being ripped off and thrown into the nearest hole. The breath in his chest rattled a bit as he bit down and gnawed on the spoon thoughtlessly. Something had to be done. A tooth once crooked now stood at attention having been properly braced for its eventual rejection should it refuse to straighten up. The gap in between the top front middle teeth remained as an homage to the failure to retain any dental retainers for an anatomically significant amount of time.
