Side by Side

 

The pulse of the day is a heartbeat growing louder as the Grey May morning gives way to a bright and sunny summer Saturday. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been choreographing my life. Two stepping through the morning routine, coffee, toast, yogurt, fried eggs if I’m feeling fancy, all while ignoring my neighbor in his kitchen, dancing the same dance as me, separated by single paned glass, and about twenty feet . Briefly our eyes lock, me wielding a spatula, him a frying pan, but we spin away, sashay-shante, I didn’t see you, you didn’t see me. That’s life in the little city.

Breakfast done, chores begun. The Saturday shuffle is in full swing now. But it’s summer, which means at some point in time we all dip into our backyards. A million lives played out side by side in our postage-stamp green oasis. A patchwork of gardens, a patchwork of blocks, a patchwork of neighborhoods, the quilt of humanity.

The kids are first. Yelling in the backyard that backs up to mine. Their brand-new Christmas swing set hasn’t yet lost it’s luster, but then again, summer has just begun. Next it’s the new neighbor in the one bedroom rental next door. She’s throwing a garden party today. Then the raking starts from the other new neighbor on the other side, the one who so kindly pretends he can’t see me in my jammies every morning as I make breakkie in my kitchen because I refuse to close the blinds to the morning sun, but then again, so does he.

I come in on my que, joining the symphony with the rhythmic tinkling of water from my hose, coaxing the plants I had failed to water for a bit too long back to life. From elsewhere in the neighborhood, dogs barking, and more kids, a birthday party probably, and the sound of a basketball thumping against a slab of concreate.

The beat of the neighborhood is an orchestra accompanying my outside chores, while the breeze shakes the leaves in the trees like maracas, where the birds sing their melodies, but then a scream brakes through the piece. It wasn’t part of the song, it was as if the conductor said stop, the mike dropped, and record scratched to a halt. Something was wrong.

The shriek left a rift of silence, but no sooner had it fallen then the murmurs began, and as if on queue the shuffling of feet as we all ran to our front doors to stand on our porch scratching our heads.  Where had it come from, was somebody dead? All up and down the street, neighbors on their stoops, wondering what to do next. Then the sirens started. We shuffled about, exchanging looks of concern, as the wailing drew near, then passed us by.

 So that was it then.

Perhaps this is a musical, off Broadway of course, the script snatched up cheap and destined to become made for tv movie, with an ultra cliche ending. This is the last number, the scene is drawing to a close. The camera pans out to a bird's eye view of the great tapestry that is life in near suburbia as we all head inside, instep, and follow the beat to our own backyards to resume our scripted chores. Fade to black.

But what happened with that scream? Well, stick around to find out because after this commercial break, we'll be right back.