Issue 5, Winter 2008

GAP
by Eddie Jeffrey

Phoebe - humming a wayward lullaby - wandered the chain-link fence at the edge of the playground, her elfin fingers trailing a jagged, stuttering staccato over the interlocking, diamond-shaped aluminum wire (catch-release-catch-release), until she came to the corner with the ancient, corroded hole torn in it, where she was blocked from plain view of the squad of halfheartedly vigilant teachers hovering near the cafeteria doors by the ramshackle maintenance shed squatting in the middle distance behind her.

The shouts and pounding feet of the other children, the metallic squeaking of the swing sets and the thudding bounce of giant red rubber balls against worn, hard-tamped patches of nude earth fell away until all she could hear was the shallow whoosh of her breathing and the sudden rush of blood in her ears. Phoebe balled up her fists and with a defiant huff squeezed herself through the gap in the fence. Her heart skipped once and she was free.

She looked both ways. She crossed the street. She ducked down an alley and disappeared into a ragged square of communal laundry lines strung between two long blocks of faded row houses. Threadbare sheets billowed out in the late morning breeze, full sails on a concrete ship to nowhere.

The air was tinged with the smell of detergent and bleach, making Phoebe feel a warmth having nothing to do with the rising of the sun, and she took off running through the hanging clothes as if she were engaged in a giant game of Peek-A-Boo, flitting from shadow to shadow, playing tricks on herself and the pale waning moon hanging low over the supple edge of a milky-blue horizon. A smile peeled itself across her face as she reached the end of the row - that final step from darkness into light - and the moon absconded into some other night.