Stretch

The sun rose quickly, across the expanding sky. It hung there all morning, stretching colors like a thumb on canvas. He needed that warmth, the invitation of light reaching through his window, coaxing him outside.

He hopped across the piles of dirt, ducked through a hole in the wall and emerged into the hippodrome. Weeds had overgrown the track except for a dirt trail down the middle littered with cigarette butts and broken bottles. A quarter of a mile across the track a small group of men were picking potatoes, planted in the kok boru field. He made his way to the grandstand and climbed the crumbling steps. Nature’s reclamation project was well underway.

He sat and looked out over the field and the city’s last line of houses. Beyond them was the valley and behind it, a hazy wall of mountains, dusty against the sky. He had to concentrate to be sure they were even there, so faded was the jagged line of their peaks. Two young boys played nearby, hopping on the twisted metal and decaying bricks of the grandstand, kicking stones and crunching glass in their flip-flops. They jumped from grey bench to grey bench, skipping the ones that weren’t there. An old lady passed the grandstand and headed out into the field. She paused, turned and squatted, her back to the dirt path. It took him a moment to realize what she was doing, but when she stood and wiped there could be no doubt. Was he even here? Had she noticed? Had the boys made indication of his presence? And then he had to think: Had the crumbling steps given way to his feet? Had the wind bent its path around his body? He wasn’t sure. He reached down and pressed his thumbnail into the grey wood. “LAF. I was here.” Standing up, he brushed off of his pants and slowly made his way to the gate. As he walked the sun shone brightly on the earth below.