Dead End

by

Phoebe Donovan

Sarah lays on the sofa, babbling away to me as I clean up the kitchen. She is telling me some long story about a friend I don’t know, and I’m hardly paying attention. Instead, I am concentrating on my slowly building annoyance at Sarah. Doesn’t she see how hard I’m always working to keep our life running smoothly? How come I’m always the one cooking and cleaning and organizing and doing everything around the house? Even right now, I’m scrubbing the dishes while she sits on the sofa and does absolutely nothing. 

“Be careful with the wine glasses,” she criticizes, pausing her story just long enough to get the words out and then dives right back into what she’d been saying before. 

“If I’m doing it wrong, why don’t you just come and do it yourself?”

I shouldn’t have said anything, and I almost regret it, but I’ve been mad about this for so long. 

“Babe, don’t interrupt me,” Sarah says. “It’s rude.”

“Well, you know what’s rude?” I say. I can’t help myself anymore. “What’s rude is making your boyfriend do all of the housework all the time.”

“Oh, so you want me to just run around cleaning up after you all the time? Is that what you want?”

“No, Sarah, you know that’s not what I meant. It would just be nice if you would help out once in a while.”

“You can’t do any work without complaining, can you?” Sarah accuses, her eyes narrowing.

“When do I ever complain?” I ask angrily. “I do everything around the house. Everything. And I’ve never complained about it before. Not a single time. You’re the one who complains. You sit around doing nothing while I work, and you still always manage to find something to complain about.”

“Unbelievable,” Sarah says.

She marches into our bedroom and slams the door behind her.

I need to clear my head. Leaving the rest of the dishes in the sink, I walk to the front door. 

I step out into the brisk night air. I gulp it down, as if it will cure me of the ailment that my life has become. 

A street lamp flickers softly in front of me, its artificial glow lighting up a circle on the road. I walk until I’m standing inside it, surrounded by the light. I keep walking until I reach the small halo of the next streetlamp. I continue like this for a while: wandering on, and every so often stopping to soak up the warmth of my own personal spotlight. It’s somehow comforting, knowing that even when I leave the glow of a street light, another is only feet away. Some flicker sporadically, and some simply don’t work at all, but they are always there. A constant, reliable light in the darkness. I am reassured by the fact that this line of street lights will go on for as long as I wish to walk. I guess that’s why I know I’ll always be with Sarah. She may be frustratingly self-centered, but I know her. She’s been in my life so long that she’s become a deep-rooted part of it. She’s familiar; life with her is what I know best. It’s my constant. I know that no matter how infuriating she may be, I will never leave her. Which in some ways is reassuring, I suppose, but also paralyzing. My life no longer has forward motion. I know that the way it is now is the way it will always be. 

I step lightly over the cracks in the asphalt as I walk into a busier part of the city. Cars roar past me in the street. I wonder about the people inside them. Who are they? What are their lives like? Dozens of people pass me on the sidewalk. Some travel in herds; I catch fragments of their conversations, and for a brief moment, I can glimpse their realities. Pieces of sentences wash over me, letting me pretend for an instant that I am in their place; foreign plans for the future, regrets about the past, and musings on the present all provide a momentary escape into somebody else’s life. Others walk alone, and for a second, I intrude on their bubbles of solitude. Still others come in pairs. They walk in silence, unencumbered by meaningless chatter. There is no tension, just the relaxed feeling of not needing to make conversation in order to enjoy each other's company. I would never admit it, but I am a little jealous of those couples. So at home and happy in the presence of the other. 

A taxi pulls over just ahead of me, and an old lady gets out. She thanks the driver and walks to the front door of her home. She moves slowly, but she doesn’t look particularly frail, she just looks tired. I wonder where she has been.

I keep walking, putting one foot in front of the other. I move in such a rhythmic way that it begins to drive me crazy. I try to change the pattern of my footsteps, but it’s no use. Whatever I try, they end up falling on the same beat. 

I look up at the houses around me, but stop dead when I see one I recognise. I’m standing directly outside my front door. I don’t understand. I haven’t turned at all since I started walking. I’ve just kept plodding along the same unwavering line down this old street. And city blocks don’t curve in circles. So how could I have ended up back here? It’s not possible. 

I turn and head back in the direction I came from. I’m not ready to go home yet. I know it’s inevitable that I’ll end up back inside, cooking breakfast for Sarah while she scrolls through her phone. But I want to prolong my momentary freedom for as long as I can. 

I turn left this time, crossing the street despite the warnings of the flashing red hand. 

The fleeting refreshment I felt when I stepped outside the house has dissipated. The air is hot and sticky. I pull at my T-shirt, trying to escape from the heat. But the humidity weighs on me like a heavy blanket. It encases me, and as much as I try, I can’t shrug it off. 

I look up ahead of me and come to a sudden halt. About twenty feet in front of me, the road ends. The houses go straight across where the rest of the street should have been, sealing in the block. It seems a bit unusual, but the harder I think about it, the less I can remember: are city streets usually dead ends? I turn around and walk back the way I came, trying not to feel unsettled. 

My feet fall heavily, purposefully, against the pavement. Thud. Thud. Thud. They have rhythm, momentum. Thud. Thud. Thud. I don’t know where they’re going, and I honestly couldn’t care less as long as they take me further from home. 

Delia, my next door neighbour’s enormous black cat waddles across the road in front of me. I stop to watch her; she never usually strays this far from home. But looking around, I realise she hasn’t gone far at all. My house is just a few yards ahead of me. 

I trip backwards over my feet as I frantically stumble away. How is it possible that I’m back outside my house again? I’ve been walking for so long. Have I just been going in circles? 

I walk in a completely different direction this time, quicker and more urgently than before. At every intersection I take the opportunity to turn, to further separate myself from the life waiting for me back in my house. I turn left, then right, then left again. Right left right left right. I keep taking turns until I can’t remember where I am anymore. All the streetlights blur together, every stretch of road looks the same. 

Some streets end in abrupt rows of houses that seal them closed, just like the one from earlier. I guess it is quite a common thing in a city, though I had never noticed it before. When I run into one of these dead ends, I simply turn back and head the other way, then take the first opportunity to turn. 

I continue walking, ignoring the growing aches in my feet. I am utterly lost now, but I relish it. Wouldn’t it be superb if I was too lost to ever find my way back to my life? I know I must return at some point, and I will, but for now it’s nice to wish that moment would never come. 

But to my horror, I find myself walking directly in front of my house again. No. It isn’t possible, it just isn’t. Something is trying to make me go back. But I won’t. I won’t. 

I spin around and run away from my house. I start wheezing before I’ve even gone a hundred meters, but I keep running regardless. It feels like the city is closing in on me, pushing me back to my house where Sarah waits inside for me to wait on her every need. I have to escape. I keep running. My feet slap the pavement. 

How is it that the city feels so small all of a sudden? My desperation is crescendoing, multiplying with every second that passes. What can I do to get out? Running is surely not the answer, but I continue to sprint as fast as I can, because it’s the only thing I can think to do. 

I come to the end of a street and realise it’s a dead end. Without wasting a second, I turn around and keep running. I am out of breath. I have a cramp in my side and my legs are sore. But I am determined not to stop. I must get as far away as I possibly can. 

I trip over an uneven segment of pavement. My body slams into the concrete, gravity and momentum push me into the ground. I blink repeatedly, staring at the tiny flecks of dirt on the pavement that are now inches from my eyes. My knees, my hip, my face; everything hurts. I slowly push myself up. Looking at my stinging hands, I see they are raw and bleeding from where I flung them in an effort to protect my head. I start pulling myself up, using the fence that Sarah has been nagging me to repaint. I know where I am, and the realisation almost makes me fall back to the ground. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I feel like crying. 

My body hurts and my fate has undoubtedly been sealed. I am defeated. I know there is nothing I can do. No matter how hard I try to escape it; my future has already been decided.

I stand all the way up, my body complaining with every movement. Limping slightly, I trudge slowly towards the door of my house and resignedly head inside.