Vignette City 41.

*** ‘Vignette City’ is an ongoing project of daily writing and urban photography ***

My building is going to get torn down because it is one hundred and twenty-four years old and also because of the fire damage from the dragons last month.

Structurally the building is fine as long as you do not live over in the north side, so I don’t know what the hurry is. It isn’t dangerous. Unless you live over on the north side, but very few of those people survived anyway, so it doesn’t seem like there should be a hurry.

Already though I can see the signs that the exodus is beginning. That couple up the hall who have that kid whose croup I suffered through without even complaining very much has started bringing back random cardboard boxes from their jobs. So they will be gone soon. Good riddance, now that they’re showing their real colors.

And the smell is not that bad. Sure, it was pretty pungent the first few days after the fire and the water from the fire engines and then the slow wet molding smell of all the burned flesh and fat during the first week or so, but we have all gotten used to it now. I barely even notice it most of the time most of the days. It isn’t as if it is intolerable.

I have tolerated worse.

There was that Italian man on the third floor who was stealing my panties for a while. That was worse than some bad smells.

He’s dead now. Melted last month in his little panty-stuffed studio apartment on the north side of the building.

So that worked itself out just fine. I don’t know what everyone is complaining about.

I’m not complaining. Sure, there is a cold draft blowing in through the burn scars at the north end of the hall. There are street birds nesting in some of the hallway sconces now, and they defecate on the carpet, but how bad is that? In the big picture? Is that worth abandoning your home over? Some pigeon droppings in the hallway? Is that so bad that you want to leave your home because of it? Is that worth betraying all the happiness that you had here? Is it worth giving up on this place where your husband used to sleep? Where he was happy for the last time ever in his life? Are some birds so bad? Some rain and some cold drafts? Are those such a problem? When this is the last room where you ever kissed your husband? When this is the last real home you will ever have?

I don’t give up so easily.




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