R.I.P.
Soon, the town’s newest car park will be striped with parallel lines in red paint: a fitting colour, Maude thinks. But today its cement is wet. Wearing black rubber boots, she steps into it and starts stamping out the imprint of her first letter.
Lungs afire, she plods up and down, back and forth, making sure each footfall lands with a squish precisely where it ought to. Her fifteen minutes of fame must be worth the effort. A group of gaping children gathers, astonished to see an old woman vandalizing public property. She lifts her eyes to judge them and wonders if she’ll finish her message before the police arrive, but does not speed up, planting one careful foot in front of the other until the end is reached.
Clumps of cement adorn her boots as she stands on the pavement admiring her footwork. Mesmerised children congregate behind her. She pictures her old house folded up like a concertina beneath the epitaph she trampled over it. Laying to rest her terrible secrets, Maude limps away, smiling.
(c) Copyright 2008 Christine Todd
First published in the Leaf Books anthology, Imagine Coal and More Micro-Fiction
