Grand Avenue

Every corner was a ghost town, all the bistro seats upside down on the tables, a good many neon signs still promising "open." Traffic lights continued their three-bulb cycle, stop, stop, go, wait, commanding even spirits to wait their turn. The main street was slick with recent rain, and the lack of cars made it possible to hear the sticky hiss of tires three blocks away, rolling through the downtown area. This is a boulevard of locked doors. There was no one crossing against the lights, looking in store windows , cracking their knuckles, and rubbing their necks. The lack of cars racing from one stoplight to the next made the lowest tone and timbre louder, brighter, more definitive in how the sound seems to explode with expressiveness. The breeze sang shrilly over the rooftops, the power lines snap like whips in the draft. A car alarm screams bloody murder in a strip mall parking space. It all becomes orchestral, arranged, discordant sound insertions over the asphalt, cement, and short-circuiting neon signs.  Each building was for sale, and there was no cure.