Neighborhood Story

Here's my horribly plotless, meaningless, and depthless story about my interesting-less neighborhood:
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I know the sun is starting to set because we live on the west side of the condo, my desk always facing the sinking orange orb. In collaboration with our pale window curtains, the sun casts strange, long orange lines on my desk and homework. I also know I am a procrastinator, because I am arguing with my mom over who should go to print some of my pictures for an English class project out at FedEx Kinko’s. She says I am old enough. They are my pictures. I argue that I have too much homework (due to procrastination). I am too lazy.

In the end, I am armored with a thin sea-green jacket, a ten dollar bill in my jeans pocket. My mother wins because she is always right. My lack of time as an excuse rarely works. Somehow the elevator ride down seven floors seems too slow, as I listen to an intelligent voice announce the first floor. I step through my building’s revolving doors, whishwoosh-whishwoosh. The air is sweet, tangy with wafts of dark chocolate from a chocolate factory several blocks northeast. The May weather is nice, but I walk briskly to FedEx Kinko’s (wishing I had some Starbuck’s coffee first).

As I walk back home, I start across the street towards the fresh fish market. I stare longingly, for I want to eat some salmon. The May breeze blows a whiff of the wet, slimy smells of fish and the ocean while the CTA Halsted bus pulls up and blocks my view. When the bus has pulled away, I see several teenage boys attempting to pull tricks on their skateboards. They must be bringing back the skateboard trend, I muse, as I think back to several classmates of mine who have been regularly bringing skateboards to school.

After I get home, my mother has dinner ready. I help her clear the table, scoop two bowls of rice, and retrieve two pairs of chopsticks. With the rice and plates of veggies and meat steaming, I suddenly feel my appetite increasing. It is as if my stomach is endless, and I start to eat quite ferociously. My mother and I are both silent, and I know as always that my mother is thinking about what my father is eating right now.

Not long after, the silence is pierced by a shiver-inducing screeching noise followed by a short BOOM of crunching metal. Both my mother and I rush over to the window to find that there has been a crash between two black cars. One is sadly wedged between a pole and the fish market (somehow) and the other car is invisible in our angle of view. My mother and I go out onto our balcony for a closer look. I chuckle as I see that our neighbors on both sides are on their respective balconies as wells. Both cars are fairly crushed and damaged, and luckily no pedestrians were involved. My mother sighs. Crashes at this particular intersection have already happened several times in the past. Cars are too busy speeding down the slope of a bridge coming from around Grand Street to slow down at the Fulton-Halsted intersection. My mother and I then go back to our cooling dinners, chatting about my upcoming graduation.

A few months later, as I wait at the Halsted bus stop to go to swim team practice, I will notice that a stop sign has been placed at the intersection. And I will not witness another crash in the area for quite some time.