Shel Silverstein Sidewalk Ends: Poems Novels & Stories

The grey dust of the lunar surface was a mockery of the silver I had once thought defined my destiny. It was cold, sterile, and tasted of a static that made my tongue feel like it had been brushed with a live wire. I stood on the edge of the jagged, silver-veined ridge, looking down at the world we had just fled. Silver Creek hung in the pitch-black sky like a piece of fruit left to rot in a cellar, wrapped in the violet, suffocating shroud of the "Obsidian Pulse".

I could do this for the rest of my life and not run out of things to say and not run out of silences that feel like home. He did not say this. It was too early for that kind of saying. But he thought it, and he did not put the thought away without looking at it, and that was its own kind of saying. When they finally stood to leave, they stood on the pavement outside in the September afternoon. The light had shifted—gone from gold to something softer, something that suggested evening was not as far away as it had seemed two hours ago. The street was quieter now, the lunch crowd returned to their offices, the school pickup still an hour away. A single leaf drifted down from a tree across the s

We walk into the small Silverlake afternoon, which is sunny and warm and smells the way Los Angeles smells in October when everything in a person's life is going well and the person has no idea it isn't. We walk to the small park on Sunset. The park is the kind of park that has a small dog area and a small fountain and a small coffee cart and a small bench, in the way that small Silverlake parks are small. Lincoln walks. I do not walk. I stand in the small dog area, and I look at my phone. No texts. I look at the sticky note. I have folded it. I have put it in my pocket. I take it out. I read it again.

The beacon grew smaller as the fall night swelled heavier to swallow her. Sidney hesitated, squinting at the shrinking streetlight in disbelief. She shuffled on the gravel, the soles of her shoes grinding on the stones. The instant of silence suffocated her until the sloshing steps through the creek shattered the moment. Sidney whirled around but only saw darkness, hearing the rippled steps moving closer from the black beside her.

The silver in me rises, not to fight, not to crush, but to listen. Pressure mounts. I can barely breathe. I plant my feet. I don’t move. The silver holds—not exploding, not flaring. It anchors. The land listens too. Roots settle. Stones steady themselves. The surge folds in on itself, collapsing like a wave that meets solid rock. Lydia staggers, eyes wide. “What did you do?” she spits. “I stood where it breaks,” I say, quiet but firm. Silence. Real, complete silence. The observer woman lets out a slow breath. “So that’s the difference,” she says, almost to herself.

Tonight, the wind’s got the upper hand; it skates over the rooftops and tugs at the power lines, making them whine like they’re hurt. Streetlamps cut the night into uneven bands of jaundiced yellow. Every few steps, my shadow lurches ahead or folds back under me, lengthening and shrinking like it’s trying on different bodies. The sidewalk is a slick crust, and my boots crack it with each step, echoing just loud enough to make me wish I’d worn something softer.

All sorts of exotic flowers swayed in the evening sun, the air filled with a faint, sweet fragrance. Moonflowers, silver ferns, and other sacred wolf flowers I couldn't name created a dreamlike world. "Asher?" I looked around. "Are you here?" But the garden was quiet. No one answered. Strange. Sophie had clearly said he was waiting for me here... I was about to turn and leave when I heard a loud SLAM behind me. I turned to see the glass door had been heavily locked.

“Funeral’s tomorrow.” I drove around a while before going home to try and clear my head. It didn’t work. I pulled up to the curb on my street, cut the engine, and sat there for a few minutes in the dark. Most of the leaves had fallen off the trees and were skittering along the pavement like rats on ice. The streetlight caught one of the Styrofoam tombstones the kid across the street had put up on his lawn and it cast a shadow like a long thin bridge from their house to Mrs. Walshans’ place.

“I'll be late.” “I’ll wait!" This time, however, in a final look back, he is waiting there until the darkness engulfs him. My shift ends when dusk falls with a violet tinge in the sky. This is the time when the streetlights hum with activity, and I cast my shadow on the sidewalk. I can feel the steps behind me, the corner where I dwell. The steps are calculated. They are the paces of one following me. I turn. Nothing. “He won’t hurt you again.” Now a voice low and far away.

They stood there among the shelves two people who had once burned together, now careful not to touch. “I should go,” he said finally. “Rounds start soon.” She reached out just once and brushed the back of his hand with her fingertips. The same small gesture she’d used in the corridor that last day before everything unravelled. “Take care of yourself, Chidi.” “You too, Ms. A.” He walked away first. She watched him disappear between the stacks. Then she turned back to the poetry shelf, picked up a slim volume by Warsan Shire, and opened it at random.