Invisible

Grey and green. Everything in my neighborhood is either grey or green. Grey smoke, grey buildings, grey roads.  An old green train, green graffiti, and just a little bit of green grass. Even the run down old grey basketball court has green hoops.
    I make sure to stay in my certain place in town- I have about a mile square. It’s the only way I know I’ll stay safe, if I stay where I belong. And really, there’s no where else I need to go. I have everything I need right in here.
    To the west is an old gas station and a supermarket. They’re both run by Big Al, who’s boy runs the old car place across the street. All three of those places are pretty run down, but I like goin’ over there anyways. They let you have a tab just in case you run out of money some week. Al and Omar are both real nice, and sometimes Al even saves some of his fruit shipments for me.
    They both live in a little green shack behind the car lot. They’ve only got a few neighbors back there, like Old Lizzie. She’s got like a million cats. Her niece or someone lives next door, but she doesn’t have any cats. She has a husband and a couple of kids.
    Across the other street from the car lot is a nice big grassy field. It would’ve been perfect for football if they hadn’t ruined it with a chain-link fence, right down the middle. Behind the fence is a school and a fancy playground. That’s the really little kids’ school, Somebody Malcolm Elementary school. The dumb chain-link fence is 8 feet high and had razors on the top, just so no one gets in at night.
    Then, just to the far side of the school, there’s a little Laundromat. It has green neon signs, making it pretty easy to spot. The building next door to it used to be a restaurant, but it burned down a couple of months ago. No one has the money to get rid of it, so for now it’s just a big blackish- grey pile. It’s real scary at night.
    There’s a trailer park right next to the Laundry House. It’s actually pretty clean and nice and all that, except for all the graffiti. It’s all cause of the gang TenEleven.  They must either really like green or just happen to have a lot of extra green spray paint laying around.
    And of course there has to be a high school. Our high schools are put together- the little kids and us older kids. We’re in the same building, our really huge building. It’s the Seattle River Jr. Sr. High School, which we always laugh at. Seattle is on the other side of America from us, and there aren’t any rivers anywhere near by. I guess the people who named the school weren’t really paying attention.
    Out of no where, passed 14th street, is our downtown. We have two buildings that are pretty tall. Almost skyscrapers, maybe. There’s an abandoned hotel with a parking garage under it and this old apartment building. Those two buildings couldn’t be more opposite. The hotel is long abandoned and really old, but TenEleven lives in there. It’s the oldest building in the whole town, but they actually keep it looking decent. The apartment building is some sort of special people housing, and it looks terrible. It’s a mess. Totally trashed. Families that are too poor to have houses or something live in there, but it’s the worst. No one likes it.
    The other border is all taken up by a giant factory. It’s got all these huge things and machines that are always smoking. I don’t think anyone knows what it does or why it’s there. It just is, and we stay away from it. It’s the only place the police actually come around to, so we don’t.
    Finally, my favorite place is just west, inside my east boundary. It’s the old Baptist church. They have a little store in there, a drinking fountain and the most amazing couches. Some days I just go there after school and just sit and talk to Pastor Lewis for hours. He’s okay. He always listens. But mostly I just go for those couches.
    As for me, my best friend and I live in a little shack under the hotel. It’s on the far side of the parking garage, and it used to be one of those places rich people left their cars for other people to go park them. No one knows it’s there, except for us.
     One of the hotel’s big elevators collapsed into the basement, right into our house. That’s where I sleep now. Otherwise, we have a tiny bathroom and a tiny kitchen and a big other room. Dre has a corner of that big room blocked off to be his bedroom. He fixed up the inside, and I did the outside. I had to pile trash around our house and paint it grey and green, just so it would blend in. And I covered up all the funny glass windows to make it safer.
    It isn’t much. But it’s home. My home.

Okay I know this isn't a story really, and this isnt even the one i was talking about. but i thought i'd share this anyway. just a little scribble i had fun with.

To infinity and beyond! v.i.r.