Gum by Madis Kennedy ‘21

Gum

Sometimes Cassidy did weird things with her feet while she walked. She’d slam her toes into the ground so that every step she took she felt a little less angry at the world. Then she’d reach curb, thirty-six shades of crumbling cranberry, and pause to feel her toenails sinking back into her skin. Cassidy found this method of getting from one place to another quite inefficient. So inefficient in fact, that on the days that she decided to travel like this, she usually missed her bus. Today was one of those days. She arrived 13 minutes after the bus had departed, so she sat on the burning strips of green metal that were the bus stop bench and wrote a list in sharpie on her thigh. It was titled “Things I’d Keep in my Wallet if I Had One”.

A substantial stack of heavy-duty construction paper The things the trees whisper to each other on the days the sun doesn’t want to rise 3 small plastic pouches of snail mucus The smell of turtlenecks and tar one experiences while walking past the Cadillac store 118 tiny paper triangles The comma I tried to delete but was actually dirt on my screen A ripped-in-half receipt from U-Break-I-Fix, the number one fixer of inanimate objects North of Mulholland

She stopped after number seven to investigate a particularly melty piece of gum stuck to the wall of the station. “I think that’s juicy fruit” said a voice behind her. Cassidy responded, still staring at the gum. “Nope, definitely Trident” There was a pause. “Hmm” said the voice. Cassidy turned around. The girl she found herself facing was not who she had imagined to be the owner of the voice. “You’re so shiny” said Cassidy. “Thanks” “No thank you” Cassidy corrected. “For what” “For correcting my gum misidentification” “Oh” The conversation was over. Cassidy stared at the shiny girl who was now counting the coins in her pink coin purse. She wanted to