The City, Pt. 2

The city is empty but for the men who sweep the streets, sweeping and happy to sweep in the quiet, eyes cast down on pebbled pavement, wishing for always to sweep up alone. Your presence there makes them stop with contempt, eyes cast down to trim the edges of your shadow, still as statues until you pass, the echo of your heels reverberating in the dust that floats then settles to be swept. You wonder aloud why the street is so quiet, asking one of the men with brooms but he speaks to you in nonsense, eyes focused on some mirage, lips making shapes for shallow nonsense words to flourish. 

This city is eerie. Makes you tally and take stock of what contents you carry, how much bread and water, oil and cheese. Is it enough, you ask yourself. Enough for what, comes the reply and it sends you back inside yourself where the hearth is wide and warm and burning well. Still, these sweeping men line the streets, sentries of a disordered realm, brooms held crossways like matted shields, hunching to savor their swept-up pain. “Stand still!” they shout, but still you move, making them mutter and curse your shadow, eyes kept down like the bristles of a broom. “Stop!” they shout, but you know it isn’t time, and in your knowing, the street curves west. “To the east!” they cry, a clue for you when west you turn to the sound of the sentries’ pounding their broomsticks against hard stones, rotten wood splintering, street sweepers tumbling over ground like pock-marked pebbles.