Noah Falck



Tainted Suburban Vision

His house had cracked vinyl siding, cobwebbed windowsills, and blind mammals nesting in the chimney. There was a continual scent of expired milk and a trigger-happy answering machine with messages leftover from the college years. We found file cabinets full of hair clippings and heard railroad sounds echo through the attic at night, where the previous owner's daughter made-up astronautic dance steps and assembled rows of model cars replicating the used car dealership down the street. Today, the sheriff stands as a flammable shape silhouetting a chart tacked to the wall with rusty screwdrivers, something is not adding up in his data. No one knew her alias as a paper router. Or when she made the big money deals on a banana-seat bicycle behind Old South Park Church . She used to study herself in the mirror, the magic of makeup. "No one can prove anything," she would tell her reflection. Rain fell like indecisive speech patterns and she thought of ways to avoid the Sheriff like a matador does a bull. Still the positioning of the river, the slight changes in precipitation, and the thought that "one day this could all end" never sunk in. And perhaps, she spent too much time listening for the sun or hopped the wrong crack in the sidewalk because she soon came to the realization that what you don't know may hurt everyone around you.