City (2007)
“Maybe it was recess, or some holiday or the last day of something. The fact is that the playground was overflowing with boys and girls and they were all playing, making a noise that sounded like an aviary, but an aviary where someone was shooting invisible silent bullets, fiercely and with very bad aim.There were a lot of balls, of all sizes, which bounced around and set off geometries against feet, hands, book bags and walls.The school, behind the great aviary, seemed empty.There was no sign o...f the black kid. Every so often someone shot at the basket. But almost no one made it.Gould sat down on a bench near the street, a dozen yards from the school fence. The street ran behind him—grazed by speeding cars and trucks. In front of him there was some grass and then the rusty iron mesh, extending upwards, and finally the playground full of children. There was no rhythm in all that, no order, or center, so that it was difficult to think there, in a sense impossible—to have thoughts. So Gould took off his jacket, laid it over the back of the bench, and sat there, not thinking.The sun was high in the sky.The ball went over the fence, not by much, a few inches, no more.MoreLess
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