With the City on Her Shoulders

by Carol Scheina

Before Mavis left home, she wrapped herself in the city. When the light hit her jacket just right, it flickered with swirls of boldly colored graffiti.  As she rushed, her footsteps screeched like a rattling subway. On her shoulders, miniature, ghostly skyscrapers lit up like constellations each night.

Mavis couldn’t fully leave  her city behind,  yet she carried curiosity inside her like a winding road that stretched to an endless horizon, spurring her soul to twitch with wonder. What else was out there, down those highways she’d never traveled? The city would be there when she returned, but for now,  she had to see where those roads would take her.

Outside the city, Mavis found others who wrapped themselves in their homes: those with small towns on their shoulders, where baskets of ruby-red blossoms dangled from streetlights and the tallest building stood only two stories; people wrapped in seaside communities echoed with the squawks of seagulls and gave off a salty breeze that tousled their hair.

Coffeeshops were one of the best places to discover  the different hometowns people draped about themselves like scarves. She always made sure to stop at one in the mornings, where she would sip chai as her shoulders gave off faint honks and exhaust clouds from a morning rush hour. Although she liked to observe the other customers, they didn’t give her more than a passing glance—not until she visited the  small café with bubblegum-pink metal chairs. That day, her shoulders had rang with gunshots, followed by wailing sirens The other patrons had scraped their metal seats closer to the man wrapped in mountains full of comforting bird  song.

Mavis frowned as she sipped her chai. It wasn’t like they never had sirens raging. No place was perfect. But she felt the city on her shoulders get a little heavier.

She hated that weight of shame. 

If only someone took the time to examine her city a bit closer. They’d learn that beneath the scent of hotdog carts, you could inhale the aromas of a dozen different cuisines. If you’d listened beyond the rush of traffic, you could hear the saxophone players outside the subway stops, bidding a wailing farewell of jazz to commuters descending underground.

But as Mavis sipped her tea in her bubblegum-pink chair, no one was close enough to notice those things. She decided to hit the road again, keeping her subway rattle-tread quiet as she slipped out the coffeeshop’s glass doors.

She was already feeling on edge that evening when she pulled up to a highway diner. There, the server’s eyes lingered on the faint buildings rising from her shoulders like tall epaulets. He apologized for staring, then asked if she was from one of those big cities, like you’d see in the movies. 

Mavis sighed. No, she wasn’t from one of those movie cities, but her city was still lovely. Look at the colorful graffiti on her jacket: like candy swirls against the gray and burgundy walls of the buildings.

The server looked nervous as he stared at jacket’s artwork, then muttered that it looked like ugly gang symbols.

No, they were part of the city, and she loved them, and … it didn’t matter because the server had moved on. 

Mavis felt small, as if she could slip between the lines of the diner's black-and-white tiled floor. The road in her soul was changing from the smooth asphalt of adventure into bumpy, teeth-grinding gravel. She’d gone out to see the world, not to feel ashamed of where she’d come from.

How to tell people about her home? Cities weren’t like oceans or mountains, which snatched your breath away at first glance.

Maybe the schools didn’t score the highest on the standardized tests, but they had Mrs. Gilbert, who’d taught students to think critically and aim high. Then there was Mr. Ray, who’d introduced Mavis to chai and  owned the oldest coffeeshop in the city, where the tables were shiny with the lacquer of years . But she just couldn’t make other people see the city as she did.

Maybe she should go through life with no city on her shoulders, no subway jazz or hotdog stands or Mrs. Gilbert or graffiti or—

Mavis had started to bunch up her jacket when a voice in the diner rang out: “Excuse me, but I was trying to copy some of the artwork on your coat. I don’t mean to bother you, but could you leave it out for a bit longer?”

Mavis turned. The young woman with a sketchbook in the next-over booth seemed to waver like heat over sand, with ghostly cacti spouting from her shoulders.

“The colors are beautiful,” the cacti-woman said. “Where you from?”

Mavis felt shy, but she let the words float out,  ghostly skyscrapers twinkling  around her shoulders. 

The woman smiled as she listened. “ I’d love to visit one day.”

A jolting sensation struck Mavis: the road in her soul grew, forming a bridge snapping into place with the cacti-woman. Her first-ever bridge. Her first connection with someone outside her city.

The road inside her smoothed, and her feet twitched once more with the urge to see what lay beyond the horizon. Only now, she wanted to build. as many bridges as she could, for it felt amazing: like all the electricity of her city was surging through her, lighting up in a smile that shone onto the cacti-woman:

“I’d love to hear about where you’re from.”

Carol Scheina is a deaf speculative fiction author from the Washington, D.C. region. Many of her stories were thought up while sitting in traffic, resulting in tales that have appeared in Flash Fiction Online, Escape Pod, Diabolical Plots, and other publications.
You can find more of her work at carolscheina.wordpress.com.