The
squad car crawls incremental through the pedestrianised shopping centre, the
sole automobile within the shifting and variegate mass of plastic bags carried
at near uniform height above the concrete; its driver meeting all this glare
and movement with an indifferent and unchallenged squint.
Its
continuous slow passage between the people.
The
rhythmic static, the hiss and crack of police radio finds itself a counterpart
in the illegible smear of ink upon the back of the officer’s hand, and in this
and in the fuss of all else, the car itself rendered damn near inaudible.
Mother
(laughing): Here she is officer, here’s the one you’re after
as
her young daughter breaks free from off her arm and begins to circle the
still-moving car, and shouting loudly
ache1
before she became ache1: BAD BOYS! BAD BOYS! BAD BOYS!
her
volume increasing each time she passes either of the open windows, so
ache1
before she became ache1: BAD BOYS! BAD BOYS! BAD BOYS! BAD
BOYS! BAD BOYS! BAD BOYS!
until
the car comes to a standstill, though its prior progress has been so slow that
anyone on the move themself would need allow time for the comprehension of
this.
ache1
before she became ache1 is rounding the back of the car when the cop
flares the merest fragment of siren, the swell of this noise held short and its
diminuendo exhalation afloat forever upon the balm of noon, as every ported
heart within hearing synchs to the leap of that initial blast, each then
returning to the meter peculiar to itself.
Mother
and child regard each other across the car, and then not, as it vacates the
space between them, and is slowly gone.
