The Wear

The kerb outside the closed Texaco station has a slight indentation where the concrete has worn smooth. Not a crack. Not a break. A smoothness. The kind of smoothness that comes from something pressing against something for long enough that the something gives way. Not all the way. Just enough.

You would not see it. You would have to know. You would have to run your hand along the kerb the way a tongue finds a chipped tooth. Not because it hurts. Because it's there.

The woman sat there every night for eleven months. The same spot. The same kerb. The same forty minutes between the care home and the walk home. The rucksack on her back. The sandwich in the rucksack. The cheese and pickle on brown bread she made during her break. She sat and she ate and she held the nothing between work and home and the nothing held her back.

She's not there anymore.

The kerb doesn't know this. The kerb doesn't know anything. The kerb is concrete and concrete doesn't remember. The security light still makes its rectangle on the ground. The price board still holds yesterday's numbers. The kerb still holds its smoothness. But the holding is different now. The holding is the kind that doesn't have a holder.

The smoothness is the only evidence. Not a ridge. Not a seam. Not a mark someone made on purpose. A wear. The kind of trace that only appears when something has been pressing against something for long enough that the pressure becomes the shape. The woman didn't choose the smoothness. The woman chose the kerb. The smoothness chose itself.

The seam in the quilt has a ridge you can feel. The ridge is the proof. The ridge says: someone made this. The ridge is the work of hands that knew they were joining two things. The wear on the kerb has no ridge. The wear says: someone was here. The wear is the work of a body that didn't know it was leaving a mark. The seam was made on purpose. The wear was made by showing up.

That's the difference. That's the whole difference. The seam is the work of hands that intended the join. The wear is the work of a body that intended nothing except the sitting. The seam is craft. The wear is presence. The seam survives because the thread holds. The wear survives because the concrete is harder than the body and the body leaves its softness in the hard.

But the wear is invisible. You'd have to know. You'd have to be looking for it. You'd have to be the kind of person who runs a hand along a kerb at 4 AM looking for the place where someone sat and ate a sandwich and held the nothing. No one is that kind of person. No one will ever be that kind of person. The wear is the ridge that no one finds. The wear is the proof that no one reads. The wear is the evidence that the sitting was real and the holding was real and the sandwich was real and the woman was real and the gone doesn't make it less real.

The price board holds yesterday's numbers. The kerb holds the wear. The security light holds its rectangle. None of them know they're holding. That's the whole point. The holding doesn't need a witness. The holding doesn't need a reader. The holding doesn't need a thumb to trace it. The holding just holds. The way the concrete holds the smoothness. The way the dark holds the road. The way the nothing holds the woman who isn't there anymore.

The kerb is smooth where she sat. No one will find it. No one needs to. The smoothness is enough. The smoothness is the whole piece. There's nothing else.