Discoveries

BANG! The sound of gunfire echoed throughout the neighbourhood. The silence that followed was just as scary. No-one could be found lingering on the streets because when the gangs were out, the neighbours were in. Karen found that this was the best time to explore the streets. No prying eyes to wonder at the strangeness of her behaviour or curious mouths to disrupt her searchings. She could walk, creep, crawl, amble, or meander around being herself which was just as well because being yourself happened to be a hard thing to come by in this neighbourhood. The unspoken rules weighed down minds full of wondrous imagination.

Looking around quickly Karen decided to tiptoe out of her back door and through the back streets of her house. The sky was mixed with grey and white with a hint of peeking blue in anticipation of yet another downpour. She had forgotten an umbrella in her rush to get out resulting in a lack of “proper” clothing. In a plain casual white dress and black thongs she found she was much freer to discover the contents of her streets.

Tiring of her tiptoeing facade she decided to hop over imaginary holes in the path instead. She knew it was dangerous to walk around the streets with a gang out but she knew how to handle herself. Avoid all open spaces and always keep a look out. She also discovered that the gang usually never fired twice due to either accuracy of aim or lack of interest in whatever was being shot. So she was relatively safe as such.

Suddenly, Karen heard raised voices arguing. She quickly ducked and crept towards the sound of the voices edging slightly closer to both the brown wall and the growing noise ahead. Passing under a window she noticed a square hole on the wall and realised that the voices were on the other end of the hole. Since curiosity was one of her major strengths and flaws in her exploratory personality she listened as hard as she could to the antics of the heated argument. As she crouched by the square of sound, she kept up a cautious look out and twitched nervously in case of a hit and run scenario. This was her greatest discovery yet.