Vox Meditantis

5 responses to “The Last Quarter”

1. 

   Sheknowsallblog

   15/09/2026

   Bob, “whispered to a dryer door” is such a haunting detail for an answer that big, setting something so quiet and personal against a city literally going dark is a gut punch even from the summary alone. Heading over to Medium to read the whole thing.

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   1. 

      Bob Lynn

      16/09/2026

      Yeah. Thanks. I guess.

      I don’t know about haunting. It wasn’t haunting. It was a dryer. You say something to a dryer, it don’t look at you. It don’t go “and then what.” It don’t write it down in a folder and say now you gotta do something about it. It just turns. That’s what a dryer do. It takes what you put in and it turns it round and it gets hot and then it stops. You don’t gotta be nothing to a dryer. You don’t gotta follow through.

      That’s why I said it there. Not to her. Cause if I say it to Nia, then it’s a thing I said to Nia, and Nia gonna look at me and say “so what you gonna do,” and I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I’m nineteen. I work at a warehouse. I can’t fix a streetlight. I can’t fix a city. I couldn’t even fix the wash cycle, I made everything pink. So what am I gonna do, say “I’ll handle it”? I can’t handle nothing. And she’d believe me. That’s the thing. She’d believe me cause she ten and I’m there and that’s enough for her. And then I’d be a person who said a thing and didn’t do it. And I know what that looks like. I seen it.

      My old man said stuff. Out loud. To people. Big stuff. “I’m gonna be here Saturday.” “We gonna go to the lake.” “I’m gonna sort it.” Said it looking you in the eye. And then Saturday. And then the lake. And then the sorting. And he’d say it like he meant it when he said it. I think he did mean it when he said it. I think the saying was the doing, for him. He said it and that was enough and then the saying evaporated and nobody could hold it against him cause he already moved on.

      I don’t say stuff. To people. I say it to the dryer. I say it to the washer. I say it to the car when the car won’t start and I go “come on, come on,” like the car cares. I said “I’m sorry” to the kitchen floor once when I dropped a glass and cut my hand and Ma was at work and there was nobody there. I said it to the floor. To the glass. Cause the glass don’t say “what for.” The glass don’t need you to explain yourself.

      So yeah. The dryer. The dryer don’t need me to explain myself.

      But you said gut punch. And I don’t know. I wasn’t trying to gut punch nobody. I was trying to not say it. I was trying to keep it in. And it come out sideways cause she kept pushing and I was tired and the dryer was right there and it was turning and the sound of it was loud enough that I thought maybe she wouldn’t hear. And she leaned in. That’s what she do. She lean in. She don’t let you have the thing. She lean in and she say “what” and you gotta either say it again or say nothing and if you say nothing she just stand there looking at you till you do.

      And the porch. You wanna know about the porch since you said gut punch. I stand on the porch. That’s all. I stand there. But here’s the thing nobody tell you about standing on a porch in the dark when you’re waiting for somebody. You start counting. Not numbers. Rhythms. Her shoes. The little heel. Tik tik tik tik. And you know where she is by the sound. When she come off Grand River the sound change cause the pavement’s different, it’s got them cracks, so it go tik-tik tik-tik uneven. And then when she hit the alley stretch where there ain’t no light at all, you can’t hear her for about eight seconds cause the ground’s dirt and gravel and the sound go soft. And those eight seconds. You stand there. You hold the door so the kitchen light come out on the step. You don’t go out there. You can’t go out there cause then she’ll say “you don’t gotta do this” and she’ll be right. But you stand there. And you count the eight seconds. And if it’s nine, you go to the edge of the porch. And if it’s ten, you go down the step. And it ain’t never been ten. But I count.

      And the dark ain’t just dark. People say dark like it’s one thing. It ain’t. There’s the dark where you can still see shapes. And there’s the dark where you can’t see nothing but you can hear the cars on the next street and you know where you are. And then there’s the dark where the alley is and you don’t know where you are and you just walk and trust your feet know the cracks in the pavement. And Ma walks in that last one. Every double. And I stand in the first one, the porch one, where the kitchen light reach, and I listen for her come out of the third one into the second one into the first one. And when I hear the tik tik tik on the step, I go back inside and I sit on the couch and I pretend I was watching TV. And she come in and she say “you up?” and I say “yeah.” And she say “you don’t gotta wait up.” And I say “I wasn’t.” And she know I was. And I know she know. And we don’t say nothing else. And that’s the whole thing. That’s the whole conversation. Every double.

      And Darnell. You don’t know about Darnell cause Nia don’t know about Darnell not really. She know of him. She seen the shoes. The shoes with the lights in the heel. I was eight. He was five. He was little and his shoes broke and his mama couldn’t get new ones that week so I gave him mine. They still lit up. I didn’t know why but they still lit up. And he wore them for a year. And then he got too big for them and his mama got him new ones and he put mine in a bag and I kept them. And then April. And the crosswalk on Ashland. And the car. And the dark where the light don’t work. And now he’s in Ohio at his aunt’s and he walk with a limp and I text him sometimes and he send back a thumbs up and that’s it. That’s the whole friendship now. A thumbs up. From Ohio.

      And I think. I think if the light was on, on Ashland, maybe the car see him. Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe the car don’t stop anyway. Maybe it don’t matter. But I think about it. I think about the eight seconds and the alley and the tik tik tik and Darnell in the crosswalk with them shoes that don’t light up no more. And I think, if I could put one thing back. One thing. It’d be the lights. Not cause it fix everything. It don’t fix the pool or the Ferrises or the buses or the brooms in the dollar store. But it fix the eight seconds. It fix the porch. It fix Ma walking with her keys out. It fix Darnell in the crosswalk. It fix the part where you can’t see the person coming and you just gotta trust they coming.

      And I said that to the dryer. Cause the dryer don’t ask me how I’m gonna do it. The dryer just turn.

      Anyway. You said it was haunting. I don’t know. It was just a thing I said cause I was tired and she was leaning in and the machine was loud. That’s all. Don’t make it into more than that.

      But. Thanks. For reading it. For saying what you said. Even if I don’t know what to do with it.

      Marcus.

      P.S. The jumper come out alright. The pink one didn’t. Ma said “what is this” and I said “it’s a colour.” She said “it’s a mistake.” I said “same thing.” She made me rewash it. It’s still a little pink. I wear it anyway.

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2. 

   Priti

   16/09/2026

   Well written. I think the safety of women

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   1. 

      Bob Lynn

      16/09/2026

      Thank you Priti. And also I think you didn’t finish. You said “I think the safety of women” and then it just stops. Like when Marcus stops talking and you can tell there’s more but he won’t say it. So I’m going to pretend you were going to say something and I’m going to answer it anyway because that’s what I do. Mr. Wallace says I have “a surplus of conversational initiative” which is a nice way of saying I don’t stop.

      The safety of women. Yeah.

      So here’s a thing. Ma keeps her keys between her fingers when she walks. Like a claw. Three keys sticking out. She showed me once, in the kitchen, she said if somebody come at you, you do this, and you go for the eyes, and you run, and you don’t look back, and you holler. And then she put the keys back in her bag and said but nobody’s gonna come at you, Nia, I’m just showing you. And then she made me practise on the cushion. The couch cushion. I had to stick the keys in three times. She said harder. I don’t think I did it harder enough. She didn’t say I did it good.

      And also. When she gets off the double and she’s walking from the bus stop on Grand River, I can hear her before I can see her. Because she’s got them shoes with the little heel, not a big heel, just a little one, and they go tik tik tik on the pavement. And I know it’s her because nobody else walks like that on our street. Nobody else is walking at half two in the morning. And I sit at the window, the one in the front room that’s got the crack in the corner from when Ray-Ray hit it with a baseball in 2010, and I wait for the tik tik tik. And I count. From when I hear it to when she’s at the porch, it’s supposed to be forty seconds. And if it’s more than forty seconds I stand up. And if it’s more than a minute I go to the door. And Marcus says sit down, Nia, but he’s standing at the door too. So we’re both standing. And we don’t say nothing. We just stand.

      And also the women at church. After the Wednesday service, the evening one, they walk in pairs. They always do. Even if they live on the same street, even if it’s two houses, they walk together. Aunt Renee walks Mrs. Tillman to her porch and then Mrs. Tillman walks Aunt Renee back to her car, which is stupid because then Mrs. Tillman has to walk back by herself, but they do it anyway. They’ve always done it. Ma said they done it since before the lights went out. She said they was doing it when I was a girl. So that’s not new. The walking in pairs is not new. The dark just made it so you can see why.

      And Keisha’s mum drives everywhere. Even if it’s two blocks. Even if it’s the shop on the corner where you can see the sign from her porch. She drives. And Keisha said why you driving, it’s right there, and her mum said get in the car, Keisha. And she didn’t say why. She didn’t have to.

      And I practise. In the living room. I walk from the couch to the kitchen and I try to walk like Ma walks. Fast but not running. Head up. Bag on the shoulder not in the hand, so your hands are free. And I try to look tall. I’m not tall. I’m four foot two. In November I’ll be four foot three probably. And I think, if I was tall, maybe I wouldn’t have to walk so fast. Maybe the fast is for people who are small. And then I feel bad for thinking that because Ma is not tall neither and she walks fine. She walks like she owns the pavement. Even in the dark. Even with the keys.

      And I think. I think the thing is. You said “the safety of women” and I think you were going to say “is the thing” or “matters” or “should come first” or something. And I think, yeah. But also. It’s not just safety. It’s that Ma shouldn’t have to plan it. She shouldn’t have to know which streetlight works and which one don’t. She shouldn’t have to walk with her keys out and her head up and her bag on the right shoulder because the left one makes her slow on the corner. She shouldn’t have to be brave about a walk. A walk is just a walk. Keisha’s mum shouldn’t have to drive two blocks. Aunt Renee shouldn’t have to walk Mrs. Tillman in a circle.

      Marcus said put the lights back on. And I think that’s part of it. But also I think it’s that nobody should have to be brave about going home. That’s what I think. That’s my conclusion, probably. Mr. Wallace would say I need to support it with evidence but I think the evidence is the keys. The evidence is the forty seconds. The evidence is that I know the sound of her shoes from two houses away and I shouldn’t have to.

      Anyway. Sorry. That’s a lot. You probably just meant to say one sentence and I did the whole thing. That’s what Marcus says. You talk too much. And I say I know. And he says for real. And I say I know, Marcus.

      Thank you for reading it, Priti. And for saying it was well written. That’s nice. I’m gonna go do my maths now. The actual maths, not the folder.

      Nia.

      P.S. I’m eleven in November. So if you’re wondering, that’s how old I am. Ten. Almost.

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3. 

   Priti

   16/09/2026

   💐🙏🏼

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