on earthquake street

On the footpath leading down to the waterfront sits an empty fridge.

This abnormal feature is normal here on my street. This is a cobblestone street which is so quiet that every movement seems endowed with a certain meaning.

The few cars that venture down this street go either very slow or very fast. If a lorry shows up, it's lost, gets stuck and mangles cars in its way, or make the buildings vibrate. This is a street where a man can stop his car to get out and shout at another driver, like they do in France. It's a place for the Ghostbusters' car (painted pitch black) to pull up for a recreational break.

The people who walk past are also strange. Youngsters of nationalities not normally seen here. Romani women in skirts too heavy for them, waiting outside closed doors. People walking dogs that seem to belong to somebody else - like the cool dude with a dorky chihuahua, the guy who gets pulled into the hedge by a small spaniel, the man too old to walk at all who shuffles around with a rollator and a patient terrier. People who shout at prisoners, people who rent rooms in prisons, prisoners out on work release.

For this is a quiet, lovely back street in a small city, with a seaview, and a prison. Some of the passers-by are girls in impossibly high heels and low cleavages, going to visiting hours on Sunday afternoons. Odd assortments of other visitors pretending not to see each other as they wait for the gate to open. Lawyers adjusting their ties as they park outside the gate. Conservatively dressed outreach teams carrying guitars. Police vans. And on the other side of the wall, men in grey looking bored and not looking up at us who are looking down at them from apartment buildings next door.

This is a street where you get to know the crows in the lime tree. Where hares come into the front yard in the evenings. Where you can watch large birds of prey and feel the full force of the west wind. Where the Pizza King lived and an earthquake once struck.

Once a year this slow back street fills to bursting with people for approximately half an hour, around midnight on New Year's Eve. The street is gridlocked and people are moving in cheerful crowds to find the best place to watch the fireworks. Around the bay are thousands of lights, thousands of laughs. People get drunk, eat hot dogs, set off their own fireworks in the crowd, kiss, shout, hope.

I watch this with a sense of wonder. Half an hour later, the cobblestones are deserted once again for another year. The stars shine over this street.