ON the way here

On the way here, the sidewalk started wobbling. I thought at first it was me, like maybe I broke a heel or something, but then I saw a guy in front of me lean against a mailbox. Too much to drink, he muttered. I didn’t correct him. I figured out that if I slid my feet while I walked the wobbling sort of evened out so it was more like ice skating, or how ice skating would be if there were hills. It would have been okay then except the wobbling turned into something more like bouncing. I was starting to take it personally. What did the sidewalk have against me anyway? Did it want me to be late? I tried stamping my feet, pushing down really hard in an effort to quell the cresting concrete. It didn’t work. I tried jumping from swell to swell, timing each leap so I could skim the tops like a squirrel leaping across branches. That didn’t work either. I looked around me to see how other people were dealing this this sudden complication but the other side of the street was calm. Flat. Gray. Normal.