Author: Sofia Samatar

“I have a question for you,” he said. “Why do you live here?”

Friends and neighbors, I advise you not to walk on Country Club Road.

thought I’d walked everywhere I could in this town, circled every place I could reach from my front door. It was during the COVID-19 pandemic that I really became a walker, during lockdown, when I’d go on long rambles just for something to do.

Tonight I walked past your house and you waved to me from the porch so vigorously it felt like you were glad to see me again, although we’ve never spoken.

Recently a neighbor told me, “I prefer our landscape of chickens and cows to the territory of horses and vineyards over the mountain.”

She sits on an island between two streams of traffic, where Liberty Street and Main Street converge. Three flags rise above her. Bronze, sad-eyed, she extends her arms in a gentle, open posture, her head slightly bowed, compassionate, contemplative, and resigned.

In the relentless heat, one thinks about the future. It’s hard not to wonder where it’s all going, what next summer will be like and the summer after that, walking down Washington Street in the hot, glazed afternoon toward the housing developments on the edge of town.

If you know the Friendly City, you are familiar with its smallest house, tucked into an alley against the wall of the Finnigan’s Cove restaurant. At the moment, the main features of this tiny domicile are a pair of gazebos (one crushed), a white picket fence, a front door, and a window with green shutters.