S L O W T O W N

Hellos and Goodbyes

With a lit cigarette dangling from his lips, Josh picks up his skateboard, duffel bag slung over his shoulders, and he starts off down the road with his map in hand. He hangs a left instead of the usual right when he reaches the end of his street. Once he's across the street, Josh stops.

His foot is holding the skateboard from rolling away and he begins to read the map. He looks up to see Abby riding past on her bike, turning right.

He envies her.

He wants his old route back.

Josh sighs and continues on his way. He comes to the first few houses and begins placing the mail in each box, walking down the sidewalk with his board under his arm. The cigarette burns slow and he inhales with distaste, placing each letter one by one.

He passes the street his brother delivers on, so he boards his skateboard again and rolls down the road, pulling his cap down, tucking his hair underneath his hat.

Within a couple of hours, Josh reached the last street at the very edge of town, and he sighs in content. He's already burned through three cigarettes, so he decides to keep the rest for later, pulling a piece of gum from the pocket his smokes sit in and begins to chew slowly as he walks down the road.

He barely takes any notice of the people passing him by or the houses he places each letter into.

He barely noticed when he reached the very last house right at the end of the street, isolated from every other house, a few blocks back and surrounded by nothing but trees.

He barely noticed the small boy standing in his front yard, watering the flower beds. As he places the the letter into the pristine letterbox, Josh looks up and catches the stare of a tan male.

"Good morning," Josh smiles politely. The boy finally breaks his stare and looks down to the muddy earth he had obviously been watering for too long, mumbling something to himself. Josh finds this odd as there's no need to water, the heavy rain of the past few days should've already done its job, he wondered what he could be saying. Josh stares a little bit, awaiting a response. The boy is around the same age as him, slightly shorter but thinner, angular, and he looks somewhat afraid that Josh is talking to him.

"Hello," he whispers back, looking up through his lashes. Josh smiles politely, taking an interest in this new acquaintance. "Where's the girl?" The tan boy tilts his head slightly. "I see her deliver the mail through my window," Josh sighs a little.

"That's my sister, I'm the new guy!" He waves his arms slightly and the tan boy dips his head. "I'm Josh," he steps forward a bit, feet squishing under the soggy grass. He extends a hand and the boy just looks at it, and steps back.

With an awkward smile, Josh draws his hand back and watches as the boy stares at his feet.

"I'm Tyler,"

"Nice to meet you Tyler," Josh grins. This was his last house of the day, so he decided to strike up a bit of conversation and take his mind off the anger he still had from this morning.

Josh looks down and notices the two mounds of dirt in the front yard, a couple of flowers growing from them and new shoots of grass springing up. He takes this in as an odd choice of gardening and when he looks back to Tyler, he's still staring at his own feet, lost in a trance

"You know you're watering the driveway right?" Josh cocks his head Tyler looks to the hose, moves it back onto the grass and looks up to Josh, face still the same as when Josh had first saw him, only flushed a light pink now.

Embarrassment.

"Will you come back tomorrow?" Tyler bashfully questions and Josh inhales, raising his brows.

"Possibly, I'm hoping to try and get my old route back actually,"

"Why'd it change?" Tyler asks but this time he's looking at Josh, fully. Josh feels a little uncomfortable in his gaze so he steps back off the grass, flicking his skateboard up into his hand with his foot.

"Family, complications, I guess," Josh shrugs before scratching the back of his neck, Tyler still holding an everlasting gaze on him. "Anyway, I gotta get back to my house, it's getting kinda late," Josh looks up at the sun, obviously still burning bright in the sky with no intentions of leaving just yet. Tyler follows suit and looks up to, before looking back to the ground.

"I'll see you around man," Josh gives a small wave and starts off home.

"Bye Josh," Tyler whispers to himself once he knows the strange boy is out of earshot.