Sixteen an architectural narrative words by emily kruse graphics by emily kruse + eli logan
She counted sixteen on her walk home. The badges that adorned them were the most recent indication of their fate. The week earlier there had been two more. Their remnants made for a substantial addition to today’s collection. At school she overheard the possibility of a second chance. There weren’t any precedents yet around here, she thought. They needed more time, more imagination, more love.
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Her collection was located near sixteen’s end of the street, where space was plentiful and its grungy presence in keeping with the unkempt nature of the lots. She added the day’s haul to the heap of relics-evidence that time had run out for so many.
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She reached her bedroom where she gazed out the window up the hill towards sixteen. It’s face once smiled back at her invitingly in childhood, playing its part as a race finish line, tag safety zone, partner in conversation and confession.
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Over the years its expression had changed into one longing for help. She knew a breezeway for birds would not likely be given a second chance, but she was saddened by the thought of the view from her window without it.
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She stood in front of a pile of rubble that once stood proud. Eyes had fallen on it for decades on that busy street, then at some point it had gone unnoticed. Its portals had recently been filled with whimsical scenes, portraits and patterns from the brush of an anonymous painter. A happenstance canvas of self-expression, she wondered, a failed disguise? She rescued them the day it happened, an artistic- if melancholic- addition to her collection.
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She had a plan. Running down the street, pausing to collect supplies from her stockpile, sixteen once again served as finish line. She climbed, stacked, and stapled, learning the subtleties in the form of sixteen as she ascended. That evening its colors shone bright as the rays of the setting sun fell upon the facade, and the whole neighborhood suddenly felt alive again.
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A friend at school approached her the next day. Noting the addition to her neighborhood, he asked if she had spare material he might use for his own. Happily, she asked him to follow her home. Together they disassembled the previous night’s handiwork, rediscovering the tattered remains the neighborhood had for so long neglected. She gave him the painted panels she admired, knowing that a new neighborhood would love them too. After all, she had another ensemble for sixteen to try on. 8
There was an abundance of brick in the collection. The material had a familiar warmth, a quiet strength. Something pleasing to look upon from her window. Right away she began climbing and stacking, thoughtfully aligning the short ends with the long. Allowing the old to peek through. To assert the dignity long masked by decay. She knew the exterior filter she applied would not fix, but maybe it could inspire. Not an ultimate solution, but a point of departure.
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Almost as soon as the brick had gone up, she was back again deconstructing, passing along the discarded material to a curious neighbor, then creating another incarnation. Alternately revealing and obscuring the familiar face with each iteration.
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This routine continued until her collection was exhausted. She would have to settle for the lively attire that currently adorned the facade. The floral wallpaper print she found had been her last resort, and now the most lasting.
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She counted none on her walk home.
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The bright floral cloak that had come to fit so well now lay crumpled amid the rest of her beloved sixteen. She stared astonished by how quickly its presence had been erased.
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She worked all night. Reaching, climbing, stacking. From memory she crafted a frame following the contours that once defined sixteen. Nearing morning she ran home and grabbed a sheet off her bed. On her way back she asked early rising neighbors if they had any of their own to spare. She hung hers first, and one by one neighbors added theirs to the hanging composition.
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The sun rose as the neighborhood hoisted the frame upright, illuminating the white translucent sheets from behind. They headed home and from their windows saw a ghostly lantern of light that was sixteen.
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Sixteen
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