DON'T OWN ANYTHING CANON. DO OWN EVERYTHING ELSE
A city is where one moment holds a host of possibilities.
But it is the most fundamental of those possibilities that we hold on to and care about the most.
Right now someone is dying, someone is being born, and two people are falling in love in New York City. And 12:14 PM on the third of May 1900 was no different.
In a brick apartment building in Brooklyn a woman of about twenty was giving birth to her first and only child. It wasn't that she didn't want anymore children; it's just that she was going to die.
Her daughter wouldn't be all together bright and end up being a secretary in the twenties with a short skirt and even shorter hair.
And on an old lady's front steps, that little piece of sidewalk she called her own, Mush Meyers would meet Coin Carrigy.
And it would go downhill from there. Or uphill. Depends on how you look at it.
Mush was nonchalantly wandering up and down the street. He was bored, tired, and hungry. But, one more paper sold would give him enough to have lunch. He fixed his old cap trying to stuff his unruly curly hair underneath it and gave up screaming headlines. He took a seat on the old lady's front stoop.
Coin was taking a day off school. She had set off for Saint Mel's School in her uniform for class earlier that morning but halfway there she decided that maths and English weren't in her agenda that day. She arrived in the old brick school and faked being ailed with the plague so Sister Mary Aileen sent her home.
She spent the day hiding behind carts so as not to get caught ditching school. Mush yawned, listened to his stomach growl.
Back in Brooklyn, the midwife said it wasn't looking good.
"She probably won't make it…"
"Oh God. How the hell am I supposed to raise a brat by myself?" the father asked. He had already drowned out his wife's screams of pain in whiskey and now his words were becoming slurred.
Coin wandered down the street. She had decided upon buying a paper but was without a newsboy. 'When you don't want a paper they're screaming in your face. When you do want one they're no where to be found'.
She passed by Mush, and stopped when she realized the pile of papers next to him.
If all of New York had been quiet, Mush and Coin could have probably heard the wails of a mother about to die.
"Gone on strike again?" she asked with a smirk.
"No…want one?" he asked eagerly.
She bought the paper and sat down next to him, opened it up and began to hum to herself as she read the day's news.
"GOD please God…make it stop," the cries were becoming louder, more feverish.
"Shouldn't a girl like you be in school?" he asked, pointing at her uniform.
"Yea…decided not to today. Couldn't stand another day of being told what to do by nuns."
"I wish I could go to school"
The mother was feeling anger in her last breaths. "YOU BASTERD! You did this to me!"
Coin's cheeks got hot. She felt how selfish she was. Mush took off his hat and twitched, embarrassed by what he just said.
A baby cried. Loud, raucous cries that tore apart everyone who heard them. The mother lay lifeless on her own bed. God decided it was time for her to go, and she went.
Coin vowed to never ditch school again.
"But I can see why you wouldn't want to go," Mush said, grinning from ear to ear.
A woman died to bring her child into this world. That child came and did nothing but take up space. But because of her sacrifice, the baby had a chance.
Two teenagers blushed and laughed and felt the dizzying high of falling in love.
Shout outs to: C.M Higgins, Lyra.