no one else seemed to notice

The parking guard was picking his nose again, as if he were trying to uncover some long-lost secret hidden in his sinuses. His stiff fingers worked the nugget loose and held it for a moment, like a tiny secret he was deciding whether or not to share. Then, with a flick, it sailed off and landed on the stray cat stretched across the hood of a beat-up sedan. The cat blinked once, utterly indifferent. I guess it had seen worse things fall from the sky.

Spring had touched the street, but the guard seemed even more out of place than last week, as if he’d been sewn into the day wrong—like an old quilt made from mismatched pieces. His grumpiness felt out of season, and he knew it.

“If no one cares, was it ever more than the feather of a dinosaur, pressed into a rock lost to time?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure if I was talking to him, the cat, or myself. The question seemed to float away, untethered, joining the general nonchalance of the scene.

The guard wiped his hand on his pants and stared down the street, his eyes fixed on something far away. The buildings piled up in the distance, jagged and uneven, forming the shape of a mountain that no one else seemed to notice.