I press on the accelerator when I see within the furthest depths of my field of vision the brightly lit sign of a neighborhood; it reads in Georgian font “Baker’s Mill”. The left-hand blinker clicks to life as my hand spins the steering wheel into the collection of homes.
The headlights of the car set the grayish, glass-laden road into a sparkling frenzy, mimicking the stars in the night sky. Some drunk must have thrown his empty beer bottle on the ground, leaving the job of cleaning up his trash to what has become a lazy neighborhood. The little houses lining the street are lined with skirts of dirt so shockingly disgusting that I look into my rearview mirror to get a second look. Those houses were once so pristine and jovial, filled with laughing children and smiling parents. I turn back to the glass-laden road, now worried that the shards are piercing my wheels. Has Baker’s Mill always been this dirty?