"Askew"

 

"That streetlamp over there," the man said, pointing at a decorative lighting fixture on the other side of the road, "is leaning way too far over, don't you think?"

Its metal body jutted a few feet into the roadway space, like a thrillseeker seeing how far she could lean over a cliff, whereas normally it stood a few feet taller and vertical, like a poet enjoying the view. "That could be an issue," the woman acknowledged.

"Someone should probably be called about that," the man said. He took his phone with him into another room but returned twenty minutes later, banging the phone against his forehead.

"I was on hold for, like, fifteen minutes," he informed her. "I finally got someone who connected me to another department, who said they'd place the request for repair in the appropriate crew's work queue, but I could expedite the request if I came in and filled out form jay-one-six-I-don't-freaking-know."

The woman nodded in response and went outside. The man looked on as she lay on her belly on the path leading to their porch, with her head close to the stones that filled in their landscaping. "If you could talk to your friends underneath, please?" she said.

"Not a problem," said a voice that came from the cluster of stones. Instantly the earth below them gave a shudder, and the shudder rippled across the street like a wave in the pond. The man and the woman watched as the ground around the streetlamp churned, pushing the pole upright.

The woman sat up on the walkway and the man came outside to sit next to her. "Sometimes it's just a matter of knowing how you can best make change happen," she said. "I mean, to be fair, that office you called is really good with the water bills." They saw a utility truck drive by them, zipping past the decorative lamp that the earth had stood straight.