Wrung Out

Halfway down the block the net has sagged to head height in one long belly, dripping, and the pavement under it is dark. Two people stand on ladders with their arms up in it. On the ground a woman in a hard hat holds a rope run through a block and tackle, spliced and taped in three places. She looks at you once and puts the end in your hands.

On three you haul. The belly lifts a hand's width, and water pours out of the air plants in a sheet and down the gutter, and the street smells of the rosemary that grows along every fence. Overhead the net lets go of lavender and rain. Under both, from the water, comes something thin and sour. Metal.

Nobody says anything. The woman holds a jar in the stream until it is full, screws the lid down, and holds it out.

Since the rain, she says. Somebody under the highway measures things.