by Lillian Osbon
“It’s a bit bothersome that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to stuff like this,” I murmur, methodically folding back the edges of the bandage and pressing the sticky part against my friend’s skin to cover the angry red road rash that covers his forearm. It’s the fifth or sixth bandage I’ve had to use, since none of them were large enough to cover any significant area. “I mean, you’d think they’d learn to make bigger Band-Aids by now, right?”
“Or maybe they’ll finally fix the roads instead,” he says, rolling his eyes and shrugging. “Seriously, what’s up with the sidewalks around Charleston? I feel like there’s a new pothole popping up every two or three days. They’re not just bad for drivers, you know.”
“You’d say,” I reply, fixing one last bandage over the road rash. “Didn’t you pop a bike tire going over one once?”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have had to if there were more bike lanes,” he says. “King Street is, like, statistically one of the most dangerous areas in the state for bikers. That’s what SCDOT said in their 2022 bike safety plan, at least.”
“Didn’t the county council have a plan to put in bike lanes?” I tilt my head to the side, glancing down the street. The sidewalks further down King Street are packed full of pedestrians, but I can’t see a single biker.
“They made a committee for it, but it’s been, like… almost a year and nothing has happened,” he says, leaning back against the brick façade of the building behind him. “I’m starting to think they forgot, honestly.”
My eyebrows narrow, and I click my tongue. Shouldn’t the county council’s first priority be ensuring the safety of its citizens? “They have times when residents can address the council at meetings. It might be a good idea to go and speak at one of them sometime,” I say, priming my next sentence – but the words die on my tongue as I watch the corners of his mouth fall into a dismayed frown.
“Man, I would, but it doesn’t feel like it would make much of a difference,” he says, scrunching up his face. “I don’t think they’d listen.”
“Well, why not?” I ask, pressing him further. “If you want to make a change, you have to take matters into your own hands.”
“That’s just the thing,” he says, gritting his teeth. “I know that I’ve gotta make the changes I want to see. The problem is just…” He lets out a sigh, shooting me a look with downcast eyes. “Would they even listen?”
He was starting to lose me. “Why wouldn’t they? Aren’t they obligated to hear everyone out, no matter who it is?”
“Yeah, yeah, they’d hear what I’m saying, but hearing and listening are two different things,” he sighs. “They’d hear me out, but I don’t think they’d listen.” He turns to me, pushing himself off the wall and pacing around our small corner of the street. “You and me, we’re – we’re just kids, okay? We’re still a year shy of being adults, and even then, I don’t think they’d take us seriously.
“I mean, you can see it with the recent cellphone ban,” he says, throwing his hands in the air. “It’s all about the teachers. Teachers who feel distracted, teachers who don’t care, teachers, but never the students. They ask the adults about cyberbullying and distractions, but never the ones that are actually getting bullied. They don’t care, they’re just virtue signaling for brownie points that look better on their yearly reports.
“I don’t feel seen by the people making the rules. I have trouble thinking they have my best interests at heart because everything they do goes directly against that. They’re more focused on restricting us than giving us the tools we need to grow into actual functioning humans.” His shoulders slump, and he sighs, looking down at the ground. “I don’t think these legislators see kids as human beings.”
“...I’m sorry,” I mumble. I’m not quite sure what else to say.
“I just wish something would change,” he says, leaning back against the wall. “I wish that for once, we could be taken seriously. They’re so focused on the little things that they don’t understand why we’re so upset about the big ones.”
I bite my tongue. “To be honest, I didn’t think it was all that bad.”
He raises his head, eyeing me with a solemn luck. “Then you’re the luckiest kid in the state.”
About Lillian Osbon
Lillian Osbon is a senior at Academic Magnet High School in North Charleston, where Melissa Shifflette is her most recent English teacher. As co-leader of the AMHS Creative Writing Club, Lillian helped create Finish Lines and New Beginnings, a school-wide zine of poetry by students in all four grades. Copies raised more than $350 for a local charity. Lillian is a member of the National English Honor Society and the daughter of Laurie and David Osbon of Charleston. She plans to major in criminal justice and minor in communications at Clemson University.