The Footpath That Disappeared Twice
Citation
For demonstrating that a footpath, like all things of true character, cannot be held against its will, and for teaching a generation of pedestrians the discipline of the open road.
The Account
The footpath first disappeared gradually, in the manner of a thing losing faith in itself. Its tiles loosened, were borrowed for other purposes, and one season simply ceased to be there. The institution recorded its passing with respect.
Public sentiment, however, demanded its return, and so it was rebuilt — wider, brighter, and trimmed with a kerb of genuine ambition. For a time it was the pride of the sector. Children walked upon it. An elderly resident wept.
Then, with a consistency the institution finds deeply moving, it disappeared again. Not gradually this time but with conviction, surrendering once more to the road, the parked vehicle, and the encroaching tea-stall that had always believed the space was rightfully its own.
The footpath now exists chiefly as a memory and a faint ridge in the asphalt. Pedestrians, long adapted, walk the carriageway with the easy grace of those who never truly trusted the pavement to stay.