And the Sun Has Set Behind the Multinational

Once there was a little street. She was very young yet, looking more like a path, surrounded with lush green grass and tiny flowers, meadows and fields. She offered plenty of room for everyone, moles, hedgehogs, frogs, snails, ants and other creepy crawlies, and other little animals. She even offered space to six settlers.   

The night was at her best and the day, too. There weren't many sounds as for the goats, cows, birds and the settler's voices, and the wind in the trees, of course. And, she knew only the smells of nature.   

One day some holes were dug into her green grassy sidewalks and the electric poles were put next to the wooden fences. And the night was still the night, but she wasn't at her best anymore.   

In the next forty years nothing so unsettling happened even when a wider dirt road was connected to it at one end, bringing noise and dust in its vicinity. Only, a few inhabitants made their houses just a bit bigger. And still, she was a narrow path offering a trodden grass-less indentation for everyone to walk upon.    

She was well over fifty years old when a ditch was dug into one of her grassy sidewalks and a water main was laid down. The dwellings have grown a bit bigger with some new inhabitants in its six houses.   

Soon after, in only two years, the path got yet another parallel indentation - the inhabitants started using cars. And yet the street was still the children's playground with its grassy sidewalks and lettuce, and cabbage fields on one side, and opulent gardens with the inhabitant's dwellings on the other.   

Now, more and more inhabitants started using cars instead of legs or bicycles to cross the distance and the cart track street became more and more worn out. Sidewalks became narrower and less and less grassy, and animal inhabitants had less and less space. But the human inhabitants didn't seem to bother.   

Soon the human inhabitants found the macadam street too dirty, and the asphalt coating was laid down on the street, taking away the grassy sidewalks and space for animals. The street didn't smell quite so fresh anymore. Yet, the night was still the night with the stars and the moon on the sky. And, the view was of the fields and meadows around.   

Another twenty years passed and the street's inhabitants renovated their houses making them even a bit bigger and the fields turned into gardens reflecting the seasons with their smells and colors and outlooks. A noisy road was laid down nearby, cutting a big nearby meadow in half. Yet, the night was still quite still and the night sky with its stars and the changing moon, reminding people of the nature's cycles.   

But the 21st century hit the street very hard. Its north view to the fields and the mountain was cut off, being replaced with a red wall of a shopping mall and a noisy well lit street. The street was dug in and out for the entire infrastructure to be laid into the ground. The noise became the street's daily companion. Yet the gardens were still offering a dwelling to many living beings and allowing the sun and the moon to set behind the trees. Some stars were still shining during the clear nights.    

After two years' rest the little street got another inhabitant: a noisy thin plate multinational market chain outlet erasing the big opulent garden side of the street, and replacing it with an asphalted parking lot, street lamps and a white thin plate wall with noisy non-stop cooling system. And another car dealer's shop with high wire mesh fence, neatly parked cars on an asphalted parking lot settled next to it.    

Now, once a quiet street, abundant with life and its sounds, smells and rhythms of nature has matured – into a noisy dead end street, bare with its asphalt coating, with wire mesh and thin wall on one side, and anti-noise wall screen at one end, resounding with the echoing metallic sounds and the scent of gasoline. 

And, after the sun has set behind the multinational, only a handful of the brightest stars were still visible in the night sky. The multinational's neon inscriptions were shining instead, disconnecting the street inhabitants from the natural rhythms. The children no longer played barefoot on the grassy and dirt street, touching the ecstatic skin of the Earth, but at some workshop in the multinational across the street instead.