The street that did not fit

An original first-person fictional account of an invented map consultation.

The new town map was spread across the consultation table, glossy enough to reflect the ceiling lights. I found the river first, then the school and the road that curved behind it. Our street should have occupied the narrow space beside the playing field. On the map, the space belonged entirely to the field.

I put a finger where our front door ought to have been. The paper gave no resistance. It was an oddly discouraging answer from something I had not asked to speak.

The designer listened while I explained. He did not deny that the street existed. He said that at this scale, some of the smaller roads could not be shown separately. I wanted to tell him that the road contained thirty-two homes, a cracked blue postbox and the place where my neighbour always stopped to retie her shopping bag. Instead, I repeated its name, louder than necessary.

He brought out a larger map. There it was, accurately bent around the field, its name printed in letters I could read without leaning forward. I felt foolishly relieved, then annoyed with myself for accepting a change of paper as reassurance. The houses had not needed the designer's permission to remain standing.

We looked again at the small map. Its purpose was to help visitors find the main public buildings, not every address. I could see why a page full of tiny streets might make that harder. I could also imagine someone arriving at the field and wondering where we had hidden ourselves.

The designer added a note directing readers to the detailed street map online. It did not put our front door back beneath my finger. It made the small map admit that there was more to the town than it could hold.

How does the writer present the narrator's response to finding their street missing from the map? Support your answer with references to the passage.