# @stevedmcdonald on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DVB6t--kT1X
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/63359325-stevedmcdonald-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/336e273502.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-02-21T18:26:18.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Steve McDonald 🎨📚 (@stevedmcdonald) — https://gondola.cc/stevedmcdonald

## Caption

'The Street That Repeats Itself', (or 'More of Steve's Calvinoesque gibberish illo-stories')

...Every evening the street rehearsed the same scene, like a story the town refused to finish.

The driver arrived first. He parked with the accuracy of a ritual, hands still on the wheel, face turned toward the house as if waiting for permission to breathe. He never got out. The car idled like a held sentence. If you watched long enough you’d notice he wasn’t looking at the door. He was looking at the upstairs window, as though the window might finally blink.

She arrived second, not in the car. She stood on the curb in a dark dress, shoulders tight, pretending her body was just another shadow. She had the expression of someone who’d returned to collect something small and heavy, like a ring or an apology. The house light painted her cheekbones blue and made her look young in the cruel way streetlights do, as if time had been kind when it hadn’t.

And upstairs, the third character moved behind the glass. Not a person exactly. A shape with the patience of a memory. It crossed the room, paused, crossed again, each pass slightly different, as if it was trying to remember which version of itself was supposed to be here. Sometimes it came close to the window. Sometimes it stopped one step short, like it couldn’t bear to confirm what it suspected.

The strange part was the timing. The driver always arrived before she did, as if the street needed a witness. She always arrived before the shape approached the window, as if the house needed an audience. And the shape never looked at either of them directly, which made it feel less like surveillance and more like shame.

Once, she lifted a hand...half wave, half surrender. The driver didn’t move. The upstairs shape stopped pacing. For one clean second, all three held still, perfectly aligned, like a photograph deciding to become true.

Then the porch light flicked on by itself. Not welcoming. Not a warning.

Just the house, politely resetting the scene so it could break their hearts again, from the beginning.

#oldschoolartist #newschooltools #gibberish #stories #digitalillustration #hybridillustration #aiillustration

## Stats

- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 4,095
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- **Comments:** 20

## Tags

hybridillustration, gibberish, newschooltools, digitalillustration, oldschoolartist, aiillustration, stories

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