The Finish Line Moved

Jules painted the finish line across Maple Avenue at dawn, hours before the town's soapbox race. It belonged at the foot of the hill, where straw bales and parents would wait. He checked it against the survey nail in the curb. When he returned with barricades, the white stripe lay thirty feet uphill. A truck had crossed it, but the paint was unbroken. The survey nail remained below, beside bare road. Jules touched the stripe. Wet. A wooden racer rolled from an alley above him. There was no driver. It stopped with its front wheels on the new line.