I am Sitting in a Small Park

I am sitting in a small park. It is about one hundred feet across, and circular. All around the perimeter, traffic is rushing about, beeping horns and screeching tires. This little park is like an oasis in the midst of all the noise and confusion of downtown.

I am sitting at a park bench. It is one of many that form a
circle around the park, and I am overlooking the grass and trees that make up this park. It's odd: there are no trees or fences behind the benches, but the park seems almost isolated from the rest of this city block. It's as if there were some sort of invisible barrier between it and the rest of the city.

There are a couple of buildings around this park, one is obviously a public washroom (I can tell by the smell) but I am unclear what the other building is for. The grass in this park is quite long, and there are several squirrels scurrying about.

I am all alone, now. In the park, that is. My ex-wife and daughter are out there in the city somewhere. Or maybe they've left the urban hustle and bustle for...elsewhere. I have an almost insane notion that they will walk onto the grass and see me. That they will come over and sit down and we'll talk and laugh and play like a family again. But they won't.

We were never that family, anyway.


I am all alone on this bench in this little park, and I can still remember the conversation with the man I just met. He walked up and sat down. With maybe a dozen benches in the park, he chose mine. (I say mine, but I am well aware that it is not.)

He lit a cigarette. He spoke. "The squirrels sure don't go hungry here."

He waved his arm, vaguely indicating a large pile of walnuts and chestnuts that a squirrel was gathering.

"No," I replied, "I suppose their biggest concern is from the birds."

As I spoke these words, a crow swooped down and nabbed a chestnut from the pile. The squirrel ran after it, but in vain. I noticed that however useless the chase was, it still pursued the bird with amazing (for a squirrel) ferocity.

"I didn't know that birds ate nuts," the man said quietly, almost reverently.

I thought about this momentarily, looked at the papers in my hands, and said, "I bet that if they're hungry, they'll eat practically anything."

There was a long pause, sounds of traffic rushing around. A small child nearby screamed either in delight or in pain. I couldn't tell. The man sucked thoughtfully at his cigarette.

Finally he said, "He's burying his nuts--I wonder how he gets them in the winter."

"Don't they hibernate and dig them up for food in the spring?"

"I dunno..."

There was another pause.

"Well...," the man said. He flicked his cigarette butt against a tree and the butt exploded into a shower of sparks and ashes.


I looked, but the man was gone.


I am sitting in this park with the divorce papers in my hand. I see my daughter and I see my wife. I fret about nothing and everything. I look at the papers and feel quite surprised to see tears dropping onto them. The words may fade, but the meaning will never leave me.

And now I am standing in the park--in the grass to be more precise. I begin to carefully tear off strips of paper and plant them, lovingly, between the blades of grass.


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