It might rain. A single jab at my cheek disappeared as quickly as it fell from the deepening sky; it followed the graying smell of what used to be there. The park is empty. Barren. Apparently, it’s the first week of school. I stopped hearing the immediate shrill of a lunch bell, and haven’t for a long time.
The dewy wind coaxes the swing seats, they bristle against nothing. If I stared long enough the swings took flight, daring to reach the oak branches with the tips of black polished shoes decorated with mud like freckles on freshly hatched eggs.
The sudden and longing breath between your highest point in the sky and your inevitable descent back is swift and precious, a jolt in your chest you barely process before your knees tuck into the seat. Before you try to catch the pause between flying, floating, and falling again. I don’t fit on the swings anymore.
I can only feel the swollen beads of rain clinging to my palm after touching the heavy chains, and the whispered promise of weightlessness from the gentle push of the dewy wind. Somewhere, amongst all the drags and divots in the mud beneath the swing, somewhere there would have been the tracks of my heels. But not anymore. They’re veiled by the heels of children who listen to a bell I’ll never hear and don’t remember. Nothing but the phantom of feet that want to touch the trees.
The park bench used to be steely and unpolished, then eventually repainted with a glossy green that was too vivid to blend amongst the bushes lining the park. Now, that steely and unpolished rust reappears and cracks the paint. Now, signs of weather and time join the old and what was once new. The middle of the bench has a soft give from the mothers, fathers, grandmothers, and grandfathers that would converse amongst themselves whilst the spirit of youth reminded them of who they used to be. Not unfamiliar to how I stand in an empty park in September.
Beside the bench is a sullen pile of maple and saffron leaves. All of their joyful crisp and sharp sounds are now overripe from the weight of the dewy wind. At some point, a foot might have launched itself into this pile. Perhaps my own. But I’m wearing suede shoes, and chose to not get them wet. How sad. I mourned the loss of dry shoes more than the loss of suede joyfully greeting maple and saffron leaves.
I saw ghosts today. They were shaped like raindrops, swing sets, divots in mud, almost green benches, and piles of leaves. They are spirits of the dewy wind and I look through their membrane of time, between the memories that pull me back and the memories that school children will eventually have – like I do. Ghosts are real, and I am saddened I believed damp suede shoes were more frightening.
Editors: Nicole O.
Image Source: Aaron Burden, Unsplash