The Park

It was a simple, urban park, and it wasn't much- but it was. Oh, it was.

The park wasn't very much.

Small and narrow, maybe a mile long, if that much, surrounded on all sides by urbanization. Not much, though, didn't mean not beautiful- and more to the point, it was friendly. Warm. The park wanted to offer you what it could. It wanted you to take joy and comfort in it's green grass, to reconnect to the earth with the song of it's cicadas and birds, to breathe deeply among it's wild branches and gnarled trees. It invited you to poke your head into it's darker corners, to see what might lay off the path. Like a friend, or a lover, daring you- come and see, come and see, I dare you.


That would have been a very bad idea, of course. Or at least, to do so without an abundance of caution would be. The park was warm, and friendly, and meant no harm, but that did not mean that without good sense and caution and your wits about you that harm would not come to you. One must never assume that no harm will to them even in most places in life, but especially wild ones, as they are, in fact, wild, and people, by in large, aren't, anymore. Even the most happy, friendly, welcoming places that want people hold danger.

Likely, the park had been bigger, once, with deeper dark areas and more dangerous places and more wild, untamed acres. It had been forced, though, to make itself small for the world around it. Like so many others, it was too big, too much, and forced to make itself smaller to fit. Unlike so many others forced to be smaller for the world around them, though, it wasn't bitter. It wasn't angry, or resentful. The park was like coyotes, or pigeons, or rats, or foxes. It grew with the city around it. It learned how to move in rhythm with the urban world it found itself a part of. It learned how to appreciate and be appreciated. It found happiness.

It may have taken a while for it to get there. Maybe, for a while, like all other people and places that are big and forced to be small, it was hurt and sad and wrathful. But then years past, and past, and past, and being those things didn't help. So instead, the park found joy in being as big as it was allowed and able to be. It found itself able to take joy in how many people walked through it's verdant grass and smiled at the sun through it's boughs and peered, deep and nervously excited, into what Deep, Dark places it did have to offer. It took joy in watching them skitter like frightened mice as it whispered to them in the back of their minds- come and see, come and see.

The Park was an urban park, small and narrow and domesticated. And it was, as all parks of it's ilk are, magnificent.