Token of the Town

There was a park, evergreen with hanging willows that obscured doeful readers from the burgeoning heat, but allowed the sound of splashes from the children merrily tearing around the waterpark to filter by. Doting parents stood watchful of their children to catch them with fresh, fluffy towels before they could make a break for the slide and risk a friction burn or tumble to the lush grass.

The large rock by the gate stood proudly, steady for nimble hands and youthful yelps as children scrabbled to sit upon it for a family photograph. It was not the trademark of this obscured slice of paradise- rather something the locals had taken as the token of their town. Not far off, past the whomping willows and swings was there a decrepit bridge a older child would stand beneath in a hunkering position to scare off the weary travellers that would pass over into the parking lot of the adjoining schoolyard. I remember bathing in that filthy water within the divot of park and school, run-off from the cemetery's rain or pressure washer, as a little girl with my two school aged friends. My mother took to chatting up their mothers, laying out snacks on the picnic table a few yards shy of where we splashed in the cold. Splashed in weather-worn stone that someone had pressed their hands, lips, flowers to as they stopped by to lay an offering to a past loved ones grave.

Now, I have stumbled that same park that is bereft of light in the dead of night, with empty bottles in my bag and a cigarette hanging loosely from my lips as I sit beside the big rock. I hear the forlorn howls of coyotes that prowl the cemetery in the night, a cemetery I am bitterly acquainted, but I do not stir. I know this park is safe from the scrabble of gunshots and stabbings that rip through my large city. But this park is just a slice- a piece that people overlook for bigger, better, newer. I set the ash off on the knee of my jeans, rather than ever muddying the hundreds of handprints- mine and my siblings alike- that have pressed into the sides of that rock. A token of my town, a token of my time I always find myself returning to. Loved over, loved lingering.