The Park

for escuela...the same event from two perspectives

            The trees in the park reminded Lea of toothpicks stabbing the sun.  They were the ugliest trees she had ever seen.  They had no leaves, no limbs really either—were straight-backed and proudly hideous, and Lea couldn’t help but wonder what fool took care of the park, what fool looked at them daily and decided that they shouldn’t be cut down.

            Lea took daily walks in this park—as an artist, she found that the surrealism of the park and the hideous oddity of the trees inspired her.  Lately, though, her creativity had been lacking, and she was finding that all she wanted to do was take a whetted ax violently to the toothpick trees.

            What had happened to her eyes that they now refused to see anything surrealistically charming?

            Lea tried to listen to the birds, but their song seemed so utterly muted against the pummeling wind.  Birds should learn to sing louder, she thought. 

            Then she heard it: a sound ever so much louder than the whisper-calls of the birds—an explosion.  She could tell that it came from far away, for she could see no fire and the trees still stood straight and silent, unaffected. 

            She shrugged: this park was close to downtown; it was probably just part of the construction work they were doing on the new office buildings.

 

 

            All Rena had in this park was the song of the birds, which broke the static of the wind in such a heavenly, gentle way.  That was why she came to the park: to hear the birds and to be lost in some Mary Poppins fairy-tale, where songbirds whistled in tune and everyone sang everything they felt. 

            This park would be nothing if it weren’t for the birds, but perhaps she was biased, having never seen the trees, which she was sure were beautiful. 

            She wondered—oddly that she would wonder this now, after a lifetime of blindness—what the appeal of trees was.  She’d heard that they were elegance, peace, all those words that people throw around to describe everything with any hint of beauty. 

            If she’d never seen beauty—did that mean that she didn’t know it?

            But, no, the birds were most certainly beautiful—more than that.  They were entrancing: pulled her out from her sheltered, dark life to this bench in the park where she sat and listened for an hour every Saturday.

            Rena felt it first—it snuck into her thoughts so sinisterly.  The ground trembled slightly beneath her: a ripple effect of some explosion.  For a moment, her heart fluttered with fear and she impulsively prepared herself to run, but then she realized the birds were still singing: the explosion was nowhere near her, downtown probably.

            She heard it next: that slight discrepancy in timing between what is felt and what is heard.  The sound rang in her head much like the noise of a gong or a slamming door—but worse, much worse.  This was more than just a customary construction explosion—this noise had bared fangs.

 

Reviews

[Jamie Fantasy]

[NOTE]
The following review is just my opinion for improving your piece. I always have the writer's best interest at heart. Please take what you think you can use and discard anything you can't. No one knows your work better than you. If you would like to discuss this review, feel free to send me a message.

[CONSTRUCTION]
Everything looked great.

[INSPIRATIONS]
I love the topic you chose. Topics like this really get me. You also gave some great and artisitc detail.

[IMPROVEMENTS]
I would have liked to know more. Maybe at some point you can extend this story a bit more if you ever get a chance.

[OVERALL]
I liked it a lot! Thank you for sharing. :)

[Dressed in Poetry]

I am jealous again! Oh well. This reminds me of the OKC bombing.