My Lakeside Bench And Jack

About a girl describing her two favourite things, despite her own advice to not love one of those things.

I couldn’t find a way to properly explain it, without stuttering, shaking, breathing without normality. My words stumbled, trekking over uncertain ground. They would ask me questions and I’d always answer the same way until we both grew tired; they were tired of hearing the same things and I was tired of my failure to explain. What I did know was that where I was, where I couldn’t talk properly, wasn’t where I was meant to be so I seeked other options and it landed me here. On a dirty park bench, the paint peeling away underneath me and a pile of cigarette butts around my feet; I could count those which were mine. The white filters with flared ends, my poorly rolled cigarettes, the others with the orange ends belonged to other people, people who surely didn’t come here as often as I did. This was my place, where my friends visited but I mostly sat. With a cartoon of juice, a leaking cup of tea or coffee, a smoothie with the juice all gone and the mix still sitting, melting in the sun. Sometimes a book or a journal with ages full of messy poems and short stories; tea stains and old flower pettles, the occasional quote. I liked my lakeside bench, despite the discomfort of the slanted back and the splinters causing havoc with the thread of my tights. I liked the people I saw so often; the man who walked in lunges every lunch break and ran after kids who cracked a joke about it, the flood of students which fell from my school, all hungry and seeking food. The lady with six sausage dogs, all leashed to her belt and the lady always dressed in purple that came with her camera to snap photos in breaks from her book. The crowd of middle aged people dressed in their business suits who came out for quick strolls during their lunch break; the women in sneakers along with their pencil skirts, not a single bead of sweat threatening their expensive clothes, make up or hair. And the one boy who sat a few benches down, always doing just the same as me, smoking cigarette after cigarette and reading his books. He’d pull back is long, shaggy hair, peeling it away from in front of his eyes so he could see all the little typed letters on each page. He sat there so quietly, neither disturbing the world nor letting it disturb him. He was just happy to sit there with only himself until one day I watched him pat down his pockets and let out a huff before collecting his things and tucking his just rolled cigarette upon his ear; he walked slowly but with purpose, not moving toward s the stairs as he usually did but moving to me, a little smile pressed to his face.                                                                                                                                   “Could I please just grab a light?” he asked, his voice quieter than I imagined it to be, though I didn’t doubt the sense it made for him.                                                                                                                                 I reached to my pocket and retrieved the yellow lighter from the mess of all my things. He took it, lit his cigarette and returned it after his first drag.                                                                                                 “Did you mind if I sat here too? I’m going to want it again,” I said it was fine and kept to my end as he placed all his things beside all of mine and sat at the other end.                                                     

"I’m Jack, by the way” he said, opening his book to the age marked with the lid of a pen.                                   

I smiled, just slightly and look up from my page, still holding my pen. “I’m Poppy”.                                           We sat there, both quiet, reading and writing, the lighter between us as we both smoked. And he then made a habit of forgetting his own, and he’d sit down beside me. Starting at our own ends with our things in between until finally one day, we met in the middle.                                                                                                   Some days he’d bring coffee, others, I’d bring extra juice. We spoke about books and how he liked his second hand, he respected my choice to buy them first hand and complimented my taste for accidentally dipping them in baths to crinkle the pages and resting my cups of tea on them so often that most pages were stained. He’d ask me what I was writing about and more often than not, I wouldn’t tell him the truth. He’d laugh at my sunglasses because every day they’d be different but he’d always be impressed, by the visors on one or the flip up of another; sometimes he would steal them and sit there with a smirk on his face with ridiculous glasses shielding his eyes.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

 He asked me why he always used to see me sitting here alone, I told him I liked to come out here when my friends became too much. I liked the sun or the rain; there was so much solitude at this bench. And once I said that, I asked him the same. He told me he liked to read alone, drink coffee alone and smoke alone but he didn’t much like being lonely, and when he realised he was, he patted his pockets, ignoring his lighter and came and introduced himself to me. 

We did a lot of things together then, not just sit on the bench. We went to coffee at my favourite café and lunch there again. I took him to buy sunglasses of his own and to buy more to add to my own collection. We went to second hand bookshops and he touched every book. We walked through parking lots full of market stalls, collecting lots of different little things: tea sets, embroidered frames, cheap potted plants for my little garden, old cassette tapes and vinyl records, old jars from big to small and I always had to get a leather bag. He’d wear his sunglasses, and I’d switch between mine. We bought juice or smoothies and visit lakes, beaches and rivers, always sitting on the sand; only sometimes actually swimming. We busked next to parked cars and outside shopping malls; he would play his guitar and sing, I’d just sit there with applause. We went for road trips; with or without money. We always just kept enough for cigarettes, petrol and coffee. We went for concerts in old pubs, by the beach and stadiums, and we drank until we had to hold back hair; his or mine, whoever did it first. We did so many things together, at home and far, but  we always ended up here. 

He started to ask the same questions I’d grown so used to hearing. Those questions which made me stutter, stumble through my words. I never wanted to answer, I felt the way I did before and I started to sit alone again, cross legged on my lakeside bench. I listened to music through small earphones, rolling my cigarettes and writing in my books. He’d come and sit but I wouldn’t say much more than hello. I thought about finding a new bench, a new place to sit and new people to watch; a new boy with long hair and a taste for classic books. But I’d formed a bond with my splintered bench with the paint peeling off of the wood. With all my cigarette butts scattered around it, that stain from an old smoothie too. I’d been sitting here for far too long now and I didn’t want to change now; I’d miss the view and the people, even the squawking little birds.                                               He asked me why I was distant, why I now preferred to sit here alone. I stumbled again, and stuttered a sentence without purpose or sense, and he asked instead if he could read from my book so I didn’t have to say a word. He told me he wanted to know, he cared and wanted to know. So I gave him my book with the tattered pages and stringing leather cover, and the moment went silent as he concentrated so hard on every word which he read. I rolled another cigarette, and lit it while I watched him, the click the only sound.           

He gave me back the book and kissed me just a bit, “you’re a really sad person, aren’t you?” he asked. I neither admitted nor denied it, merely opened my book again.                                                                                   “Don’t worry,” he said, “all the good people are.” I’d never heard anything quite so cheesy; I’d never wanted to either. Those words were okay, at my lakeside bench with Jack.