At the Park

Impressions.

A small girl in a yellow rain coat and pink galoshes stops and smells a rose. Her small fingers flit over its silky petals, scattering the small droplets that rested there. She stamps her feet in the small puddle she stands in, delighting in the water that splashes on her raincoat and the rose. Then she hops in the surrounding puddles, giggling as her brother yells in surprise when the water hits him. Her father looks on. 

  A snub-nosed man walks by and his grey, miserable eyes magnified by thick glasses look at the children for a moment. His hat is pulled down low and he is seemingly neckless, mouth wide and thin. His face has all the charm of a frog's, and he seems at home in the wet environment, in no hurry to get to where he is going. 

  After he passes, a woman walks by smiling broadly at the girl then at me. I can see her bad teeth and large nose and yellow eyes with almost ebony circles under them. Her face is pale and very gaunt and the overall impression is of a caricature of some starving waif. The child doesn`t notice and squeals happily again as her brother jumps in a puddle, now splashing her with the cold water. They move off when the rain starts again, heavier now, and I cover my book in my coat, starting to feel the drops patter on my head.