had fallen.
For a week or so the trunk had remained,
lying just past horizontal,
making
a shallow bridge between the path at its root end and the dark,
wet grass on the lower level.
The capillary maze of smaller twigs and branches
had hung limply at right angles with their
normal position,
some forced flat against the ground,
others urged by gravity to stretch
unendingly towards it.
The council had removed the tree in stages.
First the trunk and branches went, fathering
dents in the ground and little piles of sawdust.
Then a few days later the upturned stump was
taken,
leaving a deep hole lined with ripped root ends,
immediately marked as a hazard
by orange cones and red and white tape,
then filled in with new earth.
Now the ground was
dry and hard,
and there was no sign that the tree had ever existed,
save for the break
in the regular path with its absence created.
The rest of the row unmoved by the loss of
their former neighbour.
Emerging into the soft haze,
Boy walked blinkingly up the gentle
slope, never the steps,
and then left along the gravel path that cut across the middle
of the park.
Here the sun was already strong,
battling through the muggy sweat of morning
mist to wrap around his arms and face.
Boy stopped at the wooden memorial bench and sat,
the lateral slack taking the weight of his bag from
his shoulders and forcing its canvas mouth open.
He reached inside without looking and pulled out a ragged,
curled sketchbook.
Flicking through the pages he caught
glimpses of doodles and half-phrases,
bright hearts crashing,
care and handling,
a smudged pencil sketch of a pair of daggers.
The sun seemed to focus in on the paper with new intensity,
ironing out the creases in each page with bright white force.
Boy's thumb reached the point where
the crumpled old pages met the fresh,
flat,
virgin ones.
He set the book down carefully on the bench.
Someone's faded husband or wife loved this spot.
In front of the bench was an expanse of gradually yellowing grass,
stretching down to another
pathway and a line of trees in the hazy,
distorted middle distance.
The faint, chalky scratchings
of last season's winter sports pitch-marking
were still just about visible in places,
as
were perfectly regular ball patches in the
grass that marked the positions where centre
circles and six-yard boxes used to be.
Two pigeons staggered lazily about,
occasionally
stopping to peck at something tiny and unseen on the ground.
On the other side of the park,
Boy could make out the featureless figure of a lone woman,
brightly dressed and running
at pace,
silently and purposefully.
The line of trees just beyond camouflaged her rhythmically
as she passed each one,
into the light and out again,
creaseless at distance.
Boy rested his elbow on the back of the memorial
bench and stretched out his fingers to encourage
a greeting from his shadow,
which now stretched to the pigeons in front of him.
The last chill
of the dawn fizzed out into the airless heat
as the runner turned 90 degrees and started
up the path that ran alongside the right-hand edge of the park.
I drew some daggers and I don't know why.
Boy closed his eyes and held his breath,
absorbing
the miniscule sounds that the heat made
as it acted on the surfaces around him.
Hard
ground, bitter with dust,
nowhere for the worms to hide.
Moments passed and the runner
turned again,
steady,
metronomic and approaching,
merging into the foreground,
head down, still
featureless but stripped of haze and now clean,
clear,
distinguished,
rubber almost silent
on gravel,
then a moment of fluttering noise,
breath, steps, fabric,
bright hearts crashing,
care and handling.