The Old of Central Park

Early August always was his favorite time of year.

He could feel the life all around him. The grass looked like it had been around forever, and there was no sign of a wintry grave anytime soon for the dark green shoots of life. Everything seemed to be growing, even on the black metal bench on which he sat. It felt as though it had grown from a seedling of iron planted by the Park Commission into a mature metal shrub, an oasis for weary walkers on whatever journey.

There was life all around this place, this civilization of plants and rocks, inside a metal jungle with the skyscraper trees stretching into the sky. There was nothing unnatural here, the concrete paths had fused with the landscape to become natural instead of man-made. The fences had grown here on their own, as they had always done, since the dawn of time.

The signs of life where there in the people too. Children ran down the sidewalk, on their way to a softball game, growing up to become young lovers, walking down the path together. They would become the young married couple pushing a baby carriage to show their child the merry go round for the first time, changing into the family who brought their kids here on a weekend to just get away from life. Then it was just the parents, strolling together and reminiscing, and then there were the old people, like him.

And there he sat, on the living metal bench, watching the slow steady march of life go by, hearing merging of faint melodic sound of a band far away, the children playing softball, and the ever-present sound of cars outside the Eden. He could smell the hot dog carts, and the horses that passed ever so often, and feel the light kiss of a breeze as it jumped through the treetops. And then he saw a Monarch butterfly.

How he knew it was a Monarch butterfly he didn’t remember, he didn’t remember a lot of things lately, but that was okay, he didn’t need to. Right now, he only had to look at the butterfly. And he did.

It was orange and black, as Monarch butterflies usually are. It looked like it had been part of a tigers’ skin once, but decided it wanted to live a more peaceful life, so it just jumped off. The obsidian tips were laced with white spots, like sunlight moving through a curtain of leaves and leaving patches of pallid on the ground. The middle of the wings had leaves of ginger, separated by ebon eyelids, forming a network of orange, fiery eyes that stared up to the sky as it teased the air.

He remembered the first time he had seen a butterfly like this. He was young, much younger than he was now. He remembered the feeling of having one land on his fingers, the tickle of a helpless animal that has trusted you. He remembered how he had wanted to pull the wings off of it, but decided not to, because it had never harmed him.

He put his withered hand out for the butterfly to land, but it ignored him, as butterflies sometimes do. It used its wings to jump on the air and flew up into the jade leaves of the tree. It was quite easy to see, the orange petals contrasted well against the leafy eyes. But it flew behind a branch and decided not to come back. And the old man sat once more.

People passed by, and didn’t notice him, as busy park-goers will. He didn’t mind, he was content to watch, and feel, and see, and smell. He closed his eyes, and something happened. He saw faces, smiling faces and he heard laughter. These weren’t the sounds of the park outside of his eyelids, however, this was laughter from another time altogether. Suddenly, the faces shifted, and he felt himself falling. The once smiling people now were wearing black and were not laughing, but had grim looks on their face. A few were crying. He wanted to reach out, and ask them what was wrong, but he found that he couldn’t speak. Alarmed, he opened his eyes again, and wondered what happened.

He stood up, slightly dazed, and started walking towards the exit of the park. He was so alarmed at the vision that he didn’t see the car move right through him, and drive away without a second thought.