The sky rolled out above their heads like a field of gray and white sunflowers. The sun was a distant specter of white light. No wind, but the cold chipped away at them with pointed teeth. Their lips peeled, their noses ran, and their eyes watered. Neither spoke but the sound of cars passing by filled in the empty spaces like the muddy waves of a polluted sea. It filled in the creases of Timothy’s shirt, and the greasy strands of Annie’s hair, rising up and dying back like a fickle winter snow storm. The day smelled like rain and grass and burning gasoline.
November days felt like every day in this little fragment of Raleigh, North Carolina. The people didn’t change. The buildings didn’t change. A creeping sense of loneliness moved over the streets like the shadow of a dragon flying lazily across the sky. Each person that found their lives in this part of the city hoisted up their offices, jobs, and families like hulking iron swords. Battles raged in their eyes. They wore their suits, sensible shoes, and twenty-dollar hair cuts like scars. But they had no scars. They had no blood. They had no history. They marched through the streets, throwing meager greetings to each other.
Nash Square was a park where only Annie had ever seemed to go. Like a place from a long forgotten dream, lonely and immaculate, its flowers in permanent bloom. It was the sort of place that belonged to children and lonely old men, but it had neither. When Annie was a kid, before the end of high school, before she had escaped her parent’s little house, and long before New York, she would spend the days of summer playing in Nash Square. The violet flowers, the quiet, the smell of grass and air and smog, these were hers. They were her memories. They were her good times.
There were five similar parks in the city. All were constructed in the same manner. Yet Nash Square was a world unto itself. No one ever seemed to see it there, open and warm and waiting like a lost love. In those days she came on her own. It was a short walk from the small community college just up the road. She would sit on the correct bench with a book or a magazine stolen from the drug store down the street, maybe a cigarette for those few months where she had been able to afford the habit. That day, Annie crossed her legs and looked almost lady-like in her plaid skirt and brown sweater. As she did so, the heel of her right foot bumped against Timothy’s knee. He shifted uncomfortably, glancing at her. The collar of her blouse poked out of her sweater’s V-neck, folding over the thick wool like the silver wings of a mockingbird. She pulled the edges of her sleeves up around the chipped polish of her fingernails and folded one arm over her chest. Her other arm held open the pages of a paperback romance novel.
She sat, and her eyes drifted out far beyond her little book. She peered through the cloudy day and into the lives of the few people milling about. They did not see her. She observed them, made uninformed assumptions about their lives, and fed her own envy. She made up invisible worlds for the passers-by. In ephemeral fantasies she created wives and husbands, friends and children, six figure salaries and secret romances for them. She imagined worlds where the people were sure of their futures and in control of their lives. She made quiet little universes where the sun always shone.
Timothy stared at her for a while. Annie had the face of a person trying with great effort to maintain some sort of pretense. Her eyes were large pools of an iridescent green, her hair a fiery red. Otherwise she was perfectly plain-looking. She had a plain nose, a plain little mouth, and plain little ears that lay flat against her head. He stared at her red hair with her brown roots and her deep green eyes, trying them to seem more extraordinary, until he resigned himself to the fact that she would never be very pretty. Then he looked down. He had been listening to the same disc on repeat for hours upon hours. He was tired of it but aware of his limitations. He’d listen for as long as he could stand it, and at least he would always know what to expect from it. Timothy eventually realized that it was quickly turning to a reasonably cold winter night.
He reached up to the back of Annie’s head. He placed her head on his shoulder, and she did not resist. She did not say a word. Timothy looked up into the great oak trees that towered above their little heads like radio towers and skyscrapers. They were glowing with a shimmering green light that fell to the ground in dew drops and filled him with wonder. It was like the heavens and the earth were dancing with them. Then he realized that the city had put lamps in the trees. Timothy smiled slightly. He closed his eyes, leaned into Annie’s little ear, and whispered sweetly, “Let’s never fall in love.”