The Dearly Forgotten

Cold. Wet. Deserted. It was a place of green grass and blue ponds, of blue ponds that would have been if the mindless teenagers, of house number 902, didn’t pollute it with their molding cigarette buds, and shattered beer bottles and ripped plastic bags. The mile high oak tree stood tall, towering over the miniature jungle; the same jungle that grew tall, thick weeds and shrubs that cracked the sidewalk. Along the abundance of deadly plants, ran a green, mucky, disgusting looking swamp like pond that infested many unknown critters. This is a place where lazy owners walk their dogs and watch them prance around the place laying as many droplets as they could in the most inconvenient of places where humans would walk. Fortunately for me, dog owners are too lazy and inconsiderate to feel the need to clean after their animal’s mess. This is a place that contains hundreds of bushes, which inhabits thousands of insects, which produces millions of bacteria and yet, this place is only as big as a basketball court. As I walked through the grass, dodging the mix of brown clumps of feces and mud, I could feel the breeze and imagine all the tiny particles of dust and mud and dirt and grass and bugs and feces blowing though my hair as I walked onto the middle of the field. Looking out onto the beautiful creamy pink and orange horizon, I rested my gaze onto this horrid place: my neighborhood park.

The first year moving into this glorious neighborhood, it was newly constructed and was built on top of an old family owned farm. Back then, people envied those who lived in this neighborhood, because of the new houses, clean roads and the giant park right outside. But now this place was filled with old houses, poor roads and was left with a disgusting old park.

I can still remember the old times when I woke up to the screeching sound of kids playing in the unpolluted pond looking for crawdads and little tadpoles. Children happily sat at the side of the pond, and giggled at jokes, fully enjoying their youth. Hearing them squeal as they played annoyed and angered me. Only now do I realize that I miss the annoying high pitched laughter the most. Now, standing in the middle of the field, I can only hear the empty echo of the quiet breeze.

This place was built and meant to satisfy the needs of little children during the light hours of the day, and meant to comfort the needs of the midnight walkers during the dark nights. But now in the heat of the days, only ghosts roam this vacant place, and not a soul is sight. It was quite sad to see this place end like this, only holding the purpose of a dumpsite for high school dropouts and lazy children. This park was loosing its value and purpose. It wasn’t meant to be an alternative place to throw trash in. The pond, which was once crystal clear and filled with little tadpoles and crawdads, now is clear as brick and as clean as poison.

The grass grows uneven because of lack of time and pure laziness from homeowners. The tall and jagged grass stems only gave insects, and all alike a reason to infest themselves in this grass field. It had dried patches of grass growing randomly around the field that looked like bleached rough sandpaper. It reminded me of skyscrapers in New York, all different height and shape and scattered all around the area. Walking around the field I saw an old Barbie doll hidden away in the bushes. Her eye was stabbed, her teeth were blacked out, she had a ripped leg and bite marks all around the body; unfortunately they weren’t dogteeth marks but little baby teeth indents. I shuttered at the thought of the Barbie doll-eating child that lived across from my house. I kept walking and reminisced on all the good old times I had in this park: getting bloody noses, from being pushed onto the ground by menacing children; enduring a broken toe, from beingstepped on by one of the overweight teens; experiencing a fractured arm, from being shoved into the pond by cruel little monster children.

Passing a bench, I sat down and faced the nearly set sun. Still feeling the warm rays of the sun I relaxed my eyes. Seconds, minutes, hours passed, I opened my eyes and the sky was dark and I was surrounded by millions of starts that glistened at night. It reminded me of the time, when the field was still clean and all you could smell was the fresh clean cut grass as I laid next to my friends and looked up at the sky; not worrying about whether or not we laid on mud or feces. I felt the soft tips of grass on my fingers and the tingling on my arms as I swung my arms up and down the grass, as I would have done to make snow angels in the snow. It was a warm summer night and the air blew through trees and rustled through the leaves. I could almost feel the warm air pressed on my skin and the soft grass resting under my arm as if it were yesterday. I walked over to the end of the sidewalk and laid on a clean spot on the grass and looked up at the stars. Lying still, it felt like nothing changed and that I was still lying on that beautiful clean field. But as I swung my arms up, I did not feel the soft prickly grass that I had remembered, but the rough sand paper grass that did not smell of fresh clean cut grass.

Everything has changed. This park, the people, the time, has changed. This worn out park is now no more. This park stays, once loved and thought to be never forgotten and is now forgotten and never to be loved. It isn’t the home that I will never forget, but the home I will never remember.

~~Melody