Unattained Desires

Streets surrounded trees, trees surrounded buildings, buildings surrounded more trees, trees surrounded benches, benches surrounded pavement, pavement surrounded life. The life in question was seemingly unaware of their surroundings, preferring instead to watch those around them enjoy their day, not realizing the stares of others that were watching them in an endless cycle of social awareness. In the center of the streets and buildings and trees and benches and life lay a gray fountain. Molded from cement, the round fountain spent its time circulating water, being watched by life, and watching others live their life.

The circular fountain in Golden Gate Park looks no different from fountains built before it, and it will look no different from fountains built after it. Swollen twigs floated in the water with the intention of screeching against the fountain walls, of playing in the swaying liquid, and of escaping from the pounding water. The water itself was green with a copper tint from wishes once made but never fulfilled; it splashed water into the salty air and washed the birds for their bath. Foam collected at the edges of the fountain, engulfing the twigs in a veil of white like an army defeating their enemy. Eight vertical spouts created these bubbles, and it encircled one large continuous ring that spurted water towards the elevated center statue.

The statue depicted a snake purposefully entangling itself with a bobcat in the hopes of defeating its feline opponent; the bobcat persevered by keeping the snake at an arm’s length forever. They endured themselves. They endured each other. They endured the raging waters, and their eyes held empty dreams as they mimicked those who are not frozen in eternity.

The fountain lay in the intersection between two walking paths. North, South, East, West- all paths led strollers to different destinations: North led people to the De Young art museum, South brought them to the California Academy of Sciences Academy, East conducted them to a cast iron statue of a man long forgotten, and West compelled passerby towards a music concourse, a concourse of so little occupants that benches were stacked upon one another to free space; it was a concourse of such frivolous decoration that roman pillars decorated the sides, and seeds were engraved within the grapes that were carved in the baskets that were in the hands of sculpted women that floated through the pillars and arches and semi-domed roofs and indented walls. Between the several paths lay turf grass, trimmed and yellowing. Between the several paths lay pollarded sycamore trees, knobby as the bones of the deceased. Between the several paths lay the trees’ shadows, growing longer and colder as the sun dipped below the buildings and was replaced with a biting chill. In the center lay a fountain.

The fountain- an achievement of form and functionality, art and science, man and nature- is sandwiched between the De Young Art Museum and the California Academy of Sciences. The two towering structures were intended to serve as a constant reminder of the achievements and follies of mankind, but the dwindling population largely ignored them, choosing instead to pay attention to their partners or to strangers.

A sketch artist was drawing exaggerated cartoon faces of unaware tourists; a tiny crowd of people gathered around the couple being drawn, including myself. The woman looked masculine and the man looked feminine; the woman had cropped hair and the man had long; the woman let her legs relax and the man made his legs crossed. I soon realized the woman was a woman, and the man was a woman.

The stares the couple received, and the stares the artist received, and the stares that everyone received was slightly disconcerting; people watched others live, but they did not live for others to watch. Each person was imprisoned inside themselves, trying to escape, but failing, so they were forced to watch others as they tried to live themselves, watching them in never-ending attempts to reach out, only to realize there was no one to reach out to. So they watched. They waited. And they left. Young men in cargo pants stood from the benches. He smoked. He watched. He left. Young women in business suits walked briskly, clutching their briefcases and looking at nothing; young children in strollers slept peacefully, clutching their fathers and dreaming of nothing. Couples left hand in hand, engrossed in themselves, in each other, in everyone. Teenagers left group by group; everyone departed until two partners were left together in the darkness: the fountain and me.

~Lacey T.