Why does the small park remain empty during daylight hours despite being perfectly maintained, and what's beneath those memorial benches with dates that don't match any public records? Which paths lead to areas that seem larger than the park's actual boundaries, and why do the trees grow in patterns that hurt to look at directly? What happened to the original playground equipment that was removed overnight?
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I don’t like you, Park. Sometimes I think I live for you
― Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park
They said building a pocket park in the middle of our concrete jungle would bring life to the neighborhood. We just didn’t expect it to bring something else entirely.
I’m the groundskeeper, or at least I was, until last Tuesday. That’s when I first noticed the peculiar behavior of the morning joggers. They’d enter through the wrought iron gates, past the carefully manicured flower beds and the quaint wooden benches, but they wouldn’t come out the other side.
At first, I thought they were just taking the long path around the central fountain. It’s a small park, after all – barely a quarter acre squeezed between towering apartments. But then I started finding things: single shoes, abandoned smartphones, fitness trackers still counting steps that never ended.
The plants began to change too. The carefully planted perennials grew at impossible rates, their blooms taking on colors that don’t exist in any gardening manual. The grass became thick, almost flesh-like, and I swear I saw it pulse when nobody was looking.
Yesterday, a child’s ball rolled into the butterfly garden. When her mother went to retrieve it, I watched as the ornamental grass parted on its own, revealing a path that wasn’t there before. She took one step, then another. The grass closed behind her like a zipper.
The city council’s coming tomorrow to investigate reports of missing persons. They’ll walk through those gates, past my “Closed for Maintenance” sign, looking for answers. But they won’t find any – just like they won’t find the twenty-three people who entered our lovely pocket park and never left.
Sometimes at dusk, when the shadows stretch long across the lawn, I hear whispers carried on the wind. They sound happy, peaceful even. Maybe that’s why I haven’t reported anything. Maybe that’s why I’m writing this note before I step into the butterfly garden myself.
After all, they wanted to bring life to the neighborhood. They just never specified what kind.
