~
In the Park
As she does every afternoon, she pushes the baby carriage through the park. The day lovely, but she is tired of pushing the baby carriage.
*
As she does every afternoon, she pushes the baby carriage through the park. But it is raining, and she has forgotten her raincoat. Her umbrella. Everything. She dreams of being somewhere else.
*
As she does every afternoon, she pushes the baby carriage through the park. She has been thinking of an old lover. His touch. Eyes. Over time he is much more ideal than he was earlier. She longs for him now.
*
As she does every afternoon, she pushes the baby carriage through the park. Yes, she will leave him. She has been thinking about it lately. It’s time. All she needs to do is to decide when. Maybe he won’t care.
*
As she does every afternoon, she pushes the baby carriage through the park. She says hello to the regulars on this same walk, but their faces seem huge, with exaggerated expressions, and they seem to be mocking her. Not so much what they say, but in the way they look at her.
*
As she does every afternoon, she pushes the baby carriage through the park. She never wanted this baby, this walk in the park. This life. She thinks about this all the time. Hourly.
*
As she does every afternoon, she pushes the baby carriage through the park. But she is a good mother, damn it! Isn’t she? What else could she be? Anyone can see. Can know. Just ask her.
*
As she does every afternoon, she pushes the baby carriage through the park. She thinks back, far away back in time, to her own mother, their own walks so long ago. In the park. How even at such a young age, she felt how her mother ignored her, didn’t care for her. It was simply a walk in the park.
*
As she does every afternoon, she pushes the baby carriage through the park. How will she leave? She has given much thought to this. Best to leave while her husband is away on business. In Denver or Atlanta. Or donating his lame sperm at the clinic again. That would make her exit much easier. Painless.
*
As she does every afternoon, she pushes the baby carriage through the park. She would talk to her mother but it’s no use. Her mother, herself divorced a third time, is now wed to gin. A happy marriage at last. No help there.
*
She looks back at the baby carriage in the distance. It is like a mirage. A grainy old film. She has walked away, so far away from it now that she can barely discern the people, other park walkers, who have come to look inside the carriage. Maybe they can help. Maybe someone will be a hero, rescue the abandoned baby.
*
Later, the park custodian retrieves the empty carriage where there was no baby. Never was a baby. The onlookers move away, always involved in their own dramas. A nice enough carriage, the custodian thinks. Maybe his daughter might use it. When the time comes. And he thinks, why are they taking so long to have a baby? Do they have a problem?
~
Christopher Woods lives in Chappell Hill, Texas. He has published a novel, THE DREAM PATCH, a prose collection, UNDER A RIVERBED SKY, and a book of stage monologues for actors, HEART SPEAK. His work has appeared in many journals including THE SOUTHERN REVIEW, NEW ORLEANS REVIEW and GLIMMER TRAIN. His book of photography prompts for writers, FROM VISION TO TEXT, is forthcoming from PROPERTIUS PRESS. His novella, HEARTS IN THE DARK, was just published by RUNNING WILD PRESS.