Richmond Park - by Caroline Bressey

Not the Park, by Amita Murray

She walks slowly through the ferns, pushing them aside from the overgrown path.  She pauses to watch the plane passing overhead, turns to count those stacking up behind, 1 , 2, 3.  She pushes on, her hands trailing behind, as she pulls at the fern leaves crushing them between her fingers, but they do not crumble and she lifts them to her face breathing them in before wrapping them around her hand. As the ferns open out she is able to walk more quickly towards the ponds, her fingers brushing along the top of the blankets of soft grasses, golden in the light that dances on the water. At the edge of the pond she stops.  A dog barks, but it’s a distant sounds and she does not turn around.  She kneels and chooses a stone, rubbing her thumb over its smooth surface before flicking it across the water.  It skims once, twice.  She tries again.  The third time she simply pulls back her arm and throws the stone up high, towards the centre of the pond.  It sinks with ripples and she smiles.  She looks back up the path the way she has come but then turns on her heel towards the setting sun and the shadow of the oak trees.