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epitome of incomprehensibility
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Not that kind of package. I said a morbid sense, not a dirty sense. People these days!
On Tuesday, I was walking my bike in the back of Surrey Park, one of those rare parks that has a bit of everything - playground (two, in fact), paths, pool, tennis court, skateboard park, and a small, forested, swampy-grassy field in back - when I found a purple backpack dumped against a clump of bushes. It was open and one small shoe had fallen out.
I walked a bit farther and came across a dog obedience class in one of the clearings. I asked the people if anyone owned a purple backpack, saying where I'd found it. The dogs reacted to my presence more than the people did: emotions of fear, suspicion, excitement, friendliness, and anger all translated into running around and barking. I decided I was disturbing the class and walked away, after getting sensible advice I should have thought of myself - looking inside the backpack for a name.
At first I couldn't find the clump of bushes. It was only ten to eight, but I have a sort of aversion to parks in the dark. I suspect I've been taught to feel unsafe as part of gender-specific social programming, supposedly for my own good; but besides that, parks at night feel sort of eerie. More natural nature doesn't have the same feel - mysterious, yes, but not run-of-the-mill suburbanized creepy.
So when I found the backpack again, the scene seemed ominous. Tossed aside, one shoe thrown out. (A croc, at that. Crocodiles are scary.) I thought of murder, a body dragged into the bushes. Quickly I searched through it, putting aside a kid's towel and goggles, feeling like I could be accused of robbery or even child molestation for violating the sanctity of private property. I mentally prepared my defense: I had nothing to do with the crime, I was trying to help. Why was I there in the first place? No reason, I simply wanted to walk in a park, to see the light of day before it left. And then, suddenly, a Dorval card spilled out of one of the pockets - a name and number.
I put the backpack on one of my bike handles and went through the sports area, asking groups of boys whether they were the person on the card. On the concrete near the pool's perimeter, I saw a mother with two boys. One of them recognized the bag; it wasn't his, but his friend's. Since the friend was currently swimming in the pool (it closes at nine most days), and presumably not dead, I handed it over with a sense of relief.
That was the longer story. The shorter story was yesterday, when I stayed up reading fanfiction out of stubbornness and a sense of trying-to-figure-out-how-a-novel-length-story-works (which IS one of the 22 senses). At four in the morning, I saw a figure dart out from the front porch. Just a flash of a shadow through the window in front of me, a slight rattle of the mailbox, and I was momentarily terrified. What's if it was a bomb? a threat letter? a pile of dogshit? you know, something terrible and scary!
So I opened the door, looked around cautiously. Nothing on the step... And then I spotted the newspaper in the mailbox. Early, but expected - like a friend's child's premature birth that left her with tiny teeth for six years but normal adult teeth, or like a weird metaphor in a long e_o_i essay-story. The newspaper, the dear snoozepaper, with its reliable comics section, inspired me to go to bed and sleep.
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