A Walk in the Park

It was just a walk in the park.

Just one foot in front of the other for God knows how long. The grass, once stiff and stout, crumpled into brown tatters under her feet. Long since deprived of life, long since cared enough for to thrive.

The only thing left for it to do was die.

Basking in this last sunset's light, she kept walking. Her path had been planned far in advance, so she knew where she was to go.

It was a decision that had hung over her head ever since she was a child. Her hands were tied, forced even, to sign that contract, to pledge herself to one side of this invisible war. Yet, in her impotence, she was unable to break free.

When the first of her flowers withered, she was oddly submissive. It wasn't her fault; she told herself again and again like a mantra. It changed nothing, nothing at all. She had clutched her necklace, a silver heart locket, and rolled its chain through her fingers as she coaxed herself to sleep, the pain dulling as her mind wandered.

By the time her ground was unfertile, she had started to breathe easier. If she had planted seeds, they would have suffered the same fate she had. It was better this way. It was better to crush the dirt you walked on.

So she did as she walked, if for no other reason than to humor herself, although it made no difference. But, as harmless as the act was, it still felt violent and cruel.

Maybe she could walk until the sun rose again. This park stretched farther than she could imagine. Perhaps she could muster the strength to see a sunrise again.

But she was so tired. Her feet were alive, but her mind was drained. Her punishment for misbehavior would be far worse than she dared to imagine.

She had no choice then.

She didn't want this, and with that thought, she began to slip into a whirlpool of panic. She went spiraling down, asking all the questions she had not deigned to entertain before tonight.

There was simply not enough for everyone. It was random, the lottery. No one could control the results.

The lottery had to exist to keep the peace and the flimsy order they had established.

Was it a coincidence that her impoverished family had drawn one of the short straws? Perhaps. But that line of thinking was frowned upon during her childhood. Why make a bad situation worse? Her mother was her best teacher. Even when she trembled with fear, she always brought herself back. She taught control. She taught tunnel vision.

She taught sanity.

They had never been that lucky, her mother would say.

She supposed that was true, and evidently so, as she kept moving forward along this dead and beaten path.

Her father had walked, and her mother had followed shortly after.

She hoped even now that there was still green grass and wildflowers along their paths.

She fondled her necklace again, feeling a twinge of nerves surge through her stomach, her hungry stomach.

She wanted a meal, desperately. At that thought, she could not wait for the shine of the moon any longer. Her eyes burned with her throat, and she pressed her lips together as the first of her tears fell.

Could she not taste a delicacy just this once? Was that too much to ask?

Her mother may have taught her to stay sane, but she had never been that good of a listener when it counted.

Deep down, she would always be like this. Afraid and scared and too tired to change anything about it.

She hated the lottery. It was not kind to hate, but she was too miserable to care. If she was to walk, then she would bear it all.

There had been too many people. Too many to control, and so they did the one thing they were best at-- destroying lives.

They took, and they take, and they will never stop.

Not as long as they can continue doing so.

It was a lottery to decide who gets to have lives.

It was a lottery to decide the unfortunate ones who do not.

All because there were too many of them to keep alive. All because it was easier to cut the flock before they learned to fly on their own.

She wondered if this really was the only way. Maybe she should feel honored, but the unjustifiable never lead anyone to contentment.

The brother from her childhood neighbors walked, and so did the parents from the apartment above hers and the family that ran the local food bank.

What a way to repay them, she thought.

But why was she so miserable? Why was she feeling so alive now? Now when she was walking away?

She could not make herself feel frustrated even if she had tried, and she had tried many times. Please, she had pleaded with her subconscious; please let me scream. Please let me cry. Please let me feel something. Anything.

She had an allotted amount of time, but all she had managed was a strained existence. She could not accomplish anything, but she supposed making it this far was an accomplishment of its own. Most take their walks early.

Despite it all, she was incredibly elated over her grief and her pain. She finally knew what it felt like to be centered in reality again. Walking, she understood what she had been missing.

It had been such a long time.

But even with these feelings, her fight had long worn out.

The lottery was near-sacred, and no one dared to argue with that.

She could have been so many things.

The moon shone down, bathing her in silver. Silver like the locket that hung snugly around her neck. She unclasped the two halves, revealing an empty inner casing, and in that emptiness, she felt peace.

Peace that nothing had really changed. Peace that she had been condemned from the start. Peace that her walk was almost over.

Over too soon, but not a moment too late.

She felt serene, looking over the edge. Here she was, at the close of her journey, a cliff with calm waters below. She wondered what the others saw when their walks were over. She wondered what they thought when the walks they had been promised were carried out. She wondered how they felt when their walks were finally at their end.

"I'll take you with me," she whispered to herself, a vow between her and the locket she had kept all these years. Then, with one hand around the heart, she glanced to her bare feet. In between sprouted a single flower, barely visible under the moonlight, a weed that had miraculously sprung up from this forsaken ground. Here, at the fringe of her existence, a butterfly fluttered by her ankles, perching itself on the flower's white petals.

She smiled softly.

Then she walked her last step forward.