The Glowing Rectangles
We came outside
The forecast said fifty degrees and sunny, which in March means something different than it does in October. In October, fifty degrees is a warning. In March, it is a reason to leave the house.
I had been inside for a long time. Not unusually long, just the normal amount of time that accumulates between November and one afternoon when the light comes through the window at a different angle, and you think, I should go outside.
Others had the same thought, apparently, and at roughly the same time.
The benches filled first. Then the grass. Some are prepared and brought blankets. Some sit directly on the ground, which is freshly littered with goose poop. Nearby, a father is attempting to erect a small tent for reasons that are not clear. His children are running circles around him as the rods collapse. Nobody is helping.
I find a bench near the tree line and sit down. I intend to be present in the way you are present on the first nice day, which is different from other days.
A jogger passes on the path, a glowing rectangle held up, mid-conversation, the person on the other end bouncing with every stride. I watch him go and instinctively turn back to the others. The blanket people, the ground people, they are all now clutching their own little glowing rectangles. Nature, it turns out, is less interesting than the people ignoring it.
Near the street, a small kiosk has opened for the first time since October, which everyone treats as a second confirmation that winter is over. There is a line. People are getting ice cream, although it is fifty degrees, which is exactly the kind of defiant optimism that only happens in March. A woman receives her cone, holds it out in front of her, and takes a photo of it before doing anything else. She waited 5 months for this cone. The cone can wait a little longer.
Across the path, a couple sits together on a bench. They arrived together, which I know because I watched them arrive. They have not spoken since sitting down. He is looking at his rectangle with the focused quiet of someone doing important work. She is holding an open book in one hand. She is still on the same page. Her rectangle is in the other hand, which answers that. Every so often, one of them shifts slightly, angling their rectangle away from the sun.
Somewhere to my left, a Bluetooth speaker announces itself with a sound like a small foghorn, and then music starts. Not quietly. The man who owns it settles back with the satisfaction of someone who has improved the situation. The birds, for what it’s worth, were already playing something. Nobody had asked for it, but it was there.
Near the playground, a father is filming his daughter on the slide. She goes down. He films it. She climbs back up the ladder, which is the part that takes the longest, and he films that too. She goes down again. He films it. This has been going on for some time. She looks over often to confirm he is still watching or filming. He gives her a thumbs-up without lowering the rectangle.
On a blanket nearby, a child has been given a larger glowing rectangle in a thick rubber case. The case is the kind designed for a child who might decide at any moment that they are done with it and want to spike it into the ground like a football. The child is sitting completely still, which is not how children sit. Around him, other children are performing physical feats of varying recklessness, and he is aware of none of it. His parents sit nearby with their own rectangles and the expressions of people who have made a decision and would prefer not to revisit it unless they have to. They are not at the playground to play.
My attention is drawn to a woman who is not dressed like the rest of us. Most of us came out dressed similarly to how we have been hibernating. She is dressed like a peacock. She holds her glowing rectangle out, checks it, adjusts her chin, checks it again. She takes several photos, reviews them, and takes several more. I have to give it to her, that patch of sun is very good. She is getting everything she can out of it.
Two teenagers nearby are filming something together, stopping, watching it back, filming it again. One of them says something and they both laugh and film it a third time. Whatever they are making, it requires more takes than they expected. Either way, the nature surrounding us is bound to look excellent through that rectangle.
Humans are not the only ones in the park today; the pigeons are here too and have gathered nearby. The pigeons are fine. The pigeons have always been fine. The pigeons are not interested in glowing rectangles. They are eating from the garbage.
At the far end of the path, an older woman is eating a sandwich and watching people pass. She has been doing this for twenty minutes with the calm focus of someone who finds this sufficient. She seems, actually, better than fine.
I look down and realize I am already holding my rectangle. I don’t remember taking it out, and it’s already glowing.
Someone has posted a video from last night’s concert, vertical, thirty seconds, the audio is some sort of incomprehensible distortion. I watch two seconds of it. Scroll. A child’s school play. Scroll. A meal, photographed from above before anyone ate it, the food already getting cold, so that I could see it for this one second. Scroll.
The light is still good. The park is full. Somewhere behind me, a bird is doing something worth looking up for.
I keep scrolling. 🌷
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Read on my glowing rectangle. Thankfully the sun was not out.
Rectangles are what people consciously do to themselves. It is up to them. But loud speakers is the invasion of public soundscape(: