On my walk I didn’t really have a goal in mind as far as where I was going or why I was going there, so I put my shoes on and just started walking down the road. I didn’t have a very long time to walk because I knew my brothers would be curios and walk only a few minutes behind me. I couldn’t take pictures but with the time I did have I thought about too many things to count, but as I began down the street I noticed the different houses and pieced together the type of people that lived there. People have always fascinated me, their ways of thinking, their unique sets of logic and way of living, each person with a different set of infinitely expanding ideas and dreams, thoughts and concerns. I knew a few people in the different homes but I could see the others by observing the things they would leave at their house, the toys outside, the care of the lawn, the shape of the house, cars, lawn ornaments, flowers, all sucked me into a mental factory of personalities for these unknowable beings. After going through several streets I began going down the hill by my house to the small park where I liked to think, approaching the entrance of the park to find a business man in his car blasting music while he had a smoke, I walked by paying no attention to him at all. The rains of the past few days had made my favorite place to think dangerous due to the slick wet ground. The basketball court along with others had been locked up behind their fifteen foot or so fences with chained locks forbidding me to enter. Another truck came, this one was different, the maintenance man for the park, coming by at his usual time, doing absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the park. I sat on a bench watching him walk aimlessly around, obviously dreading his job, simply wanting to drag through another day, kicking garbage around instead of cleaning it, locking the park gate as he and the other cars left. Once I was sure I was alone I climbed the fence walking over to the corner to sit, closing my eyes and relaxing. Only a few minutes later my brothers slowly but surely made their way down the hill and over to the cage, where I let them in through the gate door due to a broken bottom hinge that would allow me to pull the door upwards enough for them to get through. Even as they joined me I wondered about how they would be at my age, where they were going to go with their lives and how. I watched them shoot hoops trying and failing to miss the dirty scum filled puddles of the dirty court from years of neglected care. It wasn’t until it began to rain that we decided to return home, talking and laughing all the way. I watched the same houses on the way home, still imagining the possibilities for the mystery families and people living within them until I was back at home.
