Fiction: Optimist Park

By Karen Walker

While on foot patrol on Sunday Sept 26, town police observed a tent and campfire in Optimist Park in contravention of municipal bylaws. After speaking to the parties, officers learned that the twenty-four-year-old male was to have no contact with the eighteen-year-old female he was camping with. 

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Pete, crouching beside the campfire, thinks, Oh, shit.

Willow, lazing inside the tent, doesn't.

The tent thinks Get out there, you coward. The tent isn't optimistic she will. 

I'm Pete's fault, thinks the campfire. 

#

Pete had robbed a convenience store at knifepoint.

Willow, who stayed in the car, had given him the knife. She later denied it to her father, crying, "I'm afraid of sharp things!" He's optimistic an expensive lawyer will make it all go away. 

The tent was in Pete's mother's garage on the night of the robbery. The tent has known him since he was a boy scout and will be a good character witness at trial. 

The campfire doesn't want to get involved. 

#

Pete hasn't read the no-contact order. He just fanned through to check his first name. The smart legal people spelled it correctly: there wasn't one r. 

Willow has read the no-contact order, her feet up on her father's gleaming oak desk.

Back in his scouting days, Pete's mother had sewed his name inside the tent. She was fairly optimistic he'd make friends. 

No one—certainly not the fire in the park—would've believed that the Pete of the robbery, the Pete of September 26th had earned merit badges. 

#

Before the police appeared, outside Pete had hollered to inside Willow, "Got another knife?"

"Always," she said. She threw open the tent's door flap and tossed out the blade. 

The tent shook. Gees, be careful!  

When Pete cut branches from the birch saplings newly planted for the town's 85th anniversary, the campfire wasn't optimistic. Would such green wood burn well? It didn't. It smoldered and smoked. 

#

Willow texted Pete by the fire. "Wanna kiss me? Touch a boob?"  

Pete had never touched a boob. He hoped to finally do so in Optimist Park. He yanked marigolds from a tidy flower bed because women love flowers. 

Like Pete, the tent was a virgin. What's sex going to feel like? Will they stretch me?

The campfire fretted about being left unattended. It was a dry September.

#

Pete drops the marigolds, protests. "Officer, we ran into each other by accident!" Then, ever the optimist, he tries: "This is too small a town!"

Willow stops texting Pete and calls her father.

The tent thinks, Oh, shit. 

As the police smother it, the campfire can relate to Pete despite disdain for his decision-making. The fire thinks Pete is, at this moment, also thinking, Go ahead, kick dirt on me.

Karen Walker (she/her) is in a basement in Ontario, Canada. Her work is in or forthcoming in Centaur, Flash Boulevard, The Hooghley Review, voidspace zine, Brink, Overheard, and in other nice places.