| "This place was beautiful once," he said to her, kicking a soda can down the paved walk. It clattered down a jagged path, his a discarded paper bag that was now oozing it contents, and rolled under a bus that had been dead for a long time. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, and grimaced. Beautiful, he thought, and now it smells like garbage and rotting things. "I remember, when I was a kid, we would come down here all the time. There were always people here, other kids with other families, running and laughing. You could smell the salt on the air, mingling with hotdogs and popcorn. The sun beaming down, and the trainers calling from the different shows, accompanied by cheers from the crowds..." He trailed off, looking around at the dead trees, the gray sky. They were the only two here, except for a homeless man who looked like a shuffling mass of rags and hair. An old metal gate groaned on it's hinges in a slight breeze. "Why do beautiful things have to die?" |
