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A bench
! An empty bench in the park is surrounded and covered with yellow and green leaves, fallen from the trees. Yellow and green: it's not a simple difference in colour; it's changes happened to the leaves. Not anymore young, beautiful, bright, but old, gorgeous and with a voice. Have you heard how they speak? Under our feet or whirling, dancing, with the wind, they speak, they tell us their stories. ! The bench remembers a lot of stories. It has seen a lot of stories.! It has seen smiles... sincere, shy, selfish and sarcastic. It has seen tears, deep and meaningful silence. It has seen kisses and solitude.! Morning. The bench is wet after the night rain, cold and lonely. Though yesterday it was under the sunshine, cosy, inviting people to sit down on it. ! Midday. It’s raining again. The bench embraces a person sitting under the rain without an umbrella, and both the bench and the person are crying, she with her own tears, and the bench with the raindrops. ! For two hours the bench turns into a stage for a short performance of life, culminating in a quarrel with another person with an umbrella.! Evening. The bench holds an umbrella, without people and without rain.! Night. A hungry and frozen dog tries to shelter himself from the strong wind and rain under the bench.! Dawn. Morning again. New people around, new stories are told, new mood from the weather. !
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Day after day the bench sees all these changes in the world around it. Benches are our change stations, witness to the stopovers in our lives. We rush at full speed, changing all the time, but not noticing it. But when we reach a bench, we make a break, sit down and look around, and we see how we’ve changed and how many benches we have met on our way. Near that one you played when you were a child; on that bench you read a book of your dreams, basking in the sunshine of your future; on the previous bench you were crying under the rain; on the next bench you’ll find an umbrella.!
Knara Agasaryan, Uzbekistan
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