THE SKY was always beautiful at this time in the evening. It was a period of maybe five or ten minutes, after the sun had already sank just below the horizon, but its light hadn't quite disappeared along with it yet. The moon was out, and a few stars were slowly becoming visible, but there was still that thin remaining veil of faint sunlight.
Vivian came to this bench, this old and worn out bench in a little-known and unpopular park, to watch the sky whenever she was upset or frustrated. There wasn't much else in that park, save for two more benches and three maple trees. The trees were old and twisted, all their branches intertwining among each other and providing a protective canopy for two of the benches. But Vivian's bench had a clear view of the entire sky. Even if it was raining, this was the only bench that she would ever sit on. There was a singular quality about it, a quality that no other inanimate object possessed. It was quite possibly the oldest manmade thing that Vivian had ever come in contact with. But despite this, it wasn't fragile or decayed. It was well used, faded and stained, but it wasn't weak. It was strong and protective, always ready to support you when you were at your most vulnerable. Vivian would walk down to the park, sink down into that bench, and as long as she was nestled into its strong arms she knew that she was safe from whatever life decided to throw at her. Life could pelt her with stones the size of baseballs and they would just clang hollowly against the back of the bench.
It happened that life had recently been pelting her with just such stones, trying to wear down on her unbearable sanity. Vivian had been living with her boyfriend, Lawrence, for about a year. And for a brief period in that year she had truly felt that she was in love with him. But that feeling had faded, giving way to confusion and, at times, a bitter resentment. Lawrence was a nice man, and had always been good to her. But somehow, she was never satisfied. Even when she was most happy, there was always some small element that was missing. When she thought about it, she had felt that way her whole life. It wasn't a pleasant way to live.
Although Vivian had no right to be angry or bitter towards Lawrence, she oftentimes was. She would snap at him in the evenings when they were home together, and argue with him over the simplest things. More often than not, their arguments would escalate into the yelling of profane insults at one another, until one of them stormed out of the apartment.
Vivian hated fighting with Lawrence. She did care deeply for him, despite the way she acted towards him when they were alone. But the thing about Vivian, and the way she dealt with life, was that when she was questioning herself, she stopped. She just stopped. She would go and sit on her bench for hours, just thinking. And if she didn't come to a conclusion, she wouldn’t go any farther with whatever issue was troubling her. If she was working on one of her novels, and she couldn't decide where to go next with it, she wouldn't write anymore until she had come to a final decision.
The same went for her relationship with Lawrence. Vivian was unsure – she was doubting herself. So she just stopped. She put their relationship on pause, so to speak, until she could sort out her feelings. Lawrence, although he tried to be supportive, did not understand this. How could he? Vivian's mind was nearly as singular as her beloved park bench. There were very few people who understood it, all of them being directly related to her.
Earlier that evening she had been writing in her journal, trying to sort out her feelings, when Lawrence came home. She could hear his car pull into the lot outside – there was something wrong inside his car, so Vivian could always tell it apart from others just by the sound. She could hear the key in the main door, the painful squeak of the rusted hinges, the dull thud of it closing behind him. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Two feet up two flights of stairs. The jingle of keys, the click-and-slide of that last key-in-the-door. Slowly creaking open—
