Lord Liverchester

Chapter 25

Once on the other side of the wooden posts, Dorian ran forward with speed I rarely saw from him. I followed behind leisurely, drawn in by spring horses and a large tree in the middle of everything. There wasn't a lot there, just a lot of grass and these spring horses that were placed haphazardly throughout the plot of land. Dorian stood looking down at a conglomeration of four of them welded together. Not all of them were horses. In fact, only two in the whole park were horses; the rest were chickens, elephants, donkeys, sheep, and other harmless animals. Looking down at the four that were placed there in an X, I felt like there had once been more. I remembered more than four of us playing on it at a given time. Dorian was eyeing the donkey, asking aloud if it could support his weight. I shrugged, letting him get on it to find out. To our surprise, it held him and didn't break. I climbed onto the elephant across from him and we leapt up and down for a while, genuinely enjoying ourselves. He smiled, his hair falling over his eyes.

"This is just like it used to be," he said. "We would do this for hours, not a care in the world. Them were the days."

For a long time, we bounced and tried to find that part of ourselves that was never truly lost. With the park abandoned, he chose to talk loudly and howled, reverting back to his child self. His laughter was music to my ears, his eyes sparkling and proving that he was very much alive. I watched him bouncing up and down, barely focusing on anything else as the two of us could nearly forget where we were. The sun disappeared behind the clouds, casting everything in a dreary gray shadow. The sunshine was great while it lasted, but we wouldn't see it again for a while. I noticed it just as there was a terrible metallic squeak, a scrape that stopped us in our tracks. Dorian leapt off the donkey, nearly falling as he slid off of the metal. I followed suit, straying behind when he started to walk away. The fading paint and rusted metal was a memory I had stowed away. Perhaps many times I had dreamed about these metal animals, their forms and neglected existence that had been painted over too many times. The original tarnished creatures beneath showed through layers of attempted refurbishment, original colors and those stacked on top flaking off from weathering. Some had changed more than others, but over the years, only one thing remained the same. These toys, no matter how rusted, still provided joy to children, and sometimes adults. Dorian managed to situate himself on top of a bright yellow chicken, not learning his lesson after nearly breaking the donkey. The rusted spring bent backward with his weight, unable to move forward again. I would always remember watching him try his hardest to get it to spring to the front again, pushing with his feet and wiggling. It was, after all, rather funny to see this large grown man in his fancy coat sitting on a stylized chicken. He had to give up before long, exhausting all his willpower and feeling foolish. By now we were under the shade of the large tree, its leaves and tiny sticks littering the ground. We sat together at its base, side by side and looking out at the stretch of grass that seemingly never ended. We had lunch, sharing the fruit. He wouldn't tell me what animal had been made into jerky, but something told me it wasn't beef. I kissed him before he ate it, knowing full well I wouldn't want to afterward. His mouth was hot, wet and sweet with fruit juices. I tried to tune him out when he started rambling about political injustice. I looked up at the sky for a long time, knowing it had changed since we were small, but it still looked the same. Once upon a time I had sat in that same spot, the tree limbs hanging over my head and reaching out in the same place. I had seen this exact image before, but it was so far away I couldn't find a way to touch it again. It was buried so deep in my soul, a part of me that traveled through my veins and itched under my skin. It was part of my framework, and maybe someone else's. I couldn't be sure if anyone else had been there before too, touched so deeply by being there. Aside from Dorian's tangent, the world was so quiet. I could ponder my own existence. It didn't lead to a crisis. I instead realized this was exactly where I was meant to be. I was fortunate, winding up alive after many trials and tribulations. Some of us were lucky to come back here as adults, reliving a place of sanctuary all over again. Many of our friends didn't make it out alive, as I was discovering. I caught pieces of Dorian's words, torn up by them in ways I never thought possible. Each word was a reminder, taking me to places I thought I had only dreamed of. There were people that had once existed, all from this very real place.