“They always talk about remembering.” Meadow Saffron took a double handful of flower petals and flung these after the couple moving along the sidewalk.
“It’s what we do,” Primrose told her. “They won’t forget when WE help them Do It. This one wasn’t so easy though.”
“It was fun.” Bluebell shaped a pyramid of flower petals before her, sighted along one edge, patted it flatter, and then kicked it toward the retreating couple. “I was going to tear a hole in one of the bags but SHE woon’t let me!”
“You just wanted one of those cans of oranges for your own self,” Sniffed Primrose. “I know YOU!”
“So what happens now?” demanded Sweet Pea.
Unfirom’s eyes went to the couple. “They will Do It rather later tonight, and again early in the morning.” He winced as the phronik applauded with all feet and hands. “He will be so impressed with himself that he will continue to see her, and will readily accept an invitation in November to come live with her. Under her influence, he will become more dependable at work, and move up through the ranks. His developing self-confidence will bring on more and more arguments, and after six years, he will leave her for a younger woman. Two years after that, when he learns he is dying of a cancer he left too long, he will seek her out. When he dies, she will be holding his hand.”
“But that’s so sad!” Sweet Pea had to fly to the grass and blow her nose on a French fry bag.
The angel lifted an eyebrow. “Not so sad as it would have been otherwise.”
“He dies a lot later this way,” Meadow Saffron agreed.
“And he’s…look! It’s Mollie!” Bluebell shot through the air followed by her three colleagues as their favorite poodle came up the sidewalk.
Unfirom watched them vie for seats, and then strode off through the grass. It was coming up on one of the quieter parts of the day. As various work shifts came to an end, the park would fill up again, but not many of these would be planning new phases of their romantic lives. That came more toward sunset.
He found a bench and sat down, hands on his knees, more for variation in routine than because he was tired: physically, at least. The park had been here a long time, and so had he. It had survived assorted waves of passive parkism before. He and the phronik had patrolled through all these phases until now, when things were quiet, the park seemed to him to be filled with ghosts.
Here, now, came Tom and Helen. The phronik had had to arrange a bicycle crash for them in 1965. Her left shoe hadn’t turned up for months. Donald and Linda were walking just behind them, knowing nothing about that bicycle accident in 1965, any more than Tom and Helen knew about their daughter’s mishap with that kite in 1977, which had led to her engagement to Donald. Unfirom missed Barry and Billie from the group, just to complete the group. He shuddered at the memory of what the phronik had done to Linda’s daughter’s brassiere in 1996, but it had done the trick.
Rain began to spatter the bench; the foursome hurried past the unseen angel. The shower passed quickly. Snow in winter was more of a problem. Not because of the cold, since he didn’t feel it, but Unfirom’s job was more difficult with fewer visitors, most of them too chilly to present much in the way of work. The phronik had to be kept busy with other things, like experimenting with cookies in the kitchen or throwing snowballs at angels. No one had thrown snowballs at him in his previous job. Griese was a man small children were inspired to throw snowballs at, but unfirom’s job had merely been to divert the projectiles.
Another bit of finished business strolled down the sidewalk. Unfirom glanced over his shoulder. The city had never repaired that gouge her car made in the lawn over there. The gully the phronik scooped out quickly to make her fall in the mud when she got out had taken years to refill. Meadow Saffron had won the betting on when that happened. Ghosts, all ghosts: his part in their lives came at one pivotal point. After that, their lives were usually irrelevant to the park, and vice versa.
Dusk came on reasonably dry. Cars spat up a fine spray as they sped past a little too fast on the way home, but the park was dry enough for a gentle stroll. Unfirom felt a shiver of premonition. When the air was this fresh and the sunset this golden, there could be eight to ten couples to attend to in ten minutes.
The angel rose: time to alert the troops again. Pity he couldn’t send them instructions telepathically: then he wouldn’t need to witness whatever devilry they were up to.
Booty Burgers had drifted into a clump along the fence of the softball diamond: no phronik were among these. They were not to be found under one of the benches at the playground, where fudgesicle wrappers tended to congregate. His mouth tightened, but a splash made him nod, and turn. Another splash drew him to a musical mud puddle.
“Arthur had a brainstorm for the telegraph
That cut the message-sending time to less than half;
He put it on the market; it was doing well
Until he heard from Alexander Graham Bell.
Percolator, coffeemaker,
Subaru and Studebaker:
All ya got is all yer gonna get,
Waddya bet?”
Primrose was squatting in the muddy water, shaking her situpon to the left and right. “That wasn’t refined at all,” she told Bluebell. “Start over.”
“Think yours is better?” Bluebell raised on her nose and then her hips. A face had been painted from one side of these to the other, using mud. “I could do a better mustache with both hands tied behind y back!”
“I’ll get some string and we’ll try that,” Primrose promised.
Sweet Pea screeched “Ooooh! That tickles!”
“Stand still!” Meadow Saffron commanded. “You want the bunny to have crooked ears?” She drew long lines of mud up her partner’s back.
“You could make it a lop-eared bunny,” Sweet Pea pointed out.
“Too late now.” Meadow Saffron stooped for another double handful of mud. “If the bunny had lopped-over ears, I’d need to draw ‘em on your legs.”
“Ooh, do both!” Sweet Pea clasped her hands, which were also full of mud. “Then he can choose which ears he wants to wear every morning!”
“There!” Bluebell smacked mud onto Primrose’s backside.
“Not so hard!”
“Why? Don’t you want him to have color in his cheeks?”
“Ahem,” said the angel.
Four faces tipped up to gaze upon him, but not the faces he had been looking to attract. “The sun is starting down,” he sighed.
Sweet Pea added some mud to the face Meadow Saffron had aimed at Unfirom. “Did you find us some more to play with?”
“Not yet,” the angel admitted. “But it is getting to be that time. We may each have t be on the alert for couples.” As the faces pointed at him shook left and right in four negative responses, he added, “As well as people with their evening choices from Booty Burger.”
“I see a people!” squeaked Sweet Pea, one muddy finger pointed at alone woman. “What do I win?”
“Maybe we’ll all make sure your bunny has rosy cheeks,” said Meadow Saffron. “Just stand still, why don’t you?”
“She did see somebody,” Primrose pointed out. “A nice somebody.”
The head of the forces marshalled to save the park (and, today, the only one of those forces to show up) was moving across the grass, her damp banner wrapped around her like a long cloak. Her eyes were turned up, as if expecting more rain.
“I like her,” said Sweet Pea. “She’s cushy.”
Bluebell nodded. “I bet she has dimples.”
“I bet she has dimples on her dimples,” said Meadow Saffron.
“That’s boring,” Bluebell told her. “She needs hands on her dimples.”
Unfirom watched the protestor spread her banner out on a bench, and then sit down on a dry part of it. “Would you like her as much if she were working for the other side?”
“I would,” said Bluebell. “But I’d keep my mouth shut about it.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” said Primrose, and jumped away from the slap aimed at her lower face.
“I even think HE’S cute,” Bluebell went on, pointing to the developer. “And he’s the one who wants to take away the swings and the sandbox and the Booty Burger wrappers with pickles in ‘em.”
The man stopped at a trash bin to unwrap his ice cream sandwich and drop the wrapper inside. “I wonder if he‘s got dimples,” said Primrose.
“Sometimes,” said Meadow Saffron, “It’s the ones you’d never suspect. Remember that wrestler from the high school?”
Sweet Pea jumped up and down, her bunny face alternately smiling and frowning as it bobbled. “I know, I know, I know!”
“So do I.” Primrose tipped her head to one side. “He was the one who kept moving his hat so he wouldn’t sunburn his….”
“No no no!” Sweet Pea was pointing straight ahead of her as she went on jumping. “Why don’t we make THEM fall in love next?”
Her fellow phronik were much struck by this. “They’d make a cute couple,” said primrose, wiping the mud from her hand with her nose. “Well, half of them would.”
Bluebell flew up toward the angel’s face. “Does he have somebody better to Do It with?”
“No,” said Unfirom. “His work schedule allows little time for a social life. However….”
“Well, let’s give him one, then,” said Meadow Saffron. Sweet Pea giggled
Bluebell grabbed up two handsful of mud and splopped them together to make a geyser. “Maybe we could get ‘em to Do It right here!”
“He couldn’t call it a passive park then,” said Primrose.
“Yeah,” Bluebell replied, joining her in a muddy high five. “And we’d find out about his dimples!”
“Anyways,” said Sweet Pea, “He’d be in love with her so much, he woon’t want to ruin the park where he met her!”
“Can you be sure it wouldn’t work the other way?” inquired the angel, his voice hinting at complete lack of faith in the plans of phronik. “She could be so in love with him that she gives up her crusade, and helps him implement the passive park.”
Sweet Pera whipped around. “Oh, she’d never! Would she?”
“We shall never know. Doing It is not part of their mutual destinies.”
Bluebell shook a finger at his nose. “Say, listen, Chuckles. If you see all that destiny, why don’t you just TELL us what’s going to happen to the park?”
“There are circumstances not yet determined.” The faintest touch of bitterness tinged the angel’s voice. “In any case, an angel can’t know everything.”
“Could’ve fooled us, the way you talk,” grumbled Meadow Saffron.
“In any case,” he informed them, “We have more pressing duties. As they finish eating and stroll out to enjoy the sunset, couples will be coming to the park. We will all need to keep watch for those more romantically inclined than others, so that you can let me know. If I identify such a couple first, I’ll need you to be ready for a summons, and not worrying about couples who are not your problem.”
The phronik saluted their commander with kissy faces—again with the wrong faces—and then shot up into the sky.
“I’ll go this way!”
“You went this way last time! I’m going this way!”
“Well, okay. If you’re going to be that way.”
“No, I’m going to be this way!”
Four tiny muddy bodies zipped out of sight. After half a minute, they had reunited on a side of the fieldhouse roof where the angel could not see them.
“Who’s he think he is, telling us what to do?” demanded Bluebell.
“The one who tells us what to do,” replied Primrose.
“Let’s work on them,” said Meadow Saffron. “It’ll work if it’s all four of us. And if we save the park without HIM, maybe we’ll get to be angels ourselves!”
“Angels never get to eat French fries.” Sweet Pea was peeking over the edge of the roof at the protestor on the bench. “He told us so.”
“Okay,” said Bluebell, hunkering down to draw a diagram which had nothing to do with the matter on a roof tile. “Let’s make ‘em do it right here in public, where everybody can see. That way we can save the park but nobody will make us angels for it.”
Sweet Pea bounced with approval. “And we might make him fall so much in love he drops his ice creams!”
Blogsy Babbles 