The Fun Day & two others
new flash memoir by Josh Dale
The Fun Day
As a gift for our elementary school graduation, we were taken to Hibernia Park. It was the first time I’d visited, too. Knowing more about familiar lawns and the enclosed asphalt of our urban recess, I gazed out onto the entire park, awestruck at the ensemble waiting for us. We poured out of busses, greeted by our teachers wearing short sleeves and shorts. There was the lunch staff preparing meats in ice chests, the nuns following through with setting up the pavilion. Activity stations of various balls, cones, and trashcans with number signs. We got divided up into groups by last names and went about The Fun Day. We ate burgers and hotdogs and coleslaw and Little Hug juices and mac and cheese. We threw footballs and played frisbee. Larger games like kickball and jousting with pool noodles. It was gym day on steroids. We did music circles with old instruments, painted paper plates and paper boxes left over from the year. Some weird form of yoga that someone’s mom taught us. Hours and hours went by in a flash. By high noon, we were feeling bloated and sweaty. God, it felt great to be alive. The sun wanted inside that pavilion, but the bugs were soon to break in. A boombox came out and the Macarena played on loop. You were either great at following the dance or turned into a body about the ocean. We danced and ate some more and drank water bottles. And when that water was gone, we drank from the iron pipes. I saw my friends, enemies, crushes, and contemporaries not as a student body, but as individual selves. We fell into the grass and got bug bites and gave hugs and high fives. We were fully alive and unbound. And our disbelief concluded when our parents came to pick us up. H.A.G.S., the universal departing line. I collapsed in my dad’s car, exhausted. And when I left that park, I imagined I patted my past self on the back. It looks better on the other side, I would say, knowing that the moments through the years would crystallize into the past. And they would be equal parts bountiful and beautiful.
Trying to disappear
There was a day when we had a magician come by. He took residence on the small stage in the cafeteria. He wore a mauve velvet suit and a fedora. With a few whirls of his magic wand, he made flowers appear out of thin air. With each conjuring, came a puff of smoke. It would dissipate over us seated children, the acrid substance tingling my throat. For his more advanced trick, he asked for a volunteer. Before him, a mystical box with gold painted swirls and question marks. He pointed his wand at M. He said to imagine something she wanted dearly. She said a few magic words, reached into the box, and pulled out a rabbit. She cried right then and there, cuddling the thing. Said her deceased father was going to get her one. I felt a panging in the back of my head and stretched my vest with my knees. The last time I saw animals in school I ended up with a cold hand on my shoulder and the worst news of my life. As the show ended, I wanted to ask him to make me disappear once and for all. If it wasn’t for a teacher pulling me up from my seat, I would’ve been absent for the next class.
Outside the window, a bird sings
4th-grade social studies were on the 2nd floor. I covered a flood that hit the southern US for my first current event report. Maybe it was a hurricane. I loved where I sat. The large casement windows let in so much light. There was a huge dogwood tree that continued up past our line of sight. You’d have to put your cheek to the glass and look up to see the tip-top. It made bumpy cherries in the fall. I remember some kid from 3rd grade ate some and threw up during recess. I enjoyed the springtime though. Mrs. M. kept the windows open. You could smell the white blossoms exploding on the limbs. There was a bird’s nest that formed over time. Even the squirrels that rooted through would avoid it. The high-pitched chirps meant babies hatched. A thunderstorm arrived the Friday before Memorial Day. It turned the sky mauve and malevolent. It blew off many petals and made branches slam into the building. We were so frightened. A window shattered, glass hitting the floor. Mrs. M. ushered us away from the hazard. You could feel the wind zipping through the hole. By Tuesday, the maintenance man patched it with cardboard. It blocked my view of the nest. We kept the windows closed until the school year was over. I imagined there wasn’t anything to hear or see anymore.
Josh Dale is a cat-loving, heavy metal, forest-walking native of Southeastern, Pennsylvania. Other books by the author include The Light to Never Be Snuffed and Duality Lies Beneath. Say hello, read stories, and subscribe: joshdale.co
