Meeks by Julia Holmes Read Free Book Online

the earth, others pushed into the leaves by the height of their pedestals, faces locked in a moment of perpetual discovery and disappointment. There were those on foot and those on horseback; those studying the midair, the mild weight of a sealed former fate upon their smooth brows; those armed with guns and swords; those dragging broken chains; those slumped in grief; those with tiny hands and feet, beseeching, their childlike palms turned up to the heavens, to the tree branches, to the gossipy stir of leaves in spring, the gossipy stir of leaves forever, forever in judgment of them. Would their trials never end? Who were they, anyway? The statues made Ben forget; they induced a special forgetfulness in the shape of the person they should force him to remember.
    Ben watched the opening of picnic baskets—the emergence of apples, green and red, salted pistachios bundled in handkerchiefs, dusted planks of bread, plate-sized rounds of cheese excavated clumsily by bachelors under the barely concealed disapproval of the young women in their company. A few bachelors rested their heads in the laps of the young women, who were talking or reading books while distractedly smoothing the hair of the sleeping bachelors, all of whom bore expressions of such profound peace, Ben imagined they would lie unperturbed if ferocious little animals dropped from the trees and commenced gnawing through the soles of their shoes. Ben longed to be among them—soon, he would be among them. Perhaps it wouldn't be so complicated after all, and he must remain optimistic.
    Ben found a small hill safely removed from a gang of rambunctious bachelors who were laughing and tackling each other and calling out filthily to women as they passed. Mostly ignored, Ben noted, but not entirely. He sat cross-legged in the grass, plucking blades and folding them along their vertical seams and flicking them absentmindedly just beyond his knees. He looked down and took note of his hands: not exactly the hands of a young man. Hands perhaps too frightening to lay upon another.
    A serious-looking young woman sat nearby in the grass to eat her lunch. She was alone, he was alone. If only he weren't the prisoner of this cheap, dark suit, the things he might say to her. For I wore the pale suit and the bees sought out your hair, drawn gently in by the smell of flowers sleeping. . . . Then the things she might say to him. It was an ideal day for a picnic: the ground was green, the sky was blue, the sun was yellow, the flowers were full and pink.
    The young woman glanced up at Ben; he smiled at her and then looked away. He was thinking of what to say. He watched the legs of a spider turn the dark grains of soil between shoots of grass. He was thinking of what to say next. He could hear the sound of birds rustling their wings in the branches of the park trees. Ben stood—she would ask about the black suit, and he could touch stoically on his loss, his grief, an excellent place to start: with the sympathies of a young woman.
    "My grieving friend!” a voice boomed out; Ben jumped. “We couldn't help but notice your heartbreaking suit, Brother!” Ben tried to ignore the voice, but it was already too late. He was soon surrounded by Brothers of Mercy, three of them, scrubbed clean, shirtfronts pressed into unbreakable boards of cotton, the childish talcum smell of them.
    "This isn't a good time,” said Ben.
    "Brother,” sighed one, “I think it is a good time. Grief can't be postponed, put off until it's most convenient. We're only here to help you, to listen to your troubles. Tell us about your pain, Brother, your broken heart."
    Ben watched as the young woman wrapped up her lunch hastily and hurried out of the park, back into the city.
    "Brother, we can help you. What have you lost? A mother? A father? You're all alone in this world, aren't you?"
    Ben shoved past them and walked toward a general milling in the heart of the park, and as if he had plunged back into a corridor of