The Lonely Square

The sun is setting and the trees are bare. Their leaves have fallen and cover the terraces of the stone amphitheater like dust that lies on shelves. Symphony Square sits silently, its stage and seating staring at one another over the stream that separates them. There is a bridge that connects the top terrace to the stage and the building that is perched behind it, the backdrop in the invisible performance. I am alone in the theater except for the two light boxes which stand stiff to my right and to my left; they look like people without limbs and big black box heads. Their spotlight eyes are fixed on the spot of the stage where my eyes look when I look up from my laptop. Every now and then a man will walk by along the creek that separates my side of the square from the stage’s. I’ve seen him a couple times now he doesn’t seem to notice me; as if I have blended into the stone steps I am sitting on. Behind me there is a restaurant which welcomes someone new every now and then; I hear their conversations as they pass behind me; they will be seated in front of a window that looks out on stone creekscape I am propped on. Behind the glass they can only watch me as I read and write; they see what I see but can’t feel what I feel—the wind, the cold, the leaves, the loneliness don’t touch them.
I move across the bridge to the stage side and sit against the ivy covered stone wall. The light boxes are fixed on me, their spotlight eyes focused in. On the top terrace of the far side a man walks up on his cell phone he faces me and gives me his subconscious attention. The stone terraces below him lose their depth a little from this side; their individual rises form one wall of stone and mortar. When I glance back the man turns and goes into the restaurant. Abandoned, the loneliness of this place returns. Forgotten, the two sides of the square have nothing better to do than return to the stare down. What happened to the symphony and why did it left its square to be forgotten. I wished it would return and fill up the seats of stone that were facing me, with moms and dads and kids with popcorn. Its song would echo over the water and off the stones jolting the square from its painful sleep. The restaurant would open its windows to hear the song; those inside would feel the breeze from the river; those outside would smell the warmth of its kitchen. Life could return and maybe it does, but not tonight.
I return to the side of the seats and remember my car is at the meter across the street that was to expire fifteen minutes before the meters went free. Instead of going I sit and finish reading in the dwindling light; the same homeless man wanders by again and a few more customers are seated behind the glass. I finish reading; stare at the stage again, and then leave. There is no ticket waiting for me—even the law has forgotten symphony square with no symphony.