South Ozone Soundwalk

The air is crisp, wind stinging my face with cold as it drives by. I close my eyes as a walk down the block, attempting to focus on the sounds around me. The purr of an engine catches my ear as a car flies down the road. I don't know much about cars. I can tell the bus went by since it sounds heavier. The doors open about a block away, wheezing open and closed again as it continues its journey to the airport. At this point I've reached the park and i sit down on the swings. The creaking of metal is a sound I've become familiar with, more so in recent years as I've gotten heavier and the chain links screech until i reach full momentum. It's easy after years of swinging to close my eyes and immerse myself in the world around me without paying much attention to my speed and height. The first thing I hear is two women walking by me, I assume they find a bench since i don't hear the slow grind of the swing chains anywhere else. They speak to each other in a language I don't know, maybe Arabic. The wind punctuates every sentence with another howl, never truly leaving the background orchestra of nature. Another woman walks by, her girlfriend has cheated on her and she's yelling on the phone. Her harping is distinctly louder than the other two voices I'd just heard and her voice breaks at one point. I wonder what that woman really did to her. Without warning, the thundering echo of a plane overhead strikes us below and drowns out almost all other sounds temporarily. It passes quickly and my focus turns to a basketball hitting the concrete rhythmically, a short pause, then a louder bounce. I assume whoever threw it missed the hoop entirely. With my eyes open finally, the sunlight tries to pierce through them so my gaze turns to the shade. I watch a squirrel forage under a magnolia tree, the soft sound of dead leaves crunching underneath its tiny feet. Strange how I didn't hear it moving until then. I wonder, would I have ever known if I hadn't opened my eyes.