The Bench

By Anushka Devesh

I was placed in the park long before the trees grew tall. Wood shaped into stillness, iron nailed into silence, I was never asked to move, only to witness.

Children were the first to find me. They climbed my arms, scratched their names into my skin, and laughed so loudly that even the birds paused to listen. Their paper planes would fall at my feet, and I learned that joy has no need for reason.

Later came the lovers. They held each other as if the world was crumbling, whispering promises I still keep though they forgot. Some returned years later with strangers beside them, their hands quieter, their laughter absent. I said nothing. I am made for silence.

Old men leaned against me when their legs grew tired. They spoke of wars and rains, of fields that no longer gave grain. They never spoke to me, yet every word sank into my wooden chest as though I was the only one still listening.

On stormy nights, when the park emptied and the world hid indoors, I sat alone. Rain hammered my back, and I thought of every secret I carried. Not one belonged to me, yet I bore the weight of them all.

Time did not pass for me as it did for the people. Paint peeled, screws rusted, seasons shifted, and still I remained. The world measured life in hours, I measured it in arrivals and departures.

Now I am old. The wood splinters, the iron bends. Children no longer run to me, and lovers choose brighter places to sit. Yet I remain here, breathing quietly with the earth, holding stories no book has ever written.

One evening, a young writer sat upon me with trembling hands. She pressed a notebook to her lap and whispered, “Tell me what you remember.” I had no voice, yet somehow she understood. Her pen moved quickly, catching fragments of laughter, of tears, of promises lost. She wrote until the night swallowed the park.

When she finally left, I felt lighter, as if some of my silence had been carried away in her pages. Perhaps that is all I ever wanted: not to speak, but to be heard.

If you choose to sit with me, I will not speak. But know this: beneath your silence, you are not alone. Every laugh, every tear, every promise once made still lingers here.

I am the bench, and I remember. Always.

By Anushka Devesh