You are sitting on the green slats near the playground, the paint peeling in that one spot under your left thigh where everyone's hands have worn it smooth. You barely notice you are here. You are half on your phone, half watching the pigeons, mostly somewhere else entirely, running through the thing you said this morning that you wish you hadn't.
Let me tell you what I remember about this bench.
I remember the exact give of it. The way the middle slat sat a little lower than the others, so you always slid an inch toward the center. I remember the sun coming in sideways at this hour, warming the wood before it warmed you. I remember it as the place you sat when you didn't have anywhere you had to be, which turned out to be rarer than you think it is right now.
You will look for benches like this, later. Ones that face something. Ones that don't ask anything of you. You will not always find them.
So stay a minute longer than you meant to. Don't check the time. The thing you said this morning is already forgiven, by everyone but you, and you will let it go eventually anyway, so you may as well let it go now, in the sun, on the low green slat, with the whole unremarkable afternoon still in front of you.
It was a good bench.
I hope you noticed it a little, even then.