willow

(written at a previous date)

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    I think that basically the worst possible noise (not coming from people) one can hear when one is dogwalking into the park on a glorious February morning is the sound of chainsaws.

    The men in the orange jackets came to the park today. They brought their chainsaws with them.

    The men in the orange jackets hate every beautiful thing.

    They killed the willow, Ms Walter. They killed it and chopped it up into lots of ugly, undignified pieces. I don't get it. Why? Why why why why? It wasn't dead. It wasn't intruding onto anyone's property. It was just there, being lovely even without its leaves, standing there on a grassy knoll and being the only willow in the park. And now it's dead.

    My dog and I finished walking our circuit around the park while I fumed. When we got back to the place where the willow once stood, which is close to the park entrance, we saw that the men were packed up and leaving in their big ugly work-crew truck.

    We passed them as they were driving slowly over the merciless speed bumps. I couldn't help noticing that the truck had the word "SHERIFF" emblazoned on its back, and, squinched in on the side, "inmate work crew".

    The man in the orange jacket in the passenger seat leered at me as my dog and I walked by.

    Some people are just good at ruining other people's days.