A Calculus of Stillness

Julian, a young writer grappling with unseen burdens, finds himself anchored to a park bench in autumnal Winnipeg, his observations of the city's quiet pulse becoming a reluctant mirror to his own stasis.

The bench bit into my thighs, cold metal even through the layers of denim and the thin, cheap blanket I’d thought to bring. It wasn’t exactly thick enough for late October in Winnipeg, but it was something. Something to wrap around the hollowness, maybe. My fingers, numb even inside my gloves, picked at a loose thread on the blanket’s edge, a small, repetitive action. The wind kept tugging at the pages in my notebook, not quite ripping them free, just threatening, a constant low-level anxiety. I held it down with my forearm, the pen still poised above a blank page, its nib a tiny, useless spear.

It had been like this for… weeks? Months, probably. The words just weren’t there, not the good ones anyway. The ones that felt like truth, like they were worth the paper. Everything else felt forced, like a cheap imitation of someone else’s voice. A bus groaned past on Portage Avenue, its engine fighting the chill, leaving behind a faint smell of diesel. A woman with a bright pink toque walked her impossibly small dog, the dog’s paws making almost no sound on the crunching leaves, a contrast to the high-pitched yaps it occasionally let out. She didn’t look up, just kept her eyes fixed on the small, shivering creature.

That was it, wasn't it? Everyone just looking at their own small, shivering creature, whatever it was. Mine was this blank page. This story that refused to coalesce. This life that felt like it was doing a slow, controlled skid into… I wasn’t sure what. Indifference, maybe. Or worse, irrelevance.

### Under the Weight of Ochre

A sycamore overhead, still clinging to its burnt ochre and rusty bronze leaves, let go with a sigh. They spiralled down, some catching on the stiff, dead branches of a hawthorn bush before tumbling to the damp grass. I watched one leaf, a perfect, five-pointed star, land just beside my boot. It was damp, cool to the touch. Perfect, but already decaying, softening at the edges. Too perfect, in a way. Like a picture I’d seen online, not something actual and happening right now.

I should write about that. The leaf. The way the light, thin and watery, tried to highlight the veins. But then what? What was the story there? A leaf falls. So what? The profound emptiness of that question echoed a little too loudly in my head. What was the story here, with me? Sitting. Waiting. For… what?

A young couple, probably university students, were huddled on another bench across the path, sharing a coffee cup. They laughed, their breath pluming white in the cold. Their fingers interlaced. It looked easy, that closeness. Uncomplicated. My stomach gave a low rumble, not of hunger, but of something akin to loneliness. Or maybe just envy. It was hard to tell the difference these days. My phone, tucked deep in my pocket, vibrated once, a short, insistent buzz. I didn't check it. I already knew. Esther. She’d call. She always did. And I always let it go to voicemail. What was I supposed to say? 'No, I haven't written anything decent. Yes, I'm still just… sitting?'

The thought of her voice, kind but with that edge of worried frustration, felt like too much to handle right now. Too much expectation. Like she was waiting for a version of me that wasn't here, hadn't been here for a while. The Julian who had big plans, who had a notebook full of ideas, who actually *wrote* things. That Julian felt like a ghost, haunting my own thoughts.

---

Two men in high-vis vests moved methodically along the far edge of the park, picking up stray bits of litter with long grabbers. Each piece of crumpled paper or plastic wrapper was a small victory against the encroaching mess. I watched them, their movements precise, almost ritualistic. There was a simple honour in that, I thought. A clear task, a visible result. My work, or lack thereof, felt invisible. A slow decay, like the perfect leaf, hidden from everyone, even myself.

My gaze drifted to the skate park. Empty now, the concrete half-pipes and ramps slick with a thin sheen of damp. In summer, it would be teeming, a symphony of clatter and shouts. Now, only the skeletal branches of a nearby elm scraped against each other in the wind, a dry, unsettling whisper. The quiet amplified my own internal monologue, each thought a pebble dropped into a deep, still well.

I thought about the last rejection letter. It wasn't even personal, just a form email, but it had landed like a stone in my chest. 'While your submission showed promise…' Promise. That word felt like a curse. A suggestion of potential, never quite fulfilled. It had been months since then, and the well had only gotten deeper, the pebbles quieter.

I pulled my hands free from my gloves, clenching them into fists, then splaying them out. The skin was rough, a little chapped from the cold. I traced the lines on my palm. A geography of nothing important. No grand destiny. Just… lines. A shiver ran through me, not just from the cold, but from the realization that I was almost twenty-three, and this was it. This was the dream. Sitting on a cold bench, avoiding phone calls, and staring at a blank page. The romantic notion of the tortured artist had long since worn thin, replaced by the grim reality of a guy who just couldn’t get started.

The sunlight caught a glint of movement near the duck pond. A child, bundled in a bright yellow coat, was throwing bits of bread into the murky water. A single duck, late to migrate or perhaps simply stubborn, paddled excitedly, its feathers a dull green-black against the pale water. The child's laughter carried faintly on the wind, a sound so pure it felt alien in the chill, melancholy air. I watched for a moment, the small scene playing out like a diorama of innocence. The child’s mother, bundled similarly, stood a little apart, her phone pressed to her ear, nodding occasionally.

Two different worlds, side-by-side. The uncomplicated joy, the mundane conversation. And then me, stewing in my own self-made quagmire. It felt childish, suddenly, this grand suffering over a few unwritten words. This self-absorption. But knowing it felt childish didn't make it any less real. The weight didn’t lift. It just… shifted, settling in a new, slightly more uncomfortable spot.

### A Thread of Resignation

My phone buzzed again. Esther. I sighed, a long, shaky breath that misted in the air. This time, I pulled it out. The screen glowed, her name a beacon of both concern and accusation. I hesitated, my thumb hovering over the green 'answer' icon. Maybe she just wanted to talk about her new job. Maybe she missed me. Maybe she just wanted to hear my voice, not caring what I had or hadn't written. The wind picked up, a sudden, sharp gust that sent a shower of crimson and gold leaves swirling around me, a brief, chaotic dance. They settled, just as quickly, against my knees, like offerings. My thumb brushed the screen, not quite hitting 'answer', but not hitting 'decline' either.

I looked at the leaves on my lap. The colours were vibrant, despite the cold. Despite the ending of their season. They were still beautiful, even in their death. It was a stupid, clichéd thought, but it was *my* stupid thought. And for a moment, a fleeting second, the chill in my bones felt less like a prison and more like… a presence. Something to lean into, rather than fight against. The phone kept vibrating, a persistent hum in my hand, a small, demanding rhythm in the quiet park. I turned it over, the screen facing the blanket, silencing the vibration, but not answering. Not yet. I just sat, and watched another leaf fall.

The sun dipped lower, the light growing even weaker, stretching long, uncertain shadows across the grass. My own shadow, long and thin, seemed to ripple at the edges, like water disturbed. The blank page in my notebook caught the last of the light, shimmering, still empty. But maybe, I thought, maybe it wasn't just empty. Maybe it was just waiting. Or maybe it was just a blank page, and I was just a guy on a cold bench in a park, trying to find some meaning in a dying season. The possibility hung in the air, a breath held, then slowly, carefully released.