Leave It Behind

The afternoon air was damp as the clouds filled the trees and rested on the ferns below. I stopped on my way home from work to go for a quick run in Goldstream Park. Parking just outside the boundary to avoid fees, I began my run but quickly heard loud, desperate banging. I ran by two guys in a secluded turn-off. I couldn't help but stop and ask what they were doing. They were taking turns with crowbar and hammer to break open a safe having lost the key. "Good luck," I said and meant it. I couldn't imagine how they would get the thing open given the obvious amount of energy they had already expended. I thought I was going for a workout.

I wondered what would happen to the safe once it was finally opened.

They were doing their work in a location where many people come. It's a hidden turn-around off a seldom-used road. People confuse this spot with the dump. Refuse scatters the ground. I've seen couches, mattresses, spent paint cans and pot plants. (Regarding these plants, only the containers with a few stems were left. They might have been worth something otherwise.) I guess it’s an easy place for people to come when they haven’t been taught what to do with their garbage.

Everywhere you go inside the park, the ground is immaculate save for the natural growth. This one spot is immediately outside the park boundary and is seldom cleaned. Park-facility personnel don’t venture beyond the border.

Each time I breathe in this scene of waste in the middle of this unfounded beauty, I am anguished to see trash ornamenting God’s artwork. I come to this particular spot less and less for this reason alone.

My run was nearly over. Running past the turn-off on my way back to the car, I noticed the two guys had driven off. I didn’t stop to look whether or not the safe had been left behind.

I didn’t want to know.

I was cold and wet enough.