AD21//Day 9 out of 25

Qu. Cartographilia = love of maps

Playing grid puzzles like sudoku, Nonograms, and f it, maybe even chess create maps for trade routes in Imaginary playgrounds. One can do the same in any picture or game, but using the grid structure is easier.

A dog's skin is a map. If it is single colored, it is an endless desert where people traverse only by landmarks based on the dog's body parts. For a dog with spots, such spots can be considered islands in a vast sea, or the other way around, where these spots are lakes, the only water resource found for miles on end.

The interior of a room is also a map. Remember the way children label them as places when they play on their own? Or how when pets mark their territories, they probably name them as well in a way we can't use our letters on?

The way these streets are organized, the way the patterns one can recognize can lead into webs as well—
Timelines, graphs, and thoughts are mind mapped into structures to help organize the mind. After one is done with it, can't it be used as something like that? Actual maps.

_______⨀_______

. . .

The weird girl keeps staring at me again today.

She peeks at me from the other side of the mirror's surface, in an empty park bench during when the sun had just risen completely. She looks at me from the reflecting light of my phone.

Music comes from nowhere. A group of adults wearing shorts and white t-shirts organize themselves in a dancing formation in front of the camera. The beat comes in, and they moved in easy steps that one could follow. When the music ended, they took away the camera and occupied the benches beside me.

Minutes soon pass. The group leave the benches and head for the road, jogging. It's almost seven o'clock. I check my notification for any important events. There are neither calls nor messages. The wifi is turned off.

No rush. Take your time remembering.

≐ Here people are supposed to remember what they want to do, reclaim their inner child and so on. There is no roof, so everyone is free to be coated with the rain and snow. Those dancers are lucky neither happened today. ≐

Seven-twelve. A car parks near the benches, and two kids come out. Their mother, the one at the driver's seat, takes thel by the hand and takes them not towards the dilapidated swing and the multicolored monkey bars, but the outdoor gym, with the sky walk apparatus and the stationary bicycle.

I watch them. One of the thing over that gym is a merry-go-round-platform in multiple sizes, attached to something that connects them all. There are many thing in this place that I see all the time but I do not know the name. One of the children rode those circular platforms. She spun around in the platform, with her mother supporting her. The other child wandered off towards the monkey bars, but the woman did not notice.

The child, unsupervised, tries to go up the monkey bars. She hesitates on where to put her feet and where to grab with her hands. She steps up with one foot, pulls herself to pull up the other one, but ends up back in the same position. She tries again, sometimes with her legs trembling. She was able to go up to the very top, the fourth step, to where there is no longer anywhere for her feet to land on. She touches the next rods, but not knowing that she should swing from them one by one, she went down from the monkey bars instead. Few minutes have passed, while the woman and her child are still at the same spot. The child has moved to a bigger platform.

The child by the monkey bars notices the rusty swing. She touches the chains connecting it up top. The brown sticks to her hands, but she doesn't mind it. She sits on the swing, bars coated with rust slightly spaced from each other. Back and forth, back and forth, because even if the slide is ancient and dirty, it's still fun.

It's symbolic. If I was her, I'd do the same thing.

Meanwhile, the other child had started to use the skywalk apparatus.

Seven twenty. Kids in their skateboards woke up early to play in the park. I recognize the same six faces, though I was used to there be two more of them. They scuttled around the area where the dancers once filmed themselves, and then they moved away when they saw the woman and the child. Maybe that's the reason. Not sure.

I could notice that one of them was forcing his leg. The others told that one to hurry up, then went faster themselves. He almost tripped catching up to them, but it doesn't matter as long as he fits in, right?

...that girl is still staring at me.

"Don't you have anything to do, besides watching people, especially children, in the park? " I typed her words into the fake chat app I just downloaded for her weeks ago. In just those past days we already had so many conversations.

Click the "send" button. After that, I just stared at the screen, acting that I just left her on read. My fingers start moving again.

"If you don't move from where you are, people are going to think you're a creep, watching their every move. "

You're a creep, stalking me through mirrors and talking to me with my own hands. The air in the park early in the morning is cold and refreshing. The fan at home takes up electricity, and your I can feel your eyes from the blackness of the TV monitor. I had watched what I wanted to watch, and I am too afraid of nightmares when if I sleep. I want to stay here, and watch them still.

"You can play games on your phone, read one of the ebooks you told me a week ago that you'll " read later". If I was one of those skateboarding, or one of those dancers, or that woman you immediately assumed was the mother of those two girls, I'd want to slap you on the face. "

It is about this time when the woman I assumed was a mother looks around for her other child. I turn towards the playground and found no one there. I look for the kids in the skateboard, but they are already far from where I am. There is still the possibility that the child is currently with them though, I won't disregard that. The woman walked around to search for her child, leaving the other one beside the skywalk. I can tell that this one is getting closer to tears the more the woman calls out a word which I assume to be the other girl's name.

The woman spots me. She would probably want to ask me if I saw that child. If I did tell her I saw her she might do think I'm a creep for watching children in the park.

"Yes she will. " said the words I typed on the chat app. "And she will report you. "

Shut up.

"Excuse me, have you seen a girl pass by around here? She's about this tall, and she has brown hair and blue eyes like me. " she said.

"Yes, I saw one by the pl—"

≐"𝙔𝙪𝙘𝙠 ᙎᕼƳ 𝔞𝔯𝔢 уσυ ꅏꍏ꓄ꏳꃅꀤꂚꁅ 𝔪𝔶 ᕲᗩᑘᘜᕼᖶᘿᖇ?! "≐

"I'm sorry. " I held my head down the moment I heard those words. My eyes go back to the phone, and I realize that the girl that had been watching be sent a new message.

"Lie to her. "

"I didn't see anyone. " I quietly told the woman in front of me. I can see through the corners of my eye that she was doubting me, but she let it go and continued walking.

Her other child was still by the gym, sitting on the cemented floor by the skywalk. She then moves, poking the outdoor treadmill, and then she carefully tries to walk on it. She'll figure it out soon.

"You shouldn't have assumed she was the mother. A mother would not leave their children behind so easily. That, or she's just a shitty mother. "

Shut up.

Seven thirty four. Someone approaches me. It was that woman again.

"Excuse me, again. "

I put my head down. "Yes? "

≐"𝓲 𝐻𝑜𝑃𝑒 ყσυ 𝖪*** ɏÖµr§êL£ :) "≐

She says and then pulls something behind the bench. " Martha! Why were you hiding behind mister? "

...

The child was behind me. The child was behind me, why didn't you tell me about it?

"It's okay. You were just simply helping the child hide from her negligent mother! I mean, you didn't notice because you're too focused on everything else, staring into an empty space like some weirdo. " my hands typed.

I did look around, and I would've noticed her. She probably just went here after her mother asked me. You could've told me though, so that she wouldn't have told me those words.

"She did tell you to die, didn't she. " it typed.

"Sorry for bothering you! " I looked up to the woman with a frowning child held by the wrist.

"No, I should've told you—"

≐"ʙᴜᴛ ʀᴇᴀʟʟʟʟʏ, 𝗬𝗼𝗨'𝗿𝗘 ᏞᏆᏦᎬ, ｓｏｏｏｏ 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐲! ꏳꍏꂚ 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝗌𝗍𝗈𝗉 ωαт¢н𝒾𝔫𝒈 þêðþlê 𝐋𝐢𝐊𝐞 ιт'ѕ 𝕒ℕ 𝐴𝑐𝐶𝐸𝑃𝑡𝐴𝑏𝐿𝑒 ℌ𝔬𝔅𝔅𝔶 αղժ ᕼᓰᕲᓰᘉᘜ ᓍᖶᕼᘿᖇ 𝖕𝕰𝖔𝕻𝖑𝖊𝕾 ¢н𝑰ʅᗪᖇᥱ𝒩 lIKE 𝑎 𝘾𝙍𝙚𝙚𝙋? "≐

"That's too much. I wasn't hiding her—"

≐"ꍌꄲ ᎻϴᎷᎬ. "≐

"No."

....

"Sorry, are you mad at me? I won't bother you again, sorry. " her tone suddenly changed. And then, she walked away from me whispering something to her child.

"This is what happens when you leave the house, you see? " said the chat app. I pretend to ignore her, and tried to start daydreaming.