We Own the Last Picnic Table

How it begins

The picnic table appeared on the road plan as an obstruction.

Ruth Porter had eaten her lunch there every Thursday for nineteen years. She studied the red circle around it and considered the word ungrateful.

A delivery driver stood beside her, holding a paper bag and looking at the newly widened road.

'Can we cross?' he asked.

'Apparently we are an island.'

The contractors had finished on Friday. By Monday the old square was a sweep of tarmac surrounding one oval of grass, one table and the plane tree whose roots had defeated an earlier attempt at improvement.

Joseph Lane tested the crossing button. Nothing happened.

'It's not connected,' Ruth said.

'How do you know?'

'I asked the man carrying it.'

A lorry passed close enough to stir the napkins in her basket. Ruth waited, then stepped onto the grass with the determined calm she had once used to carry soup through a school dining hall. Joseph followed.

He set down his bag. A sandwich slid out, flattened almost transparent.

'You need a plate,' she said.

'I need six minutes.'

She gave him both.

Across the road, two office workers watched them through the window of a new coffee shop. Behind them, every seat was occupied by someone who had bought a drink. Ruth unfolded a second napkin.

Joseph's telephone sounded. He checked it, winced, and put it face down.

'You aren't buying anything here,' she said.

'I wasn't worried about that.'

'Good. Neither am I.'

The office workers came outside. They stood at the disconnected crossing, then looked toward the long route around the traffic island.

Ruth opened her basket. She had brought four portions because old habits were harder to remove than public furniture.

By the time the first planning officer arrived, there were six people at the obstruction, and somebody had put the kettle on.