Continuity of Parks by Zachary Schomburg

Continuity of Parks

 

I was reading a story by Cortazar called “Continuity of Parks” while sitting on a bench in the park near a few wild parrots pecking at a dropped ice cream cone. In the story, a man was sitting in his favorite green char reading a novel with great intensity as he neared the end. In the novel he was reading, a woman was plotting to murder her lover with a dagger. As she approached her lover from behind, there he was, sitting in his green chair, reading a novel about a man about to be killed from behind while sitting in his green chair. Before killing him, the woman leaned carefully and quietly in, then read a few sentences over his shoulder. There she was, in the novel he was reading, behind his green chair, dagger in hand, about to kill him. But instead of killing him, she was reading. Now everyone is reading. The killer is reading. The man is reading. And me. I am reading. Even you are reading. We are all here reading in this book together.