Sunday Afternoon 

            It was Sunday afternoon and I was bored out of my mind. Just as I usually do on Sundays, I had drunk most of a pot of coffee. For some odd reason, the coffee didn’t do its magic and I found myself fighting sleep even though I had gotten at least nine hours the night before. I tried reading a book by one of my favorite authors, but that didn’t hold my attention either. It appeared to be nice out, so I decided to escape my cramped and suffocating apartment and fight my lethargy by walking to The Hague to start my essay for English class. I was going to write about when I saw some cyclists while walking to class the first day this semester. I had really wanted to be riding instead of going to class.

            The first thing I noticed when I left my apartment was the smell of smoke. I wondered what was on fire, but I couldn’t tell where the smoke came from. Luckily the smell wasn’t that strong. The smoke didn’t remind me of an urgent house fire; it reminded me of a lazy campfire, one for roasting hot dogs and toasting marshmallows on twigs found in the woods. Nobody starts campfires in Ghent, but the smoke wasn’t very acrid and didn’t burn my eyes, so I didn’t think it was close. It was quite breezy that day, so the wind probably carried the smoke from a distance. The air was slightly hazy from the smoke, but it didn’t obscure the sky. Most of the sky was one giant cloud, with bits of blue poking though here and there. Since it was so windy, the one giant cloud would constantly be changing shape. Parts of the cloud would periodically break off and become an island in the blue, and then moments later join the giant cloud and become whole again.

            It was a brief walk from my apartment on Spotswood Avenue to The Hague. The Hague is Mowbray Arch and the surrounding areas in the southern part of Ghent, just north of the Freemason area and Downtown. Mowbray Arch is just how it sounds, a leisurely curving semicircular street encompassing smaller semicircular streets and numerous beautiful houses, all of which, of course, are out of most people’s price ranges. Mowbray Arch is a quiet street with little traffic, which often consists of more bicycles than cars. The street is bordered on its outer edge by an inlet of the Elizabeth River, its more than likely polluted water rippling slightly. There is a thirty-odd foot wide stretch of grass between the sidewalk and the water with many shade trees and park benches. Across the water is the always busy Brambleton Avenue, and its constant reminders of gas-guzzling “go-go-go” busy city life. But on the stretch of grass bordering Mowbray Arch, life somehow seems to slow down a bit.

            A wide variety of people were at the Hague that day including a disheveled man who asked me if I had “a quarter for twenty five pennies.” I didn’t, and therefore felt no guilt in telling him no. I then went back to admiring the cloud, which had broken up some by then and was at that point large individual clouds.  He proceeded to ramble on, saying something about thinking I was an artist, but I had begun ignoring him by then. He walked away to find someone else to bother. Everyone else at The Hague that day didn’t come to do bank transactions or bother people. They were there to enjoy the beautiful day, despite the smoke. Some were there to catch what little bit of sun poked through whenever the cloud lost its shape. One man was there apparently to do homework. He had a textbook and notebook open; however, I doubt he got much work done. He was significantly more interested in his female companion than whatever he was supposed to be studying. Another man was there with a little boy and a remote controlled boat.  The boat swiftly glided through the water, creating a wake behind it that quickly dissipated in the tiny waves created by the wind. The boy wisely found entertainment of his own; Dad wasn’t sharing the boat that day.