Prose: The Hill

There was a hill in a park not far from my home. It was very low – about two floors high, and unattractive. It was said to be a pile of dirt when the lake in the park was dug. As a child, I often wonder: how came this little hill, located in the middle of a playground, surrounded by kids, adults and old men, be so unimpressive that no one ever noticed it at all?

By “noticed” I mean climbed the hill, overlooking the lake and, if I could grow taller, perhaps the whole park. Then after a few strides on the top, I wanted to race down the hill along the ridge, jump in the air at a short cliff, and land on the walking trail amid the strolling crowds. The lush plants of the hill helped me hide my figure, sometimes my sudden appearance could even scare an old lady or two. Since no one else, not even other kids would bother to run up this hill, I started to claim it as my property. With the fancy imagination of a child, I believed I was the king of the hill, and I would patrol over my territory every day.

Soon the leaves turned yellow and fell, and the lake froze slowly. Winter arrived. The hill turned more barren day by day, just like the rest of the park and the rest of the city. When I ran down the hill again, unlike before, no branches would stretch out to block my view and no grass would lay across the path to try to trip me over. It felt better to dash through the bare trees and leap into the air, but with all the people staring at me from the walking trail, I felt a little awkward.

Then it was spring again, and after one night all the winter jasmine blossomed. My parents told me they were the messengers of spring, that spring would arrive soon when winter jasmine bloomed. There was a bush of winter jasmine by the playground, its pretty golden flowers shone under the sun. But my hill didn’t have any winter jasmine, nor did it have any flowers. It was still barren, and lonely. I could feel it when I came to visit it every day. Winter jasmine brought vigor to the park, but my hill was forgotten.

I, being about five years old at that time, thought deeply about how could I make my hill less barren. If only there were some flowers on the hill, wouldn’t that be pretty?

Having read a lot of fairy tales, I knew plants grow from seeds, and flowers are no exceptions. What fairy tales didn’t say is where to find seeds. Besides, I heard growing plants need a lot of work. I didn’t think I had so much patience.

To get flowers on the hill quickly…hmm…

My eyes turned to the winter jasmine bushes by the playground. They bloomed the earliest as if they were woken by children’s laughter. There were no bees around, and the bushed had a lot of flowers…

I ran to the bushes. Choosing the fullest flower, I picked a few and held them in my palm. Then I ran back to the hill. On the path uphill I scattered the flower petals, throwing two pieces with every step. It soon ran out, and I was not even close to the hilltop. So I went back to the bushes to get more resources, making sure I didn’t step on any petals I just threw. It took me four or five times to finally decorate the path on one side. I left the other side bare, partly because that side was more flourished with dead plants, partly because I was tired from running back and forth, my back sored from picking flowers. I left the hill to play on the playground and soon forgot about the work.

The next day when I came back, the petals were still there. However, they looked dry and dead, their colors were dull. I was surprised at their ephemeral life: only yesterday they were still bright yellow, refreshing the hill. But now they joined the other withered plants with their lifeless bodies. I did not know why they lost their vigor. It rather seemed to me that I had to re-decorate it daily. From then on, picking flowers became my daily task, until one day my grandma saw it and chided me. The flower season for winter jasmine is very short. Soon their bushes became green with sprouts, and other trees flowered. Spring was formally here.

A year went by quickly. I started elementary school and did not go to the park as often as I used to. The hill was still the same, except there were some pits along the path. The park decided to plant some saplings on it. I was not happy. After all, I still had deep affection towards this specific hill, where I used to spend a long time running up and down. The pits and the saplings made the ground bumpy, which was harder to run on.

I was getting busier. Elementary school has homework, and I usually came home late. Now the park became a strolling place for me after dinner, rather than a play yard in the afternoon. Many of my classmates lived near each other. They met and played in another park, and sometimes I would join them too. But in my heart, I always prefer my park, with my hill in it.

Then, one year, the park changed a lot. The playground was reconstructed with new fitness equipment. The lake was cleaned. The walking trail was repainted and the signs were redesigned. My hill? I did not know how exactly it changed, now there were fences surrounding it, forbidding people to climb the hill. The hill that I knew for years, the hill that I once dashed up and down, pretending to be a superhero, the hill that I claimed to be mine, was now shutting me off.

I was sad but soon left it behind. There was so much work waiting for me. I’ve got homework to do, activities to join, and classes to attend. I was no longer a five-year-old kindergarten kid. I had no time to waste on a hill.

And so was the hill.

Years later, I was in middle school. That day, I went for a stroll in the park and came across the playground. It was springtime, the hill was much different now. Without people treading on it, it has grown wild. The grass was almost half my height, and it was filled with vigor. The playground under its shadow was shaded green.

I looked for the winter jasmine bushes.  They weren’t there.