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- The park sits at a distance no less than several blocks from the center of Schollsville, and no greater than several blocks more from the edge of the town proper, a border distinguished by the disappearance of marked roadways, the opening of a quiet stretch of grassland, and the onset of rolling West Virginia forests of longstanding oak and pine. In warmer months these forests shake off their stillness, with the ragged needles and delicate husks of leaf from the year past, breaking off like spun glass in an untrained hand, as the brush of a spring wind carries in from the north and adds yet another layer to the thick blanket of the forest floor. The slow swaying motion of the trees brings with it a scent of earth and acrid musk that, much like the rustling sound of the leaves, carries from the oak and pine, with the wind, across the grasslands, over the irregular rooftops, and into the heart of Schollsville.
- The town itself is segmented by a system of winding stream braids, which, if compared to something manmade, would resemble the arbitrary scribbling of a young child upon wet sand. A good number of these braids meander along the edges of roadways, and clip across the fronts and backs of lawns, in such a way that the architecture of the town seems to have been set out over the top of these deeply scored ribbons of water. Because of this, Schollsville is thatched with a system of large steel bridges and smaller wooden footpaths, the latter of which stand flecked with scales of paint, and are largely revealing of their smoothed oaken frames. Together, the waterways and criss-crossing bridges give the town a unique beauty, a rustic tribute in design to the causeways of Venice, of which the people in Schollsville have seldom heard, and of which none have seen.
- If you were to follow any one of these stream braids, tracing from its original tributary in the forest to its termination, you would invariably arrive at Philip’s Pond, located at the east end of the town’s only official park, Philip’s Park, both named for the founder of Schollsville. The pond (though to locals it seems more a small lake, as the nearest equivalent body of water rests some miles to the south) year round holds a regular population of visitors, children digging along the steeped muddy banks for craw babies, trout fisherman and paddle boat enthusiasts of assorted age and demeanor, to name a few, but today it holds only the audience of one person. This is because the clouds are a mottled gray and hang unusually low, so low as to seem near enough to touch, like the canopy of some great bed, and the steady winds from the north have briefly fallen to a calm, suggesting rain. A triangulation of geese, flocking in pointed company with the receding chill of late winter, passes over the frosted sun, that hangs as a naked bulb in the quiet sky. One of these migrant birds lets out a purposeful honk, but its call is quickly muted under the weight of the clouds, and only the faintest echo arrives, untraceable, to the ear of Mr. Alvin Fenton, as he purses his lips and turns a wandering stare towards the sky, in search of the geese that have already passed.
- After several long moments, suspended again in the stagnant air, Mr. Fenton submits to the strain of his upward glance, and presently his eyes, heavily lidded and pale blue as the dawn, return themselves to a more comfortable aim, down and into the cool depths of the pond. With careful fingers, antiqued by creased skin and knotted joints, though hardly diminished of their strength, he searches out the root of his discomfort and rubs the ridges along the back of his neck, letting out a sigh, until once again he is still. At rest, his posture recalls that of a drooping willow or a cast-iron street lamp, poised in a constant bend, and while sitting in the middle of a bench, masoned from granite, in an empty Philip’s Park, one wonders if he has not indeed become part of the park itself. For even the eldest members of Schollsville cannot consider the pond without first thinking the name, Alvin Fenton. This is because he arrives every Sunday, with the sun, to take a seat at his bench. And there he waits, speaking to no one except for the occasional bird, until the day rolls into evening and the moon begins to drop its purple veil across the sky, at which point the man rises from his statued pose and walks away with the night. If you sit next to him, or try to speak with him, he will regard you with a peculiar, sideways glance of crestfallen sincerity, as though he were expecting someone else, and turn his attention back to the water and the birds. So far as most people are concerned, and they would not be wrong in their assumptions, Mr. Fenton is a lonely, embittered old man, with neither a care for those around him nor a friend in the whole of Schollsville. Though, this was not always the case.