The bench sits on a shaded concrete slab adjacent an asphalt walking path, surrounded by longleaf pines and saw palmettos and those large heart-shaped vines skirting the soft sandy soil.
If you sit on the bench long enough and watch and listen attentively, you would be amazed at how much life there is on a single bench. It is easy to simply pass by unaware of the life surrounding you, but if you would pause for a moment you would see it's more numerous than you could imagine even in the area of a little four-foot park bench.
Neat planks of chocolate painted wood that was once a living pine, evenly cut, nailed, painted, and dead is still home to countless creatures. Large black ants and tiny red ants that bite, travel the bench in search of sticky sap, leftover people food, or any other sweet sustenance they can find and bring back to the colony.
A long black ant crawls across your leg, while another runs along your finger. It refuses to be blown or shaken off, so you brush it off instead, only to be replaced moments later by another ant. To them, you are another plank that may contain food.
A green iridescent fly lands near your shoulder and you wonder at how a simple beast can be so stunning. It proceeds to groom its insect feet and show off it's clear glistening wings, before taking flight.
Squirrels scurry past in a frantic game of tag down the pine and across the concrete, their claws scratching. A nutshell falls from somewhere high up, possibly the remains of a squirrels lunch.
A little brown speckled gecko emerges from between bench planks and rests for a moment poking out its tongue for an ant and observes his surroundings before slipping between the cracks again, invisible as he was before.
There are creatures visible above the bench, but you wonder how many must be below.
Even before you can look, you see a tiny 8th-inch caterpillar or inchworm cross one of the boards. How many tiny creatures are there? There have to be dozens at very least on this bench alone.
Under the bench, more ants walk vertically and upside down. Careful to avoid the dense cobwebs that line the corners and crevices of the dark underside of the bench, a trap laid for any bug foolish enough to take shelter there in the cool dampness, and many were by the look of the old dirty web.
Leaves and other debris fill in the cracks between planks where other creatures likely lie hidden. The more you look the more you seem to find which makes you a little squeamish knowing just how many bugs and other living things are moving around you.
On just one manmade object life continues to thrive. We may try to tame nature with our pathways and benches, but nature will soon continue to take it over and live and thrive; it always finds a way. It's better not to ignore it, but to see it, enjoy it, the sheer miracle of life that is more bountiful than we could imagine.
