The Philanthropist

Contributed by Alex Jury on 30/11/10

I walk to work through a park. It’s not the quickest way but it is by far the most pleasant. The other choice is to walk alongside the murky, litter-choked canal where it’s dingy and I don’t feel safe.

The park’s lovely, one of those unexpectedly huge green spaces in London that it’s always a pleasure to stumble across; it’s worth getting up ten minutes earlier to stroll along its winding paths and watch the ducks sailing on the ponds.

But today, it has snowed and everything has changed. I can barely find my way as the paths are hidden, everything airbrushed smooth and white. I know I’m on the right track though when I see the statue. It’s of a Victorian philanthropist who did something worthy with the drains round these parts and normally I’m quite fond of him because he signals that I’m halfway there, whichever direction I’m coming from. Today, however, his plinth is coated in snow and he looms out of a flawless white background, black and threatening as the Reaper. In fact, someone else seems to think so as they’ve doodled a leering skull beneath his feet. It gives me the shivers and almost – almost – makes me wish I’d chosen the canal route today.

I walk back home at dusk, the snow and its menace has melted away, leaving trails of slush and the odd iced puddle. My philanthropist no longer looms so dark and foreboding and is benevolently surveying the park once more.