The park has a small artificial lake, a stop-off for migrating Canada geese and flirting ducks, and a tiny artificial island at its center. Both of these serve to provide a fitting atmosphere for the obelisk.
Marble and copper. Modest as far as monuments go, but a stark contrast to the suburban sprawl that lives around it. It rises from the island in the lake like a chiding index finger, the angel at its peak tsk-tsking the dog-walkers who had managed to go a whole day without thinking about World War II, the selfish bastards.
The island is connected to the shore by way of a small, gated bridge. The only time people are seen on the island is Memorial Day (giving speeches and laying wreaths) the last day of summer (dredging foul balls from the lake) and, apparently, tonight.
There's a guy sitting cross-legged, his back against the monument; wholly visible from the road but, because nothing ever happens on this island and because he's not exactly jumping up and down to attract attention, invisible. He watches the third police cruiser in an hour go speeding down the road without so much as slowing down and smiles, briefly, before resuming his contemplation.
Tipping his head back, he looks up at the angel projecting from the marble. From the road she looks conciliatory and pained, a mourner, but from here he can see the sword in her hand and the look of righteous indignation in her eyes. He lights a cigarette, blue smoke intersecting the beams from the floodlights that keep her in perpetual day - Normandy meets the Pink Floyd laser show at the Hayden Planetarium. One of the slow numbers; Comfortably Numb seems to fit.
A car approaches down one of the side streets, its lights off and its engine barely ticking over like it was coasting in with the tides. It stops.
She climbs out, all legs and elbows and messy pony tails, barely dressed for the outside world - flannel and yet more flannel. She stands directly across the lake from him, a plastic shopping bag hanging easily from her hand, admiring the tableau he and his guardian angel make in the shadowy half-night. It's hard to argue that his placement was unintentional; he knew she'd be along sooner or later, he just didn't expect her to be so obviously observant.
She circumscribes the lake and vaults the fence in a surprising moment of grace. Settling next to him, she leans across him to the bag, removing a bottle of wine and two chipped mugs, a fresh pack of smokes, pretzel rods, cupcakes...and a pinwheel, surreptitiously borrowed from their neighbor's fence, blinding silver in the floodlights. She sticks it into the ground between them and the lake and lets the breeze do its thing.
He is here to think; she is here to let him. She lights two cigarettes and hands him one.
He accepts her apology.