Park Benched

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Set in Stanley Park, Liverpool, Park Benched is a piece of flash fiction from Alison Little that explores vulnerability, power, and identity through the silent witness of a park bench. The story centres on a university student who is confident in his sexuality as a gay man, openly expressing it through dress and symbols, yet quietly confused about what being gay is supposed to look like in practice. Caught between self-assurance and uncertainty, independence and inexperience, the narrative examines how moments of ambiguity can be exploited, and how the search for belonging can blur boundaries in public spaces.

Explicit content warning

The Rainbow Badge

I am fixed and well placed, overlooking the lake in Stanley Park.
A bench. Traditional. Sturdy. Purpose-built for rest.

I serve the north Liverpool district of Anfield. To my front, the Kop rises behind the red steel ribs of Liverpool Football Club. To my back, Goodison Park squats in blue defiance, still present although abandoned for Hill Dickenson Stadium. I sit between them—divider, mediator, neutral ground. A resting point. Not rotting. Not forgotten. Not in need of paint.

He arrives again.

The young one. Too eager when he sits, like someone trying to look casual while hoping to be noticed. I’ve held his weight several times this year. Not local. Baggy jeans, a cotton shirt trying to be smarter than it is. A hoody knotted round his waist. Plastic necklaces in clashing colours strangling his neck. Hair dyed in optimistic streaks—pink bleeding into blue. On his shirt pocket, a rainbow badge, pinned carefully. Declarative. Protective.

A student, I think. Day off from lectures. Soft cheekbones. The look of anticipation always gives him away.

Then the other arrives.

Older. Familiar. A regular measured in years rather than weeks. His clothes are variations of black, faded into themselves. A wiry beard, grey and untended. All year, even in summer he wears a dark jacket—dusty, lived-in. A wool hat presses down on his thinning frame. His eye twitches beneath it, as it always does.

They talk quietly. Always quietly.

Five minutes, maybe less, and they rise together. Leave my slats. Drift toward the bushes near the left-hand gate, where the park thins out and pretends not to see.

They return after a quarter of an hour.

They sit closer this time.

More murmuring. The young one’s face is flushed now—open, unguarded. I know what comes next. I always do.

The older man squeezes his knee. Once. Twice. Then—neat as a trick—he slides a rolled ten-pound note into the pocket beside the rainbow badge. Fingers linger. A brief rub of the shoulder. Goodbye.

The older man leaves first, trousers dragging slightly as he sludges away, swallowed by the path.

The young one stays.

He looks down. Confused. Vulnerable. As if something has happened but he doesn’t yet have the language for it. He doesn’t seem to understand why the money is there, only that it is.

Eventually he stands.

As he walks away, I hope—selfishly—that I never see him again. That he learns there are other ways to sit. Other places to rest.

I remain.

Waiting.