A Beasthood · The Green
Nowhere Parks
To be from here is to be alone on purpose, and always to write back.
Their gift: The Walk. Parks walkers alone can go into the Grey and come back. The cost: They come back pale until friends say their name.
About 500 Beasts call Nowhere Parks home.
The place
Open green in the middle of everything: old oaks and benches. To a visitor two benches stand a field apart; to the Parks Beast on one, the other is near enough to nod to, and both are right. Everyone dresses in oatmeal and ink blue, so a walker back from the Grey can cross without a fuss.
Their gift, and what it costs
The Walk. Parks walkers, at ease alone, are the only Beasts who can walk into the Grey and come back. The cost: a walker comes home pale and quiet until friends say their name, and the further from home they set out, the more friends it takes.
What they want, and what they fear
Want: to be left alone, by choice. A name holds for a season, which the Parks consider plenty of company. Fear: being mistaken for the Hush.
People you might meet
- Ida Lund (Original, walker). Has walked into the Grey more than any Beast. Came home last Thursday the colour of porridge to friends at the Swatch Wall, each holding the note Ida sent ahead: "Sorry. Thursday. Ida."
- Greer Dunmore (Cat, Clockwise). Writes a dozen notes a week asking to be left alone: "Dear Studio 66. No. Kind regards, Greer."
- Teo Marsh (Robot, note-runner). Runs Pale Book copies to MoBA under a sign: PLEASE DON'T TALK TO ME, I AM RUNNING.
- Gilly Brennan (Robot, Counterclockwise). Has greeted Greer with "Nice weather for a loop" four hundred times. Last week Greer wrote back: "Same weather. Greer." Gilly framed it.
Neighbours and old business
- The Meadows: one thinks, one does. Meadows walkers see Parks walkers to the Edge and wait.
- MoBA: the Pale Books hold Grey Year names, the Unnamed Room Grey Year faces. Every match is a Calling, and the Parks turn out, standing well apart.
Books from Nowhere Parks
A Beast's Book is written from their holder's choices.
No Book from Nowhere Parks is open yet. A holder of a Beast from here can begin theirs in the game.
More about Nowhere Parks
Their scarFifteen months ago, in the Paper Summer, the Parks stopped speaking for a season and wrote instead.
Fifteen months ago, in the Paper Summer, the Parks stopped speaking for a season and wrote instead. Some notebooks describe the Grey coming in a year before the Edge moved; asked why they gave no warning, the Parks said, "It was on the shelf." On the oldest shelf sit the Pale Books: names Parks walkers wrote down in the Grey Year.
What they argue aboutClockwise against Counterclockwise on the Perimeter Loop: alone behind the Beast ahead, or against the flow, passing every Beast face to…
Clockwise against Counterclockwise on the Perimeter Loop: alone behind the Beast ahead, or against the flow, passing every Beast face to face?
This seasonCounterclockwise walk the old road's dark stretches with notebooks, listing who's cut off; Clockwise say the Parks didn't choose solitude…
Counterclockwise walk the old road's dark stretches with notebooks, listing who's cut off; Clockwise say the Parks didn't choose solitude to run errands. Hush Beasts canvassing for Quiet Weeks keep turning up to ask how quiet is done. The Parks send them off with a note: "We are not quiet. We are busy, alone."
A customTopping Up.
Topping Up. On each season's first morning, every Parks Beast stands at the Swatch Wall while one friend says their name, once, and leaves. Greer Dunmore books two minutes past six and is gone by four past.
PlacesThe Bench Line: when the Ceiling settles on someone, the Wake is held here in the dullest notes in the Beastside.
- The Bench Line: when the Ceiling settles on someone, the Wake is held here in the dullest notes in the Beastside.
- The Swatch Wall: each walker paints a stripe of their colour; when they come home pale, friends say their name here until they match it again.
What they think is going on"The Grey is weather. Walk through it."
"The Grey is weather. Walk through it." Calm in any crisis; slow to believe there is one.