Downtown Sacramento is extremely easy to navigate on foot. The streets are laid out on an alphanumeric grid, and there are a lot of stores packed together, centered around the many government buildings that keep the quick-serve restaurants and vendor trays in business. The capitol building where the Governator spends his time is nestled on a block between two parks, a block of state buildings, and a row of small businesses; any time you’d like, you can walk right in, or lie down on the lawn and watch the groups of field-tripping schoolchildren, or go take a drink from one of the fountains. There’s a small mall where all the chains are found, and the rest is left up to the character of the city. There are murals some of the taller buildings, where you might find a painting of a man on a ladder with a guitar, seranading the painted lady who swoons from the painted window.

There’s a section designated “Old Sacramento,” where, between a few streets, the sidewalks are made of wooden boards, the roads are made of stone and dirt, and the train museum and old-tyme-photo-shoppes are to be found. Horses drawing carriages have the right of way, and if you’d like, you can scuttle down to the river and watch the steamboats. That area, too, is store-based, and the saltwater taffy is to die for.

Old Sacramento, modern Sacramento, pedestrians are all over at all hours of the day. That day, I was going to City Hall on my lunch break. I could not believe that I legitimately forgot that I had parked at the beginning of the day in a two-hour zone a few weeks ago, and was incredulously going to pay the idiot tax that I, like a moron, had brought on myself.

As I was coming back, I passed one of the many areas where face-to-face park benches had been bolted down next to the sidewalk, limo-style, and found a crushed rose on the arm rest closest to me. Nobody was around, but there was that rose, looking nothing like it had been abused to punish whatever sentiment it was intended to convey, but rather like it had been beneath somebody’s stack of books, and forgotten in a rush as the owner glanced down at her watch and found that she was late to return to work. Or, perhaps, that a man or boy was late for the date that he was intending to make extra-special with a single red rose, and, in his urgency, packed up his newspaper, grabbed the box of chocolates from the bench, and didn’t look back.

I like to think that it was left behind for the next person. It wasn’t me, as I wouldn’t know what to do with a single flattened rose, but somebody could have taken a seat there, picked up the flower, and mused for as long as it took. Perhaps he or she would keep the flower, and have just a little more self-satisfaction that day, or would carefully open up the petals, run a moment of water over it, and give it to someone else to brighten their day.