Night Fountain Bird

 Night Fountain Bird reveals already obvious safety hazard again

Fiction

Steve was walking to the library at night to drop off a DVD

Steve opened the DVD case to make sure the DVD was in the DVD case and then shut it again

As he did this he got near a fountain at the library

He heard a sound like something fallen into the water but it sounded more like the sound of a animal moving water then like a dense and hard rock falling into water

Steve heard a sound like a animal squeaking not squawking but squeaking

Steve next heard the sound of wings flapping and saw what looked like a white bird flying away over distant trees

Steve wondered do geese, swans or ducks sleep in the water at night in fountains?  Or do birds take baths late at night?  Could a startled bird fall in the water?  Was there some other animal he did not see that drowned?

This fountain was a weird fountain.

Instead of spraying water into the air like a normal fountain, this fake fountain was more like a pool with a single stair.  At the shallow level of the pool water came in from a grate or pipe like those sewage pipes by some lakeshores or the grates that water comes and goes into and out of pools from.  And at the deep end of the pool which was not deep or wide enough to safely swim in was a grate on the floor of the pool that water went down into.

Most of the surface of the pool however was covered with a flat rusty looking metal covering so that if you dropped something in there you could not see it or pull it out.  On top of the rusty metal covering was a modern art sculpture.  Not a real sculpture but a modern art sculpture.

Every fall the water would get clogged up with leaves and he wondered about the government funds or wasted volunteer time to clean up the water so the fountain does not clog and if anyone got scraps and or infections from cleaning this piece of junk.

He always saw children biking and skateboarding near the fountain and viewed it as a tragic accident waiting to happen where some child hits the metal grate gets scrapped then falls into very unclean water which could not be cleaned as well as a normal fountain

This fountain could not be cleaned as well as a normal fountain because the metal covering blocked you from seeing items that needed to be cleaned and blocked you from grabbing items.  Steve wondered how many lost items were in that fountain and if anyone ever accidentally dropped library materials in it.

And now he realized small cute animals like squirrels, chipmunks, birds and fluffy dogs, cats and rabbits could fall in it and drown and no one would know to save them because of the big covering

Even if this was donated one should ask how much taxpayer money is spent to clean such a modern art safety hazard on public property

And if it was not donated but purchased with government funds one should ask how the corrupt artist got favors from a corrupt politician to be paid to build such a safety hazard

So Steve could never know for sure if what he heard was the bird leaving the fountain or another animal falling in and drowning to death after hearing the noise of him open fhe DVD case right before he saw a flying bird

Steve wished this piece of art was split into two halves the sculpture and metal covering removed and put somewhere else on display away from water.  And the pool was made open with no covering, maybe even made into a pool small children can play in  or replaced with a real fountain.

But he knew no one would do anything about it because who is he to get rid of a pretty safety hazard.  It would be called unsafe to have such a small pool for children to play in.  You can not play in a fountain because it is unsafe or uncivilized.  He knew a person who said he got a ticket for playing in a fountain while drunk.

But it is much safer for children to play in a pool with no cover than for them to play in a covered pool with just enough opening to fall into but just enough covering to have trouble getting out of.

Sometimes Steve wondered if things were made dangerous like that on purpose in the name of art and safety just for laughs of some evil people trying to harm children in the name of enriching children's lives.

Heck there could be a whole tunnel system with an evil lair under the fountain which a amphibian race of humanoids misnamed lizard people or evil human traffickers in scuba suits come out and snatch children who play too close to the fountain or even lone adults when no one is looking because so much of it was covered.  Like one of those children tales, do not wander here or go too close to this or that place especially when you are alone without adults or monsters will snatch you.  

That sounds a lot more interesting than, do not play in the fountain because some unwise adult put a cover over it so you might drown when no one is looking and even if you do not drown it is really really dirty in fact so dirty it could kill you because of that same alleged artistic genius's safety blunder.

It is much more exciting to tell them a lake or river or sea monster will kill you than to tell children not to play unsupervised near the water or they are more likely to drown.