Fire hydrants are all over the city, like little red pimples. And I noticed recently how I rarely notice them at all. I noticed them because one of them was wearing a hat and I thought, “That fire hydrant is wearing a hat!” and so I started to notice the other fire hydrants and how most of them weren’t wearing hats and I thought they might get a little lonely from time to time.

If a fire hydrant were to have a favorite season, my guess would be that it’d be summer. In the winter, they are surrounded by the solid state of what they hold. And I imagine that’s might be slightly torturous. In the summer, the kids come by and pry open their mouths, popping them like pimples. Suddenly, whatever tight stream of water they’ve been holding in for so long comes gushing forth like a gasp. While people frolic and jump and get all wet while they sit there feeling useful. I bet that’s fun for little kids. But what do I know? I grew up near country streams and these city streams seem different.

I imagine that they are red because that makes them stand out against nature and concrete. Plus, they need to match the fire trucks and the fire hats and look good against the spotted dogs. Fire hydrants serve a purpose. I guess that’s why they need to be everywhere. But not all of them get to wear a hat.

Just now, I began to wonder how many of them there are and what they’re made out of and how they’re made to stand tough through bad weather, hot weather, too. I bet one day future peoples and would-have-been firepeople who are surrounded by things that no longer burn will discover remnants of them and think, “What are these weird things they had back then?” And they’ll wonder why they were red and tough. And they’ll wonder why they had nozzles and what may have been inserted into them, you know, at one point in time. They’ll wonder about all these things, these practical things, but they won’t know that at one time kids used them to keep cool. And they won’t know that, at one point in time, one of them wore a hat and that I was its witness.

It’s good we keep notes. Documenting life is important. But I’m starting to wonder if we should keep different notes, not better ones, for who am I to judge what’s better. But if you take the pieces apart, even the ones you yourself dropped, and have people one day discover them, would you be pleased with their deductions?

I want my fire hydrants to have hats. And I want my summer peoples to wear wet smiles and I want to to build something bigger, sturdier and more vibrant out of now.