By midday the apple tree in the square draws its own curtains. Leaves settle, fruit hang still, and the lawn learns to whisper around the trunk as if someone had posted a very small sign that said nap in progress.
We asked at the kiosk. The woman selling stamps said a boy had arrived with a blanket and been sent to the sunny bench instead. The apples, she added, do not mind company, only the kind that rustles. The park keeper wrote a polite note on a card the size of a leaf: it is only noon, please come back at tea.
Near four the fruit nodded to the bench, one by one, as if checking that the wood had waited. Shade came back a little sweeter, and the first picnic of the afternoon opened without a creak.