Character Profile: Park Attendant

Brian Hones- Smith. Wonderer by nature and nature he wonders. Brian is the national wildlife park attendant, and to this post, he has served God’s creatures for 33 years. At 64 years old, Brian has walked many roads, taken many paths and nothing gives him more happiness than to stop and look back upon it all. Born into a large family Brian was the youngest of five siblings whose love built him into the man he stands today. Though some days this love came in the form of bruises and an eye-full of tears from taunts and teasing, underneath it all lied loyalty and trust. Brian today stands in the eyes of society a senior, but to his family he will always be ‘little b’.

While the park has always been his life, it has not always been his career. Brian studied economics in hopes of making his parents proud and to be able to someday support a family. Though happiness did not follow. To put on a shirt and tie and talk of values and rates, to Brian, was not living. One day, when he visited his favourite place as a child, the national park, he met the woman who he one day made his wife and raised two children with. He takes took it as a sign from God; the park was where he belongs. He left the suit and ties behind and joined the national wildlife park as a park attendant. His role as park attendant was originally an administrator’s role, though nothing could keep Brian inside for long. To be confined to an office only brings back unwanted memories of a long summer’s afternoon locked in the cupboard by his trickster older brother. Brian loves the outdoors, the dirt and dust underfoot and the call of birds and other animals in the distance.

Burdened by the loss of his wife to cancer, his one and only love, Brian spends his days devoted to the park. Brian spends little time with friends of the past; all that Brian needs are his two children, now adults standing on their own feet starting their own families, and of course, the park.

He walks the trails, tends to the park life and helps anyone who seeks his guidance, in the park and in life. Shining through his glasses are his kind eyes. The lines that crease his face, are the indents of a live truly lived. His hands are rough round the edges; the result of his hard work over the years gone by. Brian misses his wife with every inch of his heart and hopes that God is looking after her until the day he will be with her again. Brian stands a tall, proud and loving man. He will never stop loving the park and all that lives and grows within it, and he shall keep serving the park until his body no longer lets him. Until then he lives a grandfather, a guide, a storyteller and a wonderer.