I found this bench in Rubislaw Terrace Gardens in Aberdeen and a couple of things about it got me thinking.

Kamila I will always love you, always, landslide.
I like this a lot.  It starts as a proud, unambiguous statement and ends with a cryptic, seemingly random word.  But surely it’s more than just random?  Perhaps ‘landslide’ is a nickname, or maybe a reference to the Oasis classic ‘Champagne Supernova’ – some kind of bizarre sexual metaphor about getting ‘caught beneath the landslide’.  Hmm.  If it was an Oasis reference then you’d expect to see a bit more lyric or maybe even ‘-Gallagher’ written underneath, and there isn’t really anything written underneath ‘landslide’, apart from:

Happy Birthday
This is my favourite part of the bench.  As I’m sure you’ve noticed, this is scratched in the same handwriting (handscratching?) as the above line.  The bench is in a park just to the west of Aberdeen’s city centre and is surrounded by offices, shops and schools.  I like to picture Kamila taking her lunch break at her usual bench and finding this lovely message for her.  A slightly illegal birthday treat.

If you look closely at the bench you can see the name Lewis has been scratched (faintly and in a different handscratching) on the left of the bench.  My name is Lewis.  Coincidence I’m sure, but I can’t help but feel that I was meant to walk past this bench; that I was meant to take a photo of it; that I was meant to write about it; that I was meant to search Facebook for every ‘Kamila’ living in Aberdeen; that I was meant to send all seven of them the photo along with the following message:

“Hi there, I found a piece of graffiti that I really like scratched into a bench in Rubislaw Gardens and I wondered if you knew anything about it?  Is it about you? I’d really love to know.”

Yes, that’s definitely what I was meant to do.

Edit: On the 5th May 2011, over a year after writing this, the bench was been re-painted by the council, covering up the graffiti.  I never did find the right Kamila, but I hope she found her bench.