In a Park (1998)
This story started off as an exercise in my OAC Writer’s Craft class. We were given a paragraph (the one near the end, “From the shadows of the house ran…”, although I think I changed it slightly from the one that was given to us. I think our teacher lifted it out of some book or other, to see what we would do with it), and told to write a story around it.
This is what came out, and I do really like it. My teacher really like it too, so I’m not the only one. Although some of the background in the story may be a little unrealistic, I still like the way the main character turned out, and the way the ending plays with the reader’s emotions. And as a bonus, it has medicine in it. Yay!
In a Park
Copyright © 1998
I dreamt of Jenny, my ex-wife. It was the same dream as always – I came home from work, happy, just as I had come home that fateful day. The fifth of January, it had been. I watched myself hang up my coat, untie my shoelaces. I removed my leather shoes and placed them beside the others, as I always did. Watching myself do all this so calmly, so slowly, was excruciating torture, knowing what was to come. I wanted to put my shoes back on and run away, avoid the confrontation.I was simply a mute observer, however, and could do nothing to prevent the inevitable. I entered the living room, whistling a nameless tune. A fire cast its orange glow about the house, the light dancing over the crystal figurines posing proudly on the mantelpiece. My wife sat on the couch, reading, as she always did. Her auburn hair framed a mature face and deep green eyes that looked up at me as I entered. Her gaze sent shivers up my spine, her eyes icy and without their usual joy and life.”What’s wrong?” I heard myself ask, concerned, as a dreadful premonition twisted my stomach into knots.
“I have something to show you,” she said, placing her book on the wooden table. Slowly she opened her briefcase, and in my nightmare she withdrew my beating heart – the heart I had given her completely and without reserve. “Why?” I asked, dreading the answer. Blood covered her fingers, seeping down her arm, staining her white dress. “Why?” I asked again, watching in horror as drops slowly formed on her knuckles and fell through the air, leaving splashes of crimson on her briefcase, on the oak table, on the carpet. The rain increased as her hand tightened around my bloody organ, squeezing the life out of it. “Why?” I whispered faintly, tears streaming down my cheeks. Pain stabbed my chest, and I sank to my knees, hiding my head between my hands, the torment tearing me up inside.
I woke sweating despite the chill of the morning air, the nightmare fresh in my mind. As always, my plea still echoed in my head, that mournful “Why?” that to this day had no answer, despite many long months of searching. Whenever I began to think I had finally pushed it all behind me, the dream stole into my sleep, haunting me with its pain, demanding answers to explain the inexplicable.
Sitting up, I searched through my pockets and found the sandwich I had saved from the day before. Chewing on it slowly, I watched the street begin to come to life as the sky’s deep grey brightened. The occasional car drove by on the street, but most people walked past the park. They were dressed in casual clothes, always well worn. Neighbours greeted each other jovially as they prepared to go to work. Children walked, or more often ran, in small groups, some stopping to climb the great oaks in the park. When they saw me, their laughter faded to caution, even fear. What a sight I must have been, sitting all alone on the bench under the willow, mismatched and dirty clothing covering my wiry, thin frame, gloved hand holding a half-eaten sandwich, dark eyes gazing back at them. I could hardly expect them to stay, or do anything but quickly distance themselves from me, yet I found myself faintly surprised and saddened when that is what they did.
I followed the children with my gaze until they vanished around a corner, a bit of hope draining from my heart at every step they took. I longed to be with them – with my own children, really. Jenny had taken even that from me. I missed the smiles and the joy, the sheer dauntlessness of their happiness. I needed a little of that inner fire to brush off on me, to keep that haunting “Why?” and the desolate silence that was my only answer at bay.
Jenny had shattered everything I held dear; my love, my family. It was during the trials that I had gone to the hospital, to work, in an attempt to maintain a semblance of order in my now destroyed routine. It was a mechanical thing, one I followed without thinking. How could I think, focus my mind on anything but the task of finding the answer to the inexplicable “Why?” that haunted me even then. What had I done to deserve this? Jenny refused to talk to me, so I was left to my own dark thoughts.
I hoped the thought focussing on my patients might clear my mind, but I suppose I was wrong. I still do not understand what happened, clouded as I was in grief. Does it really matter? My only memory is of a woman, her face peaceful, deep in a coma, the EKG beeping regularly. They tell me that I almost killed her. In the end, they took away my license, the reasons for it falling into the widening black maw of despair that gaped within my mind, where vibrant love used to pulse. Where once was light, there is only darkness, a darkness in which one word echoes, questioning: Why?
A clear voice broke me from my inward thoughts. “Why?” it asked. My eyes focussed on a young girl, no more than eight or nine, dressed in jeans and a thin, worn yellow jacket, sitting cross-legged in the snow before me. The pale sun streamed down, the branches of the willow casting wavy shadows in her blonde hair.
“What?” I asked, a little gruffly perhaps. If she was startled at my rough voice, she showed no sign.
“Why are you crying?” she repeated, tilting her head on an angle, gazing up at me with questioning brown eyes.
“I’m not crying,” I said, hastily wiping salty tears from my face. My hand went again to adjust glasses that weren’t there.
The child shrugged her shoulders. “You look sad. Like my father. Why are you sad?” she asked. The inquisitiveness of the child tugged a faint smile from my lips. Her question echoed my own “Why?” but the child gave it a playful, almost insignificant hue, as if the answer was already known and mattered little.
“Good question,” I mumbled, glancing at the sky. It was midmorning. “Shouldn’t you be at school?” I asked, scratching my strange beard once more.
“School’s boring. All the other kids are mean,” she replied, pouting. “The park is much more fun. Isn’t that why you’re here?” she continued, idly making a snowball with her gloved hands.
I was about to reply when a firm voice called “Jenny!” The name surprised me more than the authoritative voice. I identified an older man, late in years by the looks of his worn face. His features sagged, his eyes holding a deep sadness far greater than I had ever imagined possible. His body looked weak, yet within him I saw a strength of will that defied my understanding, and his eyes beneath their mourning radiated concern as they skipped between the girl and me.
“Come here,” he said, a little angrily. The girl jumped up instantly and ran to him, a guilty expression on her face. The man took her hand and cast me a dark glance as he led the girl away. His stern, lecturing words faded into a rumble as the pair vanished into the house across the street. With them vanished all the temporary joy I had found. What fluke had given the girl my ex-wife’s name? The girl had just vanished from my life as surely as Jenny had, taking with them my joie de vivre. I heard the sorrowful “Why?” echo again, its tone changed once more; this time it was a reflection on the futility of life itself.
Behind me, I saw the years of schooling, of studying, of work, of residency, my first date with Jenny, our first child, all my pain and happiness. Where had it led me? To this park bench, where I sat in early March, without a penny to my name, and watched the other people live. Over thirty years of work, to become a bum in the street. I laughed at the complete absurdity of it, my laughter turning to bitter tears.
My life ended when Jenny ripped my heart from me, when I lost the license to do what had always fascinated me, intrigued me, and given me hope. I had lost all vestiges of what I considered life. It was with these thoughts that once more I let myself find oblivion in sleep once more.
A scream woke me, a high pitched wail that was abruptly cut short. Shadows stretched across the ground, the sun long vanished behind the townhouses. It took me a moment to notice the yellow bundle lying among the roots of an oak tree, and another to realise it was Jenny – the girl – who I guessed had fallen from its heights. Vaguely, I heard a door open somewhere, and a gasp of fear.What could I do? I was a bum, not a doctor. I had nearly killed someone trying to be one. The hospital room flickered in my mind again, only this time it wasn’t a comatose woman, but the girl on that bed, lying there as I gave her the wrong drug, and the EKG rose to a single high-pitched whine that wrenched my gut. I stared indecisively at the girl, despair and fear overwhelming me. What tricks fate played, to give me such a hateful reminder of my inability!From the shadows of the house ran wiry figure, face livid with pain. The man carefully lifted the child, brushing bloodied hair from her eyes. He took no more than two weak steps before collapsing to the ground, his legs lacking the strength to support him. It took me a moment to recognise the man as the one that had “saved” the girl earlier, from me. Where was the remarkable strength I had seen? Where was his confident bearing, his protective hand?
I lurched into motion, throwing my woollen gloves into the snow. My hands were clean – a habit I had not neglected. As I approached, I saw the man’s tears, and the sadness I had seen in his eyes earlier that day paled beside the grief they now held. His eyes seemed empty of all save a reflection of my own despair and loss. Would he, too, suffer inside as much as I have? Beside his harsh life and the trying ordeals he looked to have gone through and persevered, my own torment seemed like the sulking of a spoiled child. Was he, too, contemplating the futility of life, much as I had only earlier that day? Does that dreaded question “Why?” haunt his mind, as well, eating at his strength, his confidence, his life?
“I’m a Doctor,” I said, hesitantly. “I can help.” I felt a surge of strength as his eyes glowed with a new hope, as his limbs gained a new strength. In his expression, I saw the answer to the “Why?” that had plagued me for so long . I felt an excitement well up within me, calmed by a supreme peace. It was as if I had been born and had lived my whole life for nothing except to say those few words to this man, here, in this park, beneath the great oak, as he cradled the limp body of the child in his arms.
“I’m a Doctor,” I repeated, and went to work.
