DOWN AT THE PARK

The day dawned freshly. You could feel an autumnal nip in the air. Down at the park, the canada geese were honking, the magpies were chattering and the blackbirds were clattering their frantic alarm calls with great vigour. The fountain was backlit by a pale sun, and the water in the fountain rustled like cigarette paper. The tall reeds at the edge of the lake fidgeted nervously. In the distance, you could hear the sound of a manic, shrieking police car. On the lake, the coots swam aimlessly, like toy boats, encircling the mallards and pretty tufted ducks. Joggers harrumphed by on the footpath, sweating and chuffing like old and asthmatic steam engines, ejaculating streams of spit and mucous from their safety valves every few hundred feet. There was an aura of tranquility about the place, despite all the activity, broken only by the defiant roar of yet another large aircraft on the flight path to and from a distant, busy airport. On the verandah outside of the park’s wooden café, a pair of magpies darted in and out, looking for a few morsels of food. A young waiter scuffed at them with the toe of his boot and they flapped away noisily.
The man sat in an uncomfortable, modern, chromium metal seat on the verandah and regarded all of these goings-on blankly. The café was empty at such an early hour, except for a couple of foreign waiters, who spoke to each other in a curious language which he did not recognise. He took it to be Slovenian, but it might just as well have been Korean. The man was reading a text message on the screen of his mobile telephone, a silver artefact that flipped open, like the top of a cigarette packet, to reveal a small glass screen within. He read and re-read the message:
“Boy been up all night. His brother not sleeping either and Boy pacing all the time. I am tired too. Got to go into doc’s soon, too. I want Boy back in hospital. This is too much for me.”
A carrion crow, sitting in a tree branch across the way, squawked in sympathy. A tourist in a pair of absurd shorts and a Hawaiian shirt gave the man a soft glance. The man stared across the lake, where a line of weeping willow trees waved their arms at the gentle breeze that ruffled them. He shivered momentarily as he suddenly felt a chill on the back of his neck. He was three hundred miles from home and a million miles from a solution. His knitted eyebrows and worn, lined face spoke of his difficulties, and he clenched and unclenched his great fists as if squeezing two tennis balls.
A businessman in a grey suit strode along the footpath, carrying a luxurious leather briefcase. He was wearing a suit that would have cost several hundred pounds. The businessman gave instructions into a mobile telephone. He had a high, neighing, irritating voice, but it was the voice of command, of someone who expected his will to be done. He was reeking with wealth and dirty living whilst the man at the table sat emptied. A church bell rang out the hour. He could only just hear it over the perpetual noise of the aircraft.

One thing was for certain, he would soon have to arise from the hideous metal seat and face the rigours of the morning. A parks department mule lumbered by, the snarl of its angry diesel engine distracting him momentarily as he breathed in a lungful of exhaust fumes. A woman in a flower-pot hat wandered onto the verandah and smiled distractedly at him. The smell of bacon and eggs cooking inside the café made him feel very hungry, but he had determined not to eat until lunchtime.

A group of pigeons was startled by an electric truck on the other side of the lake and flew up and fluttered around for a while, before settling back down on the very water’s edge. He heard the disembodied voice of a man asking for directions and the roar of a helicopter overhead. He looked at his watch. He could not put off his life any longer. He wiped the coffee stains from the marble table top with a paper handkerchief, dropped it into his empty coffee cup, picked up his heavy bag, stood up stiffly and began the slow, weary walk to his destination. The sun shone down on everyone strolling along the footpaths, laughing, joking, joyous, fulfilled. It did not shine down on him.