The Park
By: Nickin Alexander
Tags: Short Fiction, Narrative, Family, Love, Short Story

Autumn had its moments. It was almost Summers perfect goodbye and Winters perfect hello. The day had enough cold to love the wrap of a scarf and enjoy the warmth of a knitted sweater.

The large black coffee in my paper cup kept my hands warm and able to move as the chilly breeze around tried its best to hold them in a frozen jail. It felt good to be in and amongst this world.

In reality, it was a summers day…the heat was probably making me sweat as I sat cross-legged and still in that dark room.

So the chill of this day made for a refreshing moment of escape from an otherwise hot and bothersome reality.

These visits were always soothing in their own twisted way, and whether I liked it or not made for a swift reality check, even when I didn’t need it.

You would think that I would be sick of it by now, but visiting this moment every day, for the last 10 years made the rest of reality float on by without much hurt. That might be because I had become numb to the exposure of anything that might seem sad or frustrating…or maybe I hadn’t experienced anything as heartbreaking as I had on that Autumn day.

The reddish-brown leaves were falling onto a grass made even greener by the soft dew that coated it. There was rain before this morning, probably a slight shower that had coated the concrete in a dark grey and made the bark off the big trees turn to a wet black. The clouds overhead hid a blue sky, with the sun peeping every so often, trying its best to add its warmth and dry the wet world beneath it.

There was no one else at the park…not anyone besides the young, laughing family of three.

The woman in the deep red coat was sitting down, her legs outstretched, her brown hair spilling from under a black beanie…her smile was shining even under slowly changing grey day, and the soft laughs that spilt from her mouth seemed to fit right into the calls of small birds in the trees overhead.

Her attention was to her husband not 10 feet from her. He was ladled in a black knit sweater and dark blue jeans, chasing a young boy similarly dressed, with a small football in his hands.

They both had matching, black, messy hair… both had the same laugh and both had the same laughing eyes. The young boy did not, however, have the soft stubble that coated his father’s chin, that would come later in life.

The boys smile, however, was his mothers and as he darted and dodged his fathers tackling arms, it shone and bounced off the world, just like hers did.

It never really made sense how children somehow managed to mirror both of their parents…it must’ve been a wonder for that woman to sit there and watch her husband chase a tiny version of themselves.

The man was getting tired…he would stop and heave as he lost his breath…most of it was probably still in the air as his son managed to pull energy out of his youthfulness and run circles around him.

But it wasn’t long before his father caught him, grabbing him by the waist and picking him up, throwing him softly in the air and catching him just as delicately.

He picked him up and swung him off his shoulder as he marched back to his wife, before plopping the young boy onto his mother lap.

She wrestled the small football from his grasp and grabbed him by the cheeks as her husband softly dropped to the ground and onto the picnic blanket under them.

I watched from a distance as the smell of the coffee in my hands was blown into my nostrils.

It was a welcome change from the world around me, keeping me rooted and reminding me of what was real and what wasn’t.

This, although a real time, was not the reality of today…this was all in my mind, and I had to know this, or else risk being drawn into something that would eventually torture and twist my existence.

It wasn’t often I paid close attention to the details…maybe I was, in fact, becoming used to the story that was to take place. The shock, horror and sadness that made even this happy moment almost unbearable…maybe what was to come was chiselled so hard into my mind that whatever spirit was left from this moment had withered, becoming nothing more than a scar.

It wasn’t often that I sat and pondered what was happening, most times I would watch from a distance and let the events roll, remembering fondly the happy little snippets of what was in front of me… or else zoning out completely, allowing them to unfold… becoming unaware of the once emotional turmoil that used to come so frequently.

It was odd how times change, how being exposed to it somehow numbed even the most emotional of people…

I visited this moment in time every day for the last 10 years…even I had to admit the toll it took on my life outside of this.

It was ten minutes of what I once perceived as torture…but it was also 10 minutes that once cursed the rest of my existence.

The nightmare, however, stopped a long time ago….I couldn’t get those autumn leaves out of my head. They floated in and out, rustling against my face, obscuring my vision.

Their beauty taunted a memory that was intended to be a happy time.

Instead, it only brought the sad reminder, with tired eyes and a heavy heart, that it was the last time I’d ever see them again.

Parents don’t just come and go, they never just leave or die or vanish from existence.

They stick around.. they dwell in memories and in moments…in sparks of reality, in pleasant dreams and resisted nightmares.

I couldn’t hide that it sucked that I was forced to remember this day. Not the days where we were crowded around a birthday cake in a small home…not with the summer sun on our shoulders and sand beneath our toes…not with the nights we spent huddled in my bed, my Fathers words echoing a bedtime story…the soft stroke of my Mothers hands as she ran them through my hair.

But, even so, it’s hard to bring up those times without this singular day….the day they died.

That autumn day that was spent laughing and talking, hugging and holding hands…waiting for our car to suddenly get hit by an oncoming truck…swerving off the road and wrapping itself around that tree.

I couldn’t explain what it was like, watching the last moments I would spend with them before they died. It wasn’t loss…it wasn’t sadness either. It wasn’t anger or hatred or frustration.

I guess the numbness could explain it… but I think it was more.

I think it was because over time it was understood that most orphans didn’t even get a good moment or a happy memory to hold onto. Most had abusive mothers or absent fathers. Most had just pure shit to hold onto as a mum or dad.

Not me though.

The one thing I had more than anything was that I would never know what it was like to have bad parents.

I watched my younger self lying on my father’s chest, next to the head of my mother.

She was whispering something as we all watched the grey clouds overhead change into a fluffy white.

The sun, now whispering its own hello as the morning morphed into midday.

I couldn’t remember what she was saying…all I could remember was her voice…it was soft and warm and matched her smile.

I remembered my dads chest rhythmically moving up and down with each breath…His slow snore as he snoozed with the weight of his family on top of him.

A blanket of the two most important things in his life…a smile etching itself on his lips as he too became mesmerised by my mother’s voice.

I liked watching the clouds then…

I liked watching them whilst hearing her… whilst being protected by him.

I didn’t know where they were right now but I did know that if heaven existed that it might’ve been this moment.

The three of us laying there waiting for the day to end…waiting for something to pull us away.

It was nice.

That’s all I could say.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t shed a tear anymore…because I was blessed with knowing that at least…with everything else that would happen after….the ambulance pulling their bodies away, the policeman trying his best to warm the shock out of my body with a blanket…the friends and relatives that tried their best to make me feel a sense of family after…that at least I had this.

The brief young moments, that had etched their signature into the mind of a 5-year-old child.

As I watched the three of us there…with no anger or frustration, sadness or happiness…I couldn’t help but let the warm ball of gratitude well up and rise up to the back of my eyes… slowly easing away the numbness that came with tragedy.

To think I visited this moment every day….to think I had that at least…to think that the next 10 years would bring incomprehensible sadness and loneliness…I guess that’s why being back here every day, to that time at the park, under those Autumn leaves on an overcast day…soaking in whatever sun that could shine and watching sad grey clouds turn to happy white ones…why it mattered…

It wasn’t a curse…not really anyway….just a memory in time that should never be forgotten.