A Walk in the Park

Callum Docherty walked in the park not because he enjoyed it, but because he had to. It was lucky that he lived in Hamilton and that Gage park was right around the corner - it was big enough that he didn’t raise too many eyebrows on his seemingly endless rambles, especially if he seemed to be hanging around when there were kids nearby.

It wasn’t like that. Callum’s incessant need to walk around the park was a result of his need to constantly be absorbed in his surroundings, to keep his mind and senses occupied at all times. The vodka helped with that, too. He poured it into a water bottle so that he wouldn’t get looks from strangers. It wasn’t that he minded or was embarrassed as much as he didn’t want any attention at all. The walking and the drinking in the park was the most effective way he could keep his mind and reality rooted in the present and keep the past at bay, attempting to barricade himself from the power of memory, a task which seemed as futile as trying to stop a leak in a boat with your bare hands. And with all of that on his mind, it was better to not draw attention to himself.

One Saturday morning around 9, Callum walked to Gage park and started his usual walk. If you asked him about his job, he would mumble something and hope you might change the subject - he wasn't that interested in sharing about his occupation, which might be called the custodial services if you weren’t into the whole brevity thing. Being a janitor wasn’t what he had wanted to do with his life now that he was in his thirties, but after what had happened, it seemed like one of the only options.

He went into the park with his hands around the bottle in the front pocket of his hoodie. As he walked, with each step he heard, felt, saw something new. This was all part of it, the idea of being there, of being present and experiencing everything that the universe had created up until that moment and letting it wash over him. He heard the grass beneath his feet crunching, heard the whoosh of the breeze around him, the birds in the trees chirping and the squirrels scurrying. Above him, the infinite blue of the sky, a pale eternal sea.

He needed to know that he existed and these things that happened all around him told him that he existed, that he was where he was and that he wasn’t slipping off somewhere else to another time or place. The trees around the park and the flowerbeds and the vibrancy of their life-giving powers gave him this certainty, this solidity of existence, and the enormity of circumstance, the staggering chances that he might exist in this moment alongside any of this left him reeling - how many things had to have happened for him to be putting one foot in front of the other at the same time that these trees and those flowers and that bee and this sky and those clouds were doing what they do best and existing? That answer evaded him for a simple reason - there was no discernible answer. The answer was the tapestry of time and space and how it was all woven together, the loom of the universe, everything that ever was and everything that ever might be.

He stood still, closed his eyes and let it all wash over him. Somewhere behind him he heard the laughter of children and in his mind something smiled but it was somewhere dark and deep and hidden, somewhere he couldn’t see the smile but he knew that it was smiling. The laughter echoed around the park, around his mind until subtly, with the most gradual of crescendos, the sound changed and the laughter turned into a scream that lingered, reverberated inside of his mind until it gradually diminished like some sort of demented choir’s screams fading into a diminuendo. The birds chirping slowly (and subtly) morphed into the sound of the flat-line on a cardiac machine; its monotonous drone filled Callum’s mind. His hands found the water bottle and he drank from it. Like the sound of music growing fainter as you move away from it, Callum’s mind was slowly quiet again and the ambient noises from the park crept back. He opened his eyes and turned to see the family to whom the children belonged that had supplied the laughter in the first place as they were heading to the playground. Callum watched them go before turning back to the path in front of him and putting one foot in front of the other and listening to and looking at everything around him.

*

It’s a hell of a thing to be on the run from your own mind. The hiding places become few and far between when the cat to your mouse is the power of memory and it has the power to break you down whenever it pleases. For the most part, Callum had a handle on it; he was able to work most days without any intrusions. He didn’t drink on the job (he had to maintain at least some dignity), and so when they happened, he would just go to the bathroom and ride it out. It wasn’t like being a janitor had the strictest timetable in the world, so it was fine.

Where things got really interesting was bedtime. Sleep is, of course, the closest we ever get to death… just ask Hamlet. He’ll tell you all about it. And so, in the most vulnerable of states, Callum would often find his mind in full control, showing him whatever it thought he needed to see. Often, it was a sort of demented flashback, taking the same experience but tweaking something - an over-saturation of a dark green colour like everyone around him was a part of a gas attack and their faces were like a devil’s sick of sin and their eyes were flames. Other times, the whole thing would play out as normal, but there would be no sound. Just that deep bonging that you hear when you are underwater. Other times, everyone in his dream - his partner, the kid, the kid’s father - nobody would have any faces. That was the weirdest one. Dreams are weird.

But sometimes - and this was the hardest one to experience - everything was perfectly as it was. Crystal clear 8K resolution, with every single granular detail standing out like a photograph from a National Geographic shoot in the Sahara. Sounds like Dolby Surround Sound in an IMAX theater.

For your edification, to really jump into Callum’s shoes, the dream he would experience is recreated below:

The ambulance cuts through the streets cloaked in darkness, leaving a trail of red luminescence in its wake. Callum sits in the front seat and the sound of the siren wailing doesn’t bother him; it is a part of him now. Three years on the job and he can now anticipate the time in between wails; it has become like his own breath. He looks beside him, to Alvarez, his partner, his buddy, and knows he is in good hands. Alvarez (first name Joey), drives the rig like a pro. Callum feels his heart racing, knows that the adrenaline is racing through him, the buzz or the rush, whatever you want to call it, he is ready. They have a Code 1, car accident, multiple involved, one infant. The night dissolves around them as they go.

When they arrive, they let their training take over: survey the situation and complete a risk assessment. Typically, the worst is over by the time they get there, but it is crucial to ensure the safety of the environment and themselves. Their assessment on that evening details a head-on collision between two cars. They are smashed up, steaming, twisted and gnarled in the moonlight. One of the cars has a hole in the windshield and their eyes follow a logical trajectory and find a crowd of people standing around something or someone on the ground.

They move quickly to the back of the rig, open the doors and grab their bags. With the briefest glances of eyes they mutually determine the spinal board might be needed, so they bring it.

The crowd parts and the boy on the ground is revealed. His hair is brown and his face is pale. His eyes are closed. A tall man in a black suit leans down and puts his hands around the boy’s head.

‘Sir, please step back.’

‘I’m his father. I-I’m his father.’

‘Sir,’ Callum repeats. ‘Please step back.’

‘It was fine, it was all-’

‘SIR. Step back now.’ There is steel in his voice now that gets the father’s attention and he steps back shakily.

‘What’s his name?’ Callum asks.

‘Evan.’

‘Evan, do you hear me?’ He addresses the boy as they carry out their preliminary checks. Callum produces his penlight from his bag and opens the boy's eyes.

‘Unresponsive,’ he says to Alvarez. ‘Possible internal injuries.’ Callum lowers his ear to the boy’s mouth and listens, feels, waits for a gust of life. Nothing. ‘Proceeding with resuscitation.’

Callum begins CPR as Joey watches and monitors the scene. With every chest compression, every breath, the sliver of hope that floats in the air starts to dissipate. Within minutes, Callum’s arms are burning with fatigue, his eyes are clouded with tears. Burning tears. The unfairness of it. He looks to the dad whose eyes are red with tears, as well. But there is also the unfocused look of a drunk. The wobbly, pulpy, watery eyes of a man who has seen most of his life from the bottom of a bottle and for some reason brought his son along with him. He couldn’t have been more than five, Callum thinks. He continues to pound on the boy’s chest when he feels a hand on his shoulder. It’s Alvarez. Callum knows what the hand means. He’s done it for Joey before. It means it’s over. Callum stands up, gasping for air, every muscle in his body aching. He turns and sees the dad standing there, waiting.

‘What… What happened? The CPR didn’t work? What happened?’ He starts to wail and Callum steps towards him. The smell of whiskey is strong and Callum feels something brewing inside of him. He looks back down at the boy, his pale face, the eyes still closed, the ripped t-shirt and bloodied jeans, the skull, probably crushed, the ribs, probably broken, and everything a result of this man, this waste-of-space, this absolute loser, monster, menace, piece-of-shit bastard who didnt’t even deserve another breath on this planet.

‘Sir, I’m afraid to tell you that CPR was ineffective… We can try the defib-’

‘But it’s not possible. He was awake before you got here.’ The father’s eyes dart back and forth. ‘What took you so long, anyway? The hospital isn’t that far away.’

Something burning, a fire starts. ‘So it’s our fault? And not yours? The father who drives his kid around drunk?’ A hand on his shoulder again and Callum looks to Alvarez who is giving him cautious, urgent eyes. Callum is too deep into the fire now to stop. The anger and the pain is too much and the kid is dead and is never going to come back, never going to graduate, never going to kiss that person who makes them happy. All because of him.

‘Did he even have a seatbelt on? I bet he didn’t.’

‘He- well - it was only for a second. The kid was sleeping and well, I needed… Hey, you aren’t the cops. Why you asking me all these questions? I should be asking you questions about what happened. Why you didn’t save him?’

It happens so quickly that it seems like it’s in fast-forward on one of those old cassette tapes. And it goes black.

*

That’s always where the dream ends.

Every time. No matter what the dream is like, where it starts, what the colour scheme is like - it always ends when Callum jumps on the drunk dad in the suit. It doesn’t even cover the most important part - Alvarez in the back of the rig with the paddles or the flat-line drone. Callum could only hear it in passing as he was being brought to the police car. That was the part that broke him. That he wasn’t able to help in the end. That he let the anger take him.

Nobody in that moment, including Callum, could have anticipated that from him. But it wouldn’t take an archaeologist to dig it up - Callum and his wife Sarah had been trying for almost three years to have a baby. There had been miscarriages. Multiple. Enter the jackass who goes to the bar after picking his kid up from school because his wife is away on a business trip and he has been hiding his drinking problem from her but he finally gets a chance to live a little and so he gives the kid his tablet and lets him sit in the car when he goes in but one drinks turns into three and three turns into six and by the time he gets back the kid is sleeping so he picks him up and puts him on his lap and it reminds him of what it was like when he was younger so he figures it isn’t far to home so he drives with him on his lap…

The man in the suit pressed charges, which was ironic because he was also going to jail for a long time. Callum’s case was helped by the fact that he had a spotless record and there were extenuating circumstances of emotional duress. Joey testified as a character witness. He ended up getting a reduced sentence for aggravated assault and did barely over a year. It was a cakewalk - stories of his bravery and kicking the shit out of a scumbag dad preceded him. By that time, Sarah had moved on. She had to. He was too much of a liability. The bottom had already started to fall out from their relationship and they both knew it; this just turned out to be the catalyst for the end of them.

*

Having walked a few laps with a nearly empty water bottle, Callum started to make his way home on that Saturday morning. As he moved past the playground, he saw the family he’d seen before getting ready to leave. The boy, about five, had dark hair. Callum flinched, preparing himself for another bout, and felt relieved when it didn’t come. Feeling mellow, wavy, loose, he walked ahead of the family and heard their voices, their laughs, their jokes and he heard the sound of the park, the wind and the grass and he felt the sun and air on his face, fresh and new and something buzzing flew past his ear and he felt that too and it all meant that he was there. He was alive and he was in the moment. For the moment, he was ahead of whatever or wherever his mind was.

The screaming started quickly. Callum, doubled over and expecting an episode, was surprised when it turned out that the sound he was hearing was real and not something from his mind. He turned around and saw the family behind him moving frantically - the mother had a phone to her ear and was shouting something about a sting. The father had his son in his arms and was holding him. The boy was almost limp and was grabbing at his neck.

If you’ve ever felt true fear, you would know that it is paralysis. It roots you, puts nails in your shoes and does not let you move. This was Callum. He was no longer a paramedic and for good reason - he wasn’t allowed to be anymore. But still, he knew he could help but there was also a part of him that was buried deep that thought it might have been his fault that the kid didn’t make it. Maybe his CPR was off, maybe he made the wrong call, maybe he should have intubated first. So he turned and ran. Ran away from the screaming, from the pain and fear that a wasp sting might be the end of a child’s life, ran into his fear and shame.

He was almost out of the park when he stopped to catch his breath. His face was hot with self-loathing but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t drink away later. He looked up and saw the sky stretching above, endlessly blue, and at that moment a swath of clouds moved over the sun and he felt something inside that was certainty, a serendipity of occurrences that had put him in this place at this time for a reason. What was purpose, after all, if not just an understanding of time, place and circumstance?

He turned. Ran. By the time he got back to the family, the boy was swollen to a grotesquely. The father was beside him and the mother was still frantically on the phone.

‘Sir,’ Callum said. ‘I’m - I - used to be a paramedic. I thought I could help.’

The father turned to Callum with tears in his eyes. ‘Yes. Anything you can do. The ambulance will be here soon.’

‘What’s his name?’ Callum asked as he rolled his sleeves up and sat beside the boy. The sounds in his mind were gone. Not even the sirens anymore. Not the screams. Not the park, not the birds or the bees or the breeze. Just silence. And the training that still lived in him, the muscle memory that guided his movements, the ability to save a life, to prolong that eternal sleep.

‘Charlie.’

And so, Callum started to save Charlie’s life.