Danger in the Park

Perry had always considered himself a nice handsome guy, so he wasn’t sure why he’d never had a girlfriend. He’d never got into trouble in school. He didn’t always get the best grades (usually because he enjoyed playing video games too often), but he still managed to get into university and eventually graduate with a degree. He would do his hair up each day with gel, would put moisturiser on his face, and would always take a shower in the morning to make sure he smelt nice. He would always put on fragrance, spraying it onto his wrists and dabbing it onto his face just like the YouTube videos told him to. He would only ever buy slim-sized gym-fitting t-shirts, that helped to show off his steadily growing chest and arms. He would wear levy jeans, and would wear white trainers that he’d wash every day. He would carry a packet of mints, which he would always have after eating food.

Perry would read “success” books. Most days after work he’d sit in the local book cafe. He would sit at a table by himself with a coffee and a baguette, hoping that a pretty girl, like the one who always served him at the counter, Katie, would notice and ask him about them, and then perhaps ask him out. Perry wouldn’t approach Katie. She smiled at him and remembered his name every time he entered the shop, but she was too busy. That was what Perry told himself anyway.

Perry would go out with his friends at the weekend. Getting good pictures were the name of the game at pre-drinks. When photos were being taken, he would puff his chest out, offer a vague smile, and slit his eyes, all in the name of getting a cool tinder photo, hoping this next one picture would finally make all the difference for his success online.

When at the bar, Perry would pose with that same slit-eyed look and smile, and would slowly rotate his head around the room, the way he sometimes saw James Bond do in the movies. The odd time, he would meet a pretty woman’s eyes. If she was pretty, his heart would begin to pound in his chest, and suddenly, keeping that “cool” look became almost impossible. Online videos had taught him that he should always be the last to look away when he and a women were gazing at each other. It was a good way to be an “alpha-male” apparently.

Perry was still to be the winner in this game.

The dancefloor was Perry’s least favourite bit of the night. His friends would dance, Perry would try to dance, but the only music in his head was his own voice saying

‘You look like an idiot’.

‘You can’t dance’.

‘You are so awkward and ridiculous’.

And when pretty women were nearby, they made him feel even more insecure about his dancing. Perry loved Jamie, one of his oldest friends, but he could never stop a red-hot jealousy arise within him when he saw him dance the way they did in the old music videos that Perry used to watch on TV. He danced the way they would in the movies whilst he didn’t. It was even worse one time when he got off with some girl. Jamie wasn’t as good looking, yet he’d managed, and Perry hadn’t. He went home early that night, saying that he was tired.

The few times he did talk to women, they were often short, abrupt conversations, usually ended by Perry himself. He would exchange pleasantries with the girls (often unable to look at them in the eye for more than a split-second, his heart racing the whole time) and would then say he had to run. Tinder hadn’t been much better either. He matched with enough girls, but they never seemed to stick. He’d used all the recommended catchphrases, but nothing seemed to ever work.

Until last week, that was.

He remembered his heart thumping when he swiped right on the pretty girl and received the notification that they’d matched. Her main picture was of her sitting on a bench overlooking a sandy beach. She was wearing a thin white shirt that made her long black hair stand out even more, and that in turn made her green eyes more noticeable as well. She was also wearing short denim shorts that showed off her long smooth legs.

She’s beautiful, Perry thought... too beautiful to be true, another voice in him said.

But to his astonishment, she kept replying, sending him emojis and laughing at all his corny jokes. Perry remembered one article saying that he should ask her out immediately to stop her from losing interest. After a week, Perry asked the girl named Naomi if she wanted to meet up for a walk. She usually replied in the evening, and from midday until eight o’clock, Perry was distant to everything else, often pacing back and forth. After what felt like an eternity, his phone buzzed with a notification. ‘Naomi sent you a message’.

That had been on the Tuesday evening. It was Saturday morning now. Perry made it out to be 11:26 on his watch. Four minutes out from the park where he would meet Naomi. That morning he had been for two showers, had spent nearly an hour fiddling with his hair and had changed clothes twice after being sure that they smelt too strongly of aftershave. He then looked up some fashion articles online to make sure that the “experts” agreed with his choices.

He eventually decided on a red slim-sized shirt (because it said online that you appeared more dominant with red on), and khaki-coloured shorts. The air was cool, but it wasn’t windy, and the clear blue skies above suggested that it would get warmer later on.

Perry crossed the road and walked into the park. His heart thumped in his chest and his usual midday appetite was gone. He walked along the track in between the trees towards the centre, where there was a large water fountain. Wooden benches surrounded it, and he could see people sitting at them. He looked from one bench to the next and then-.

It felt like the inside of his chest had exploded.

On one side was a woman sitting in a red and white flowery dress. From where Perry was, he could only see her back. But he could also see her long black hair.

Perry looked up at the sky, took a deep breath in and walked forward. He went around the side of the bench and saw her face. She looked exactly the way she did on her tinder profile. She was smiling, her eyes on the fountain in front of her.

‘Hey’. Is what Perry tried to say. What came out sounded more like a gruff, sounding as if it were the first word he’d said that day.

Naomi looked up. In that moment, Perry was transfixed. Her eyes were large and deep, so bright and...

and blue.

That made him blink. He shook his head and said ‘hey’ again.

‘Hi’ she replied, and her smile widened. Her voice reminded Perry of silk, and suddenly, he forgot all about the colour of her eyes.

‘Would you like to walk?’. Perry asked, jabbing an arm up to point and hoping that the goddess in front of him didn’t notice the tremble in his voice. ‘Or we could stay here, I don’t mind’. You idiot, he thought, girls don’t like indecisive guys, all the online articles said that!

Naomi’s smile didn’t waver, and Perry felt his heart flutter. ‘Let’s go for a walk’ she said. She stood up, and Perry realized that she was taller than he’d expected, taller than him, and he was 6ft1. Still, she was beautiful, he thought.

‘Two secs I’ll tie my shoes’, she said, bending down. Perry was grateful. It gave him the chance to bring out his phone and look at his reflection. He took a deep breath. ‘Try to be calm’, he muttered quietly. He looked around the park, looking at the green trees, the mum in the yellow dress pushing the pram, the old man w-.

Perry froze.

On the opposite side of the fountain, along the dusty track that led down to the southern side of the park, was an old man, one that easily could have been mistaken for a homeless person. Perry could just make out his dark green jacket and black jeans. He had greyish hair with a 1960s ‘Beatles’ haircut that covered his fringe.

Perry was sure that he had an underlying beard, a grey one. Anyone else in Perry’s position wouldn’t have been able to tell if the man had a beard or not, but Perry could. Because he was sure that he’d seen that man before.

The pattering water that dribbled out of the fountain now sounded very loud to Perry. Suddenly, there was no one else in the park. All he could see was the man in the green jacket.

The man had been limping in Perry’s direction, moving lightly on his right leg. To anyone else in the park, they may have guessed it was because he was simply an old man. But Perry was sure it was from a permanent injury he’d picked up, all the way back in World War Two. But how did Perry know that? Who was it?

He wasn’t sure. But there was something more immediate on Perry’s mind. It made something inside of him squirm. He looked at the old man. The old man’s haggard limp stopped. Perry squinted his eyes. The old man was too far away to see his face in detail, but somehow, Perry was sure that man was looking directly at him.

And smiling.

‘-ry!’

Perry jumped. He turned around. Naomi was now standing again, staring at him with amused-looking (blue) eyes.

‘Are you coming?’.

‘Yeah’. Perry said, and moved towards her. I’m being silly, he thought. But when he looked back, what he saw made him feel even more uneasy. When he looked south, in the direction he’d looked moments before, there was no old man in a green jacket, just the same woman in the yellow dress pushing her pram along.

He shook his head, and moved alongside Naomi beside him, suddenly wishing that he could go back to just worrying about his date.

It didn’t take long for Perry to forget about the old man. He was on his first ever date after all. Perry had visualised every detail of the date since it’d been confirmed. From the cool ‘hey’ he would spring, and the “badass” slit-eyed look. To the funny jokes he’d planned (because girls like funny guys, of course), and the exact route he’d take her through the park.

But so far he’d screwed up his introduction, he’d forgotten all his jokes and they were walking on the wrong route (thanks to the old man’s appearance). Worse, she was the one asking him all the questions; ones he’d planned to ask her like ‘Where’re you from?’ and ‘what’s your favourite food?’. When Naomi asked questions like ‘do you believe in life after death?’ and ‘if you could, would you want to live forever as a ghost?’, Perry thought it must be because she was running out of ideas. He’d read online that the guy was supposed to do most of the talking, and he was failing badly.

It was bad, just not for the reasons he thought.

They walked along the track for another ten minutes before Naomi turned them right onto a smaller, quieter path. Perry had been right about the weather, the air had become thicker, and he wished that he’d taken sun-cream with him. It had gotten warm... but... too warm. A bit of sweat was unavoidable at this time of year, but it wasn’t even one o’clock yet and already his red shirt had become cold, sticky and burgundy in large patches. Worse, his legs had begun to tremble with each step.

Perry stopped at a water fountain, hoping that the water would help him feel better. It didn’t. Instead, it only made his stomach bloated. Naomi, who’d essentially been interviewing him up to this point, had some water herself. As she did so, Perry looked up to the sky again.

He’d let himself down, his mind said. He’d been so nervous that he’d made himself unwell. He’d done so much overthinking that he couldn’t even remember what questions she’d asked or even what he’d said. I’ll be lucky if she decides to stay for a coffee, he thought. His cheeks flushed red and suddenly his mind felt fried, like it did after a day’s worth of studying in the university library.

‘Are you ok?’. He looked up. Naomi was watching him. He looked into her blu-… green eyes. Of fucking course her eyes were green, he’d seen them on tinder for god’s sake! He’d made himself so unwell that he was seeing things.

He was done. He looked at her and sighed. ‘No. No I’m not can we take a seat on a bench’.

Luckily, there was one nearby amongst the trees in the shade. They sat down, quiet for a while, the only sounds coming from the rustling of the nearby tree branches.

Perry was beginning to think he’d have to call off the date. He felt sick. One moment, he was overbearingly hot, the next, he couldn’t stop shivering. To his growing embarrassment, he was beginning to think that Naomi would need to call someone to pick him up. What a fuckup... he thought. He lowered his heavy head.

That was when he felt her hand clasp the top of his. It was warm. She lifted his hand and laced her fingers in-between his.

‘It doesn’t matter if you don’t feel well’. She said softly. ‘I like you. I think you’re really cute’.

Perry’s chest fluttered, and his cheeks went red. He felt better, just a bit. She was someone special if she still liked him now. In that moment, he felt like the luckiest guy on earth. He looked up and-

He realized with sudden terror that he was wrong.

Naomi’s beautiful face smiled softly at him, her red lips looked so soft, and begged to be kissed. But that’s not what caught Perry’s attention. It was her eyes. They weren’t green, or blue.

They were red.

Perry tried to unlace his fingers but her hands now felt like cement. He tried to pull his eyes away from her but couldn’t. Her eyes were deep, and beautiful white flashes danced within them. They were mesmerising... and terrifying.

Perry tried to open his mouth to shout, but his lips stayed close. They hadn’t passed a single person along this track, and he didn’t think anyone would be down this way until it was too late.

‘You will be with me forever’. Her voice now had a strange echo to it. Her eyes didn’t leave his. It looked like it had become night-time out the corner of Perry’s eyes. He felt weaker now, light-headed. He wanted to scream. His eyes closed shut once. Closed twice and-

And just before they closed again, Perry saw something out of the corner of his eye. At first, he saw a green blur, and then, it became unmistakable.

It was a man in a green jacket. He was limping towards them.

Perry’s heart thumped wildly. Naomi didn’t seem to notice the man, and slowly, the man limped closer. Bright lights now sparkled in Perry’s eyes. In that moment, he swore that if he lived, he would stop overthinking. He didn’t think he’d get that chance though, he moaned and-

And suddenly, he found himself able to turn his eyes away from Naomi’s. He looked left, getting a clear look of the man for the first time. His eyes widened.

His grandfather, the one he’d only ever seen in old grey photos, looked at him with a gentle smile. He moved closer and placed a wavering hand on Naomi’s shoulder.

A lot happened in that moment. Naomi’s red eyes lit up, and then changed back to green. Her face contorted into a snarling, petrified look. Perry closed his eyes. When he reopened them, the bench seat beside him was empty.

He looked up at the man he thought dead in front of him with his mouth gaping. His mind overflowed with endless questions. He had so many things that he wanted to say to him in that moment, thank you, and that his son missed him, that he wished he’d had the chance to know him, to-.

The man before him seemed to know this, because he raised one finger to his lips, still smiling. He lowered his finger and opened his mouth. Every move came with grace, and Perry watched closely. The man said two words in a low voice that sounded much like his dad’s.

‘Stop overthinking’.

Perry blinked again, and his grandfather was gone.

Perry looked around, but he was alone on the bench, alone with the blue sky above him and the trees around him.

He sat there on the bench for a long while. He went back to the water fountain, this time taking a large gulp of water. His stomach felt fine now, and his temperature had cleared. He supposed that whatever that ‘Naomi’ thing had been had made him unwell.

But his dead grandfather had saved him.

He returned to the bench and sat there, considering how much he believed in what he’d just saw. He looked at his phone. There was no Naomi on it. He supposed no one would ever believe him anyway. He thought about his grandfather again and smiled.

‘It doesn’t mean I can’t take the advice though’. He said aloud.

Perry stood up and made his way to the coffee shop where he knew Katie was working that day.