Hidden in Plain Sight

He's not a big bloke now though his frame shows that he has been. He's a bent over fellow with a 'port side list' and when he gets around, he's only about four foot tall. His one and a half legs sit loosely on two wheels, whilst his arms are bony thin, decorated with sparse white hairs amongst purple-blotched maps. He used to feel smart in white shirts but now has returned to khaki believing the spills blend in better. He's managed to fold over the empty trouser leg and pin it neatly today.  Sometimes the job is harder, but he has this obsession that this part of his dress be tidy. A way of accepting loss, wrapping it up and closing the parcel with detailed attention. The finality of it is what's important, even though he still feels phantom pains in non-existent toes and knee, he is able to stamp ‘closed' on it.

Red weepy eyelids hide his once mischievous blue eyes. They are forever on duty, wandering here, settling there, processing all, making sure of safety. He wasn't one to worry overly, but it's only a month since a pack of juveniles spun him around and around like a top, leaving him wobbly, nauseous and gasping. Nobody rushed to his aid. A young group of hooligans can put off even the most caring helper. The memory is still vivid, seared in his brain and it has taken these past weeks to gather enough strength and guts to return to the city.  His city, where he was born, the hospital still there, only a few blocks away. His city where he went to school, the public one up on North Street. His city where he played ball in the spare block with neighbours, where he attended cadets at the Memorial Hall and signed on as a kid, so tall for his age. His city where he kissed Coralie goodbye behind the cricket clubhouse. 

He rolls slowly, warily along the mall.  Noise and movement encircle him. Everyone appears to have someone or things to do to keep them busy. He does appreciate being amongst people. He doesn't know them, but they provide a backdrop for him. A living breathing surround that proves he is alive, still a part of this world. They don't speak to him, smile at him, or shake his hand though. They file past in streams. Frowns on their faces, looking down at the pathway or thrusting through in a hurry to be somewhere. Any grin or laugh is to the earpiece of their telephone.

Everything is a concrete and glass jungle now. His memory pictures a different scene from childhood; shops with verandah frontages aligned along the wide streets.  Weather comforters to hide under when it rained or to provide shelter and shade in the summer. People stopping and talking, catching up on any local news without having to sit in a snack bar or café. If you wanted to eat or drink you went home, you didn't spend hard-earned money on that sort of thing. Everyone knew everyone or at least how they fitted into the community.  'Community' was what it was. Not now though. Nobody seems interested in other people apart from those they are with.  They are all on some type of mission. When his eyes half close, he sees a multicoloured blur of movement.  One he doesn't like, but one he needs.

From down the centre of the mall, the loud beat of music reminds him of staccato gunfire, but not enough to take cover. The crowd is full of boys in hoodies and babies in tutus, people with strange hairstyles bright as the spectrum of colours, sometimes all on the one head. Youngsters arguing, skateboards flying past in the air or down low. Always, there is coffee everywhere and robotic people hunched over phones, if not attached to their ears then to their fingers, tap, tap, tap or held on sticks taking photos of self, self, self.

The shopfronts are gaudy with advertising. Sale, Specials, 50% Off, Lowest Prices, 2 for 1, and there's always those keen to find their bargain. His eyes are drawn to a mother as she exits a 'First Day Opening' store pushing a stroller. The toddler holds a swollen red balloon on a stick promoting the opening. It is the almighty bellow projecting straight from the little one's open mouth that catches his attention and turns other people's heads. They watch the red sphere floating up to the blue sky.  He follows the mother's route as she hurries to the nearest ice-cream stall to silence the hullabaloo. Food is the modern answer to so many problems, he thinks, ice cream was such a treat for me back when.

His dry lips spread open showing sparse teeth.  He extracts his old canteen from the rear carry basket and swills down a few refreshing mouthfuls. His tongue rolls around his moistened mouth. Just then a dark-skinned man rushes towards him, twisting his head this way and that. 

“Have you seen a young boy?” he yells, “my son, black hair, four years old, blue t-shirt and denim shorts?” and holds his arm out to explain the child’s height. 

The old man shakes his head, and words come out: “No, not this way, but I'll keep an eye open.” 

One moment of being noticed. Maybe I am still useful for something he ruminates.

How frightening to lose your child in this throng.  Not something he ever considered before.  No wife, no family — no worries, that's what an old friend had told him. But he wasn't sure that was true.  Plenty of worries he'd had with not another soul there for him. Forlorn and abandoned. How nice it would have been if Coralie and he had got back together after the war.  But not to happen, she'd joined the land army and married a farmer.  Had six kids apparently and possibly lived happily ever after. 

Six children would be a bit much he realises as he watches some skylarking and rude answers to parents about putting away mobile phones. Some jostling occurs causing take-away food and drinks to go flying. All the family yell in unison.

He looks around at the scene then says to anybody: "I joined up when I was only fourteen, but I could never have known this was what I fought for in 'Forty-Four'?"

No-one answers. He didn't expect them to. 

Carefully he backs into a smelly wee alcove between 'The Sushi Bar' and 'The Body Shop', and to make it liveable for the next few hours, lights himself an incense stick.