Signs of Life
He had been dead for nearly two hours when they had found him. This was what the local newspaper would report the following morning, at any rate. However, ‘found’ was something of a misleading term. It wasn’t as though he had deliberately concealed himself, secreting himself away in some half-forgotten corner. On the contrary, he had been sat in plain view, on a bench in the sunken public park near the city centre. His newly redundant walking stick rested by his side, a final smile still visible on silent lips. It was hardly his fault that no one had noticed his passing.
It was an early afternoon in late August, with rival seasons conducting their annual battle for supremacy. Autumn had begun to make its presence felt, the occasional, bronzed leaf silently surrendering itself to gravity. However, summer still held sway; the castle ruins up on the hill above the city sheltering the old man from the harsher rays of the midday sun. Not that he cared.
The favourable weather had drawn many to the park. Office workers had come to while away their lunch breaks, grateful for the opportunity to escape their weekday prisons. Some were on their own, lounging on the grass with a tasty sandwich and a tastier novel, others were in groups of three or four, sat on the walls of the raised flowerbeds, smoking cigarettes and discussing their plans for the forthcoming weekend. Even their older, more distinguished colleagues had given in to the lure of the park, taking a detour through the gardens en-route to their seventh floor offices, high above the city.
Small groups of camera-laden tourists ambled along, pointing excitedly at a whole host of buildings and landmarks, each one a tangible reminder of the city’s history. These same structures filled the vision of every local inhabitant on a daily basis, and were therefore promptly disregarded. The enthralled sightseers chattered amongst themselves as they walked, their language both lyrical and expressive, but nonetheless largely unintelligible to nearby ears.
Dog-owners frequented the park too, over-eager canines straining at their leashes, dragging their masters down the steep steps from the busy city street above. Then, their leads finally unclipped, they would hare off across the park, bundles of latent energy, frantically seeking out strange new smells and throwable sticks.
Amongst all this varied human traffic the old man had sat, unremarkable and unremarked upon. On the bench to his right sat a young couple in their early twenties, busily embarking on a brand new love affair. They were as close to each other as they could be, the young man’s arm curled protectively around his partner. They talked to each other in amorous whispers, punctuated by bouts of laughter, the product of jokes only they would ever understand. Every now and again, their eyes met, their laughter ceased, and they kissed, immersing themselves in each other, hand in hand.
In front of the courting couple, on an expanse of neatly tended grass, a father played football with his two young children. Discarded coats and jumpers had been employed as goalposts, the father stationed between them. He reacted to each scuffed penalty kick by diving in the opposite direction, the cue for elaborate celebrations from his exultant progeny. Then, the shoot-out completed, he got the ball to his feet, dribbling it with comparative ease down the park. His excited charges capered after him, little hands grabbing at belt loops and trouser legs in a desperate attempt to slow him down. Eventually, the little girl found some purchase on her father’s left leg, and clung on obstinately with both arms and both legs. Her perseverance allowed her older brother to tackle their father, kicking the ball from his feet with surprising force but a characteristic lack of accuracy. The game finished, all three tumbled to the ground, a tangled mass of familial contentment.
Back up on the concrete path leading through the park, a tramp was listing unsteadily down the stairs, relying heavily on the iron handrail that ran down the centre of the flight. Years on the street had undoubtedly aged him, his unruly beard orange with nicotine, his face leathery and worn. It was clear that alcohol was still very much in his system, but even in this state, he too seemed to be calmed by the surroundings, perhaps relieved to escape the disapproving glances of the pedestrians above, if only for a few minutes. The foot of the stairs safely reached, he proceeded to shuffle slowly along the path, muttering conspiratorially to himself as he did so. He only broke his private monologue to doff an imaginary cap at the loving couple on one of the park benches, whom he had caught in the midst of yet another romantic clinch. The girl blushed, smiling weakly back, while her boyfriend narrowed the gap between them still more, keen to fulfil his role as protector. The inebriated tramp waved them away weakly, and continued on his way.
Somewhere nearby, a clock tower chimed a quarter to, and some of the office workers sprawled on the lawns began to gather their things together, clambering back to their feet and dusting the grass from their behinds as they resigned themselves to the inevitable return to work. At the opposite end of the park, a refuse collector, in fluorescent yellow livery, had wheeled his dustcart down a wheelchair ramp, and was now emptying the rubbish bins dotted at regular intervals along the pathway. He whistled to himself as he went about his work, lifting the heavy aluminium drums from their housings before upending them into his trolley. When he spotted the old man on the next bench, apparently slumbering contentedly, he halted his tuneful whistling in an almost unconscious gesture of respect. He parked the dustcart carefully, and began to haul the next rubbish bin out of its casing. However, in his efforts to keep the noise to a minimum, he failed to get a proper purchase on the drum, and it slipped through his gloved fingers to the floor, clattering loudly on the ground, disgorging its varied contents over the path. Cursing his clumsiness in a breathy whisper, he stooped down to retrieve the bin, while all over the park inquisitive faces turned in his direction to witness the cause of the noise.
Leaving the rubbish bin where it was, the dustman straightened up once more. He glanced about, anxious to find someone else who had noticed what he had, but there seemed to be no one. Their curiosity sated, every pair of eyes in the park had returned to whatever pastime or pursuit they had been involved in. Only the dustman had noticed that there had been no reaction from the old man, not even the faintest glimmer of consciousness.
He pulled his gloves off by the fingers, balancing them carefully on the handle of the dustcart before leaning forward and gently resting his hand on the old man’s shoulder. Shaking him lightly, he got no response. He shook him again, a little harder this time, silently pleading with the old man to open his eyes. He still got no response, and moved his hand onto the old man’s neck, in search of a pulse. He then withdrew his hand abruptly, shocked to the quick by the feel of the cold, dead flesh beneath his fingertips.
“Shit!” he whispered, spinning around, his eyes darting about frantically. “He’s dead!” he shouted, to no one in particular, his voice quavering and cracking with emotion. “I think he’s dead! Someone help!”
All those who heard the man’s desperate pleas stopped in their tracks, their eyes fixed on the old man on the park bench. Even the people on the far side of the park, who couldn’t possibly have heard the dustman’s cry, stopped what they were doing and peered over at the morbid spectacle. The young couple on the next bench along had hurriedly got to their feet, the girl sobbing quietly, her boyfriend too busy with his own shock to even think about comforting her. Down on the makeshift football pitch, the father tightly held the hands of his children, pulling them closer to him as though fearful that their, young lives might also be at risk. They tugged impatiently at the trouser legs of his jeans, peering up at him with uncomprehending faces. Small clusters of tourists stood in huddles, talking hurriedly amongst themselves. They hadn’t understood exactly what the dustman had said, but that was of little importance. The only living thing in the entire place not to be affected by this unexpected turn of events was a small springer spaniel, patiently waiting for her master to throw the small rubber ball he held in a limp, lifeless hand. Eventually, she grew bored and trotted away, tail held high in indignation.
The rude blare of sirens cut through the bland, white noise of the city traffic, indicating that someone had called the emergency services. A small crowd of people had gathered around the bench, some genuinely seeking to offer any kind of assistance that might be required, others merely there for the sheer spectacle. Two young boys loitered on the outskirts of the gathering, skateboards in hand, peering through the mass of arms and legs for a precious sighting of the dead body. They were already concocting the outlandish story that they would embellish still further and repeat to their friends on their return to school the following week.
The dustman had been led away by a passer-by, and now sat on another bench, head held in trembling hands. His good samaritan sat alongside him, her hand rested tenderly on his shoulder.
The uniformed police were the first on the scene. Having answered the emergency call and sped to the city gardens, they now hurried down the steps and took control of the situation, the male policeman doing his best to disperse the crowds while his female colleague approached the lifeless figure on the bench. She felt for a pulse on both his wrist and his neck, before checking inside his brown tweed jacket for any obvious injury. Then, with the help of her partner, they tipped the body forward to check for wounds on the old man’s back, all the while asking questions of the bystanders. Their search complete, and their queries answered, they resumed their efforts to keep people away, speaking into their two way radios to set the correct procedures in motion.
Before long, the place was alive with activity, with countless officials milling about, establishing facts and collating evidence and statements from the shell-shocked bystanders. The area around the old man’s bench had been cleared and cordoned off, and a police doctor had quickly been summoned to the park to pronounce ‘life extinct’.
Someone had fetched the dustman a styrofoam cup of hot, sweet tea, and he now cradled it in his hands, taking small, tentative sips as he recounted his tale to the Detective Inspector to whom the case had been assigned. A young, ill-at-ease police constable had been stationed on the perimeter of the police cordon, to keep away the rubberneckers and morbid sightseers, but as his protestations that there was ‘nothing to see’ were patently untrue, he wasn’t enjoying much success.
Eventually, the undertakers arrived to remove the old man’s body. He was lifted onto a stretcher with almost reverent care, before being zipped up into a white body bag, and transported to the hospital morgue. With this, final act, the assembled circus slowly started to drift away.
It was a late afternoon in early September, and the paths and lawns of the city park were lost beneath a carpet of fallen leaves, the air sweet with the smell of their gradual decay. The ancient keep up on the hill still cast a familiar shadow, though the hazy autumn sun was now much less insistent in its attentions and intensity.
A young couple were walking along the main pathway, each holding a hand of their young son between them. He toddled along unsteadily, but safe in the hands of his parents, squealing happily as they swung him between them, kicking the leaf litter and watching the leaves fall back to the ground. The happy trio passed a park bench halfway along the length of the path, but continued on their way. For them, this was no more than somewhere to be, somewhere to slip away to, the perfect place for the occasional moment of repose. They didn’t notice the small, brass plaque mounted on the wooden seat, but then they had no reason to, for this was how things were supposed to be.
Copyright Phil Hudson 2007
Photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/davemorris/17560963/">Daveybot</a> / <a href="http://foter.com">Foter</a> / <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)</a>
He had been dead for nearly two hours when they had found him. This was what the local newspaper would report the following morning, at any rate. However, ‘found’ was something of a misleading term. It wasn’t as though he had deliberately concealed himself, secreting himself away in some half-forgotten corner. On the contrary, he had been sat in plain view, on a bench in the sunken public park near the city centre. His newly redundant walking stick rested by his side, a final smile still visible on silent lips. It was hardly his fault that no one had noticed his passing.
It was an early afternoon in late August, with rival seasons conducting their annual battle for supremacy. Autumn had begun to make its presence felt, the occasional, bronzed leaf silently surrendering itself to gravity. However, summer still held sway; the castle ruins up on the hill above the city sheltering the old man from the harsher rays of the midday sun. Not that he cared.
The favourable weather had drawn many to the park. Office workers had come to while away their lunch breaks, grateful for the opportunity to escape their weekday prisons. Some were on their own, lounging on the grass with a tasty sandwich and a tastier novel, others were in groups of three or four, sat on the walls of the raised flowerbeds, smoking cigarettes and discussing their plans for the forthcoming weekend. Even their older, more distinguished colleagues had given in to the lure of the park, taking a detour through the gardens en-route to their seventh floor offices, high above the city.
Small groups of camera-laden tourists ambled along, pointing excitedly at a whole host of buildings and landmarks, each one a tangible reminder of the city’s history. These same structures filled the vision of every local inhabitant on a daily basis, and were therefore promptly disregarded. The enthralled sightseers chattered amongst themselves as they walked, their language both lyrical and expressive, but nonetheless largely unintelligible to nearby ears.
Dog-owners frequented the park too, over-eager canines straining at their leashes, dragging their masters down the steep steps from the busy city street above. Then, their leads finally unclipped, they would hare off across the park, bundles of latent energy, frantically seeking out strange new smells and throwable sticks.
Amongst all this varied human traffic the old man had sat, unremarkable and unremarked upon. On the bench to his right sat a young couple in their early twenties, busily embarking on a brand new love affair. They were as close to each other as they could be, the young man’s arm curled protectively around his partner. They talked to each other in amorous whispers, punctuated by bouts of laughter, the product of jokes only they would ever understand. Every now and again, their eyes met, their laughter ceased, and they kissed, immersing themselves in each other, hand in hand.
In front of the courting couple, on an expanse of neatly tended grass, a father played football with his two young children. Discarded coats and jumpers had been employed as goalposts, the father stationed between them. He reacted to each scuffed penalty kick by diving in the opposite direction, the cue for elaborate celebrations from his exultant progeny. Then, the shoot-out completed, he got the ball to his feet, dribbling it with comparative ease down the park. His excited charges capered after him, little hands grabbing at belt loops and trouser legs in a desperate attempt to slow him down. Eventually, the little girl found some purchase on her father’s left leg, and clung on obstinately with both arms and both legs. Her perseverance allowed her older brother to tackle their father, kicking the ball from his feet with surprising force but a characteristic lack of accuracy. The game finished, all three tumbled to the ground, a tangled mass of familial contentment.
Back up on the concrete path leading through the park, a tramp was listing unsteadily down the stairs, relying heavily on the iron handrail that ran down the centre of the flight. Years on the street had undoubtedly aged him, his unruly beard orange with nicotine, his face leathery and worn. It was clear that alcohol was still very much in his system, but even in this state, he too seemed to be calmed by the surroundings, perhaps relieved to escape the disapproving glances of the pedestrians above, if only for a few minutes. The foot of the stairs safely reached, he proceeded to shuffle slowly along the path, muttering conspiratorially to himself as he did so. He only broke his private monologue to doff an imaginary cap at the loving couple on one of the park benches, whom he had caught in the midst of yet another romantic clinch. The girl blushed, smiling weakly back, while her boyfriend narrowed the gap between them still more, keen to fulfil his role as protector. The inebriated tramp waved them away weakly, and continued on his way.
Somewhere nearby, a clock tower chimed a quarter to, and some of the office workers sprawled on the lawns began to gather their things together, clambering back to their feet and dusting the grass from their behinds as they resigned themselves to the inevitable return to work. At the opposite end of the park, a refuse collector, in fluorescent yellow livery, had wheeled his dustcart down a wheelchair ramp, and was now emptying the rubbish bins dotted at regular intervals along the pathway. He whistled to himself as he went about his work, lifting the heavy aluminium drums from their housings before upending them into his trolley. When he spotted the old man on the next bench, apparently slumbering contentedly, he halted his tuneful whistling in an almost unconscious gesture of respect. He parked the dustcart carefully, and began to haul the next rubbish bin out of its casing. However, in his efforts to keep the noise to a minimum, he failed to get a proper purchase on the drum, and it slipped through his gloved fingers to the floor, clattering loudly on the ground, disgorging its varied contents over the path. Cursing his clumsiness in a breathy whisper, he stooped down to retrieve the bin, while all over the park inquisitive faces turned in his direction to witness the cause of the noise.
Leaving the rubbish bin where it was, the dustman straightened up once more. He glanced about, anxious to find someone else who had noticed what he had, but there seemed to be no one. Their curiosity sated, every pair of eyes in the park had returned to whatever pastime or pursuit they had been involved in. Only the dustman had noticed that there had been no reaction from the old man, not even the faintest glimmer of consciousness.
He pulled his gloves off by the fingers, balancing them carefully on the handle of the dustcart before leaning forward and gently resting his hand on the old man’s shoulder. Shaking him lightly, he got no response. He shook him again, a little harder this time, silently pleading with the old man to open his eyes. He still got no response, and moved his hand onto the old man’s neck, in search of a pulse. He then withdrew his hand abruptly, shocked to the quick by the feel of the cold, dead flesh beneath his fingertips.
“Shit!” he whispered, spinning around, his eyes darting about frantically. “He’s dead!” he shouted, to no one in particular, his voice quavering and cracking with emotion. “I think he’s dead! Someone help!”
All those who heard the man’s desperate pleas stopped in their tracks, their eyes fixed on the old man on the park bench. Even the people on the far side of the park, who couldn’t possibly have heard the dustman’s cry, stopped what they were doing and peered over at the morbid spectacle. The young couple on the next bench along had hurriedly got to their feet, the girl sobbing quietly, her boyfriend too busy with his own shock to even think about comforting her. Down on the makeshift football pitch, the father tightly held the hands of his children, pulling them closer to him as though fearful that their, young lives might also be at risk. They tugged impatiently at the trouser legs of his jeans, peering up at him with uncomprehending faces. Small clusters of tourists stood in huddles, talking hurriedly amongst themselves. They hadn’t understood exactly what the dustman had said, but that was of little importance. The only living thing in the entire place not to be affected by this unexpected turn of events was a small springer spaniel, patiently waiting for her master to throw the small rubber ball he held in a limp, lifeless hand. Eventually, she grew bored and trotted away, tail held high in indignation.
The rude blare of sirens cut through the bland, white noise of the city traffic, indicating that someone had called the emergency services. A small crowd of people had gathered around the bench, some genuinely seeking to offer any kind of assistance that might be required, others merely there for the sheer spectacle. Two young boys loitered on the outskirts of the gathering, skateboards in hand, peering through the mass of arms and legs for a precious sighting of the dead body. They were already concocting the outlandish story that they would embellish still further and repeat to their friends on their return to school the following week.
The dustman had been led away by a passer-by, and now sat on another bench, head held in trembling hands. His good samaritan sat alongside him, her hand rested tenderly on his shoulder.
The uniformed police were the first on the scene. Having answered the emergency call and sped to the city gardens, they now hurried down the steps and took control of the situation, the male policeman doing his best to disperse the crowds while his female colleague approached the lifeless figure on the bench. She felt for a pulse on both his wrist and his neck, before checking inside his brown tweed jacket for any obvious injury. Then, with the help of her partner, they tipped the body forward to check for wounds on the old man’s back, all the while asking questions of the bystanders. Their search complete, and their queries answered, they resumed their efforts to keep people away, speaking into their two way radios to set the correct procedures in motion.
Before long, the place was alive with activity, with countless officials milling about, establishing facts and collating evidence and statements from the shell-shocked bystanders. The area around the old man’s bench had been cleared and cordoned off, and a police doctor had quickly been summoned to the park to pronounce ‘life extinct’.
Someone had fetched the dustman a styrofoam cup of hot, sweet tea, and he now cradled it in his hands, taking small, tentative sips as he recounted his tale to the Detective Inspector to whom the case had been assigned. A young, ill-at-ease police constable had been stationed on the perimeter of the police cordon, to keep away the rubberneckers and morbid sightseers, but as his protestations that there was ‘nothing to see’ were patently untrue, he wasn’t enjoying much success.
Eventually, the undertakers arrived to remove the old man’s body. He was lifted onto a stretcher with almost reverent care, before being zipped up into a white body bag, and transported to the hospital morgue. With this, final act, the assembled circus slowly started to drift away.
It was a late afternoon in early September, and the paths and lawns of the city park were lost beneath a carpet of fallen leaves, the air sweet with the smell of their gradual decay. The ancient keep up on the hill still cast a familiar shadow, though the hazy autumn sun was now much less insistent in its attentions and intensity.
A young couple were walking along the main pathway, each holding a hand of their young son between them. He toddled along unsteadily, but safe in the hands of his parents, squealing happily as they swung him between them, kicking the leaf litter and watching the leaves fall back to the ground. The happy trio passed a park bench halfway along the length of the path, but continued on their way. For them, this was no more than somewhere to be, somewhere to slip away to, the perfect place for the occasional moment of repose. They didn’t notice the small, brass plaque mounted on the wooden seat, but then they had no reason to, for this was how things were supposed to be.
Copyright Phil Hudson 2007
Photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/davemorris/17560963/">Daveybot</a> / <a href="http://foter.com">Foter</a> / <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)</a>