Photo by Matt Knight
1
The dying old man walked carefully along the snow-covered path in Victoria Park. He was hoping for peacefulness and quiet, as the park had given him in the older days, but the windy sound of cars driving down Richmond along with the shouts and laughter of youth took away the things that the old man so longingly sought after.
‘Hey!’ a young man called out, wearing a large winter coat and top hat. ‘You there!’
The young man placed his hand on the old man’s shoulder, who was very frail and nearly collapsed under the weight. He slid out from under it and turned to the young man, who smiled while pulling a deck of cards out of their small holder.
‘A street performer?’ the old man thought pleasantly to himself. ‘I haven’t seen one in ages – a real one.’
‘Hi, can you do me a favour? Just a little thing; I’m sure you know how it goes.’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘Well, then,’ and the young man fanned out the cards, exposing their corners.
‘Please pick a card, just any card.’
All of them were printed with the light red design of a garden seen through an archway. The old man took a subtly shaking finger to the cards and ran it along them before stopping on one that gave a good sensation.
‘Now look at the card, but don’t show it to me.’
It was the ace of hearts.
‘Is it easy to remember?’
The old man nodded.
‘I’ll remember it.’
‘Good, now place it back in the deck, facing away from me; that’s good.’
The young man fit the deck back into its holder before dropping it all into a coat pocket, which he patted twice.
‘And that’s the setup. Thanks for helping me out, sir.’
The old man felt somewhat lost.
‘But . . . don’t I see the card again? Isn’t that the trick?’
‘Oh, it’s not a trick. But it’s for a class I’m taking, so thank you. I have to head back now before lunch ends.’
‘What about the trick?’ the old man thought to himself, but reached out to shake the young man’s hand regardless.
However, the young man had already turned, and was heading through the park to his school.
Snowflakes descended from the sky like falling angels. The old man decided to sit on the empty bench in front of the Bandshell’s skating rink, where only a handful of people were out playing. He wiped down the seat with the sleeve of his overcoat, sending a miniature avalanche to the ground, and then sat royally with an arm on the armrest.
The trees scattered throughout the park were as black as bones, and drew the old man’s eyes towards them.
A young girl who slid across the ice with her sneakers took notice of the old man. She wondered if he was going to feed the squirrels, though she had not seen many since winter came. Black squirrels were the most common in the park, though grey ones could be seen scampering by from time to time, usually during festivals when people were at their most giving. The old man turned his head to the direction of the Boer War Memorial; the soldier atop the pedestal was spiked with icicles, frozen mid-stride with his casually held rifle.
‘I wonder what their deaths brought us,’ the old man thought wistfully to himself. ‘That war was long before my time.’
The girl slipped and fell behind him, then regained her composure and continued watching the old man with naïve interest. She decided to follow the breath in front of her and headed towards the bench. The old man was surprised by the young girl obstructing his view of the memorial, and took unapologetic inspection of her: she wore a collared black sweater with a long white plastic zipper, along with a faded blue dress. Her short blonde hair framed sympathetic eyes.
‘Is something wrong?’ the old man asked her, to which the girl shook her head. ‘Nothing? Nothing’s wrong? Did you lose something?’
The girl gave this some sincere thought before shaking her head again. She looked down at a squirrel that had stopped between them, holding onto an acorn with its tiny paws.
‘Oh!’ the girl lit up, deciding on a thought. ‘Are you cold?’
‘Cold?’ the old man chuckled. ‘No, no. No . . . don’t worry. I’ve been through much worse than this, I can tell you that. It’s a very lovely day today.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Shouldn’t you be at school now?’
The girl sat down beside him and gazed at the space between the black trees.
‘Lunch hasn’t ended yet.’
The old man checked his watch and saw that it was noon.
‘I was just mistaken,’ he said. ‘A young man was on his way back to school when I spoke with him.’
‘Different classes start at different times,’ she explained.
The old man mulled this over.
‘Things have really changed,’ he said finally to himself.
‘It’s always been like that,’ the girl said. ‘This is my first year, but I know it’s always been like that. Aren’t you supposed to be working?’
The old man chuckled again.
‘I retired long ago.’
He looked at the shape of the Cenotaph in the corner of the park, and the wars he could remember; the glorious dead.
‘I want to retire from school,’ the girl said, breaking his concentration.
‘You’ll be thankful for it when you’ve graduated,’ the old man comforted. ‘Afterwards you’ll be in college; you’ll get a good job, and then eventually you can retire.’
The girl looked up at the light grey sky.
‘I guess we’re like batteries,’ she said flatly.’Once all the energy is gone they just throw us away.’
This caused the old man to wince.
‘You should be more positive at your age.’
When the girl looked straight again her attention was captured by the snow-covered World War II Sherman Tank, and she had the sudden urge to climb it. She pushed herself off the bench and strode through the snow towards the tank, her shins becoming more and more wet with snow as she took each step.
“Holy Roller” was painted in white on the tank’s sides. She decided to climb it from the back, and when the old man saw this, he wanted to tell her to be careful, but she was too far away for his faltering voice to reach her. Her shoes kept slipping on the surface, and she could not get a decent handhold.
After a few pathetic attempts she simply fell to the ground and felt the wet chill of snow against her face and hands. She rested there for a moment before pushing herself back up and returned to the bench, where she sat down and sneezed.
‘Be careful,’ the old man suggested belatedly. ‘Are you all right?’
The girl nodded.
‘I should go to school,’ she resigned, and left the bench once more.
‘Wait,’ the old man said, trying to get up himself, but instead discovering that the strength had left his body. ‘What’s your name, little lady?’
The girl almost slipped again as she turned to regard him, hesitating.
‘Anna.’
The old man smiled kindly.
‘That’s a lovely name. Mine is Bryan.’
Anna waved politely to the old man before following the trail to school.
Left alone again, the old man reached a hand into his overcoat’s front pocket and pulled out a poppy, which he twirled between his thumb and forefinger before pinning it to his pocket. He gazed at Victoria Park’s three cannon, which were long, long before his time. One was British, he knew, and the other two were Russian. The old man then looked back to the tank and found the strength to stand; retreading Anna’s footsteps, he pressed onwards through the snow.
In a surge of unexpected youthfulness – like a recharged battery – the old man decided to climb the tank. Due to his height, he could grab onto a more reliable handhold than the one Anna reached, and he stiffly set a foot onto one of the tank treads. When the old man tried to pull himself up, his back gave out in a painful spasm, and he fell to the snow.
Facing upwards, he could see the grey sky move slowly overhead as he breathed raspingly, unable to form any words. He shut his eyes to the falling snowflakes, then opened them when they melted, and so on and so forth, while he slipped in and out of consciousness for many hours.
Of the few people passing through the park, most did not notice him, and the ones who did thought he was a resting homeless man. He finally woke to the darkening blue sky, which comforted him more than the grey. His ear twitched to the sound of footsteps rushing through the hardened snow.
‘Is it an ambulance? No. I’d hear sirens. But then, what is it?’
He blinked very slowly a few times, and after the third blink Anna appeared in his line of sight, looking down at him. The old man was soothed by her presence.
‘Aren’t you cold on the ground?’ she asked with great concern.
‘Yes, I’m cold now, Anna,’ the old man admitted. ‘I need you to . . . I need you to call an ambulance. For me. Please, Anna, find a telephone and call, but don’t wait for me. You should be home at this time of night.’
‘School just ended,’ Anna told him. ‘It gets late earlier in winter.’
The old man smiled at her innocence.
‘Please hurry,’ he told her.
She looked quickly from side to side, then hurried off to the payphones beside the Bandshell.
At the tank, the old man closed his eyes once more. At the Bandshell, Anna slid a quarter into the payphone and asked for an ambulance. She waited with the old man while the sirens came, which were soon followed by the ambulances, and she left when the medics brushed her away.
He had been quiet the entire time, and she could not think of anything to say to him.
‘Why was he on the ground by the tank?’ Anna thought to herself. ‘Did he want to ride it?’
She sat down on the bench in front of the skating rink and watched as the medics moved the old man onto a stretcher, a small crowd slowly forming around them.
‘He’ll be all right,’ she thought, then started crying.
Wiping the tears onto her sleeves, she stood and left the park.
2
Winter Wonderland was the name of the first night that they lit up the trees in Victoria Park for Christmas, and many people gathered there for the celebration, as couples, families, and friends walked the snowy paths, played in the soft, welcoming snow, and went ice-skating. Anna went with her mother and father, but was allowed to explore the depths of the park alone; however, she was frightened of the darkened areas and remained around the skating rink. The trees would shine brightly in an hour, and the burning colours would fill the sky like the Northern Lights.
Until then, Anna decided to make use of the luckily empty bench in front of the skating rink. She sat hugging herself against the cold, but smiled happily nonetheless.
‘I wish I had my blanket,’ she thought longingly while shivering.
Although it was only nine o’clock, she could barely keep her eyes open.
‘I’m sleepy but I have to stay awake for the lights. They only turn them on once a year.’
Since it was a long wait, she could not stop herself from comfortably warming her body, which she achieved by curling up on the bench. She watched the park sideways while more and more snow fell from the sky with every passing minute, and then decided to rest her eyes.
Anna dreamt herself on a Greyhound bus, surrounded by familiar strangers who were supposedly her teachers and classmates; they were taking a field trip to a skating roller coaster, which could be seen in the far distance. Sitting in front of her was an older boy whom she had a crush on in the dream, and beside her was a younger girl who was her best friend. Both of them were talking conversationally while Anna looked out the window. She was wrapped in a blanket and tired even in the dream. Outside the window she spotted a small building with its interior completely visible through a glass wall, and inside the building a man with the head of a lion was making agitated movements towards a woman dressed as a nurse. A sign between them read “We are cruel and violent to the animals.” Anna told her friends about this after they had driven by it, but neither of them believed her.
An announcement came in on the intercom that the innards of the bus were flanked by tigers; Anna caught them in the corners of her eyes and pulled the blanket over her head defensively – like a small girl afraid for her life – and then groggily woke up shivering. She panicked at the thought that she might have missed the lighting of the trees, but sighed relief when she saw them still as black as the sky above.
Sitting up on the bench, she wiped her face on her sleeves, and surveyed the area for her parents. They were talking beside her, and her mother smiled at her when she saw that her daughter was awake.
‘Did you have a good sleep?’
‘It’s cold,’ Anna needlessly replied, pushing herself off the bench. ‘Are they going to turn the lights on?’
‘In about twenty more minutes.’
She had slept for less time than she thought.
‘Can I play in the skating rink?’
Her mother looked at her daughter’s sneakers, which had seen better days.
‘Just be careful,’ was the only thing she asked of her.
Anna accepted her mother’s conditions with a nod, and set foot onto the skating rink, where she stumbled across the ice. ‘We’re lucky to have a daughter as sincere as her,’ Anna’s father said to her mother, but she was not entirely in agreement
‘It’ll backlash when she grows up, if she doesn’t grow out of it.’
Anna’s father shrugged it off.
‘We should let her be happy for as long as she can.’
Anna slipped, but a friend caught her arm before she fell.
‘You should be more careful, Anna,’ her friend said while giggling. ‘Look! You don’t even have skates.’
‘I’m getting some for Christmas,’ Anna explained.
‘Oh, that’s good,’ her friend said, smiling. ‘We can go skating together then.’
Anna brightened visibly.
‘I can’t wait.’
Her friend kept a steady grip on her arm in case she slipped again.
‘Who are you here with?’ her friend asked.
‘My parents. You?’
‘A group of us decided to come here, but I’m not sure where everyone is. Oh! There’s Alex. I’ll see you tomorrow at school, Anna.’
She let go of Anna’s arm and skated past her to an older boy. Anna saw that her parents were watching her, so she headed towards them and stepped off the rink. By now the snow had covered the ground like a heavy blanket.
‘It’s almost time now,’ her mother told her. ‘Let’s get closer to the trees.’
They walked away from the Bandshell and followed a trail where they could only see the trees, which reflected the moonlight on their darkened light bulbs. The monuments around them were completely covered in snow; Anna wanted to climb one of the nearby cannon, but knew she would only fall from it in her exhaustion. She wished her dog was there to see the lights with them.
Anna’s father held onto her hand when the countdown started, and squeezed when “one” drew near. She squeezed back and the trees lit up in shimmering lights, setting the park aflame in colour as though a comet in the sky. Angelic whites, gentle blues, and warm reds were elegantly scattered throughout the trees, and they reflected onto Anna’s eyes as she took them all in.
A few of the spectators were singing and laughing, and Anna’s parents were suddenly struck by the rejuvenating spirit of Christmas. Anna looked up to her parents’ faces as they watched the trees, and was happy to have spent the night with them.