I have entered this year’s NYC Midnight short story competition. The competition is across four rounds, with the first having thousands of entrants. The first round will be judged and the results posted by the 5th of April. From there, those that have qualified for the next round will be instructed on what they need to write for round 2.
More details and the competition page can be accessed here.
For round 1, entrants were placed into groups (there were many, many groups) and each group had a brief of sorts for their story. I was in group 93, and the brief was:
- Genre: Drama
- Subject: Exclusivity
- Character: Swim Instructor
- Max: 2,500 words
We had about 8 days to complete and submit the stories.
Below is my entry and I would love to read your feedback…
Reflections in Water
The gavel struck the sound block, emphatically and with a finality I didn’t feel. It created a subdued but authoritative hardwood-on-hardwood sound that swept through the hushed courtroom. Unlike any number of popular courtroom TV and movie dramas released over the last few decades, the hush endured. There were no emphatic cheers of celebration, no screams of denial at the delivered verdict and no shouted threats of violence in response to a perceived injustice.
A young girl had been killed, a child, and no judgement in court would bring her back. No cheers, screams or shouts could change that either.
The verdict, issued immediately before the rap of the gavel, had taken longer to be processed by my distraught mind. Had I heard the judge correctly? ‘Not guilty’? He had made a terrible mistake. Of course I was guilty. How could I not be? I had been driving. I had struck the girl, Liliana. I had killed her as surely as that afternoon had rained and lightning streaked across the sky.
I glanced across at the little girl’s family. A few looked back at me. The father had watered eyes that refused to spill their swelling drops. His lips trembled as he tried to contain his grief.
An older brother, I believe, starred at me with a barely contained fury. Rage radiated from him and charged the air nearby in an almost perceptible shimmer.
The others; a mother, a sister, perhaps a family friend, grandparents, slowly stood and embraced momentarily. They shared a fragile, familial love that I had forever tarnished and twisted into a broken version of its previous self.
I sat and waited for the room to empty, in much the same pose I had held throughout the proceedings. My hands remained pressed together, pointing floorward, with elbows propped on knees that had quivered throughout the 15 minute judgement hearing. I again looked past trembling hands to the droplets of tears that had splattered to the floor. Patterns had formed like droplets of blood from cruel injuries.
A guard quietly approached and gently, but forcefully, aided me to my feet and guided me from the room. As I stepped beyond the threshold and into a faded wood-panelled hallway, I wavered slightly on leaden feet and braced myself against the doorframe. The guard released me and, after his rough hands had withdrawn their momentary support, he whispered, “murderer”.
*
The psychiatrist’s room was clean, professional without being cold, but still lacking warmth. I was invited in, but strongly directed here by the court. The only place I felt welcome these days was within my own fractured mind, but I didn’t want to be there either.
This was a place of analysis, investigation and diagnosis, but I was as excluded from this world as I have been anywhere else. I was a broken equation to be solved, nothing more.
Today, for our third appointment, the psychiatrist wore a beige jacket over a light green knee-length dress with flat shoes whose colour was somewhere in between. This seemed to be her chosen uniform, with only the colour of each piece of clothing changing. The cut and style remained consistent week-to-week as did her muted demeanour.
Dr. Tononi had again affected her mid-length brunette hair pulled back into a severe ponytail. Thin, black-rimmed glasses were regularly pushed back against her face. I had never seen her speak to me over them, like some might to show distain for an ill-conceived idea or comment, but I suspected she could manage it quite well.
“Tell me about the new job.”
Straight to it. It had been Dr. Tononi’s suggestion to find a job where I could help children in some manner; a way of confronting the guilt while taking practical steps to build up positive outcomes over and above the tragedy I had caused. To try and balance some sort of cosmic scale; to tip fate back in my favour.
Fate is merely the pointless creation of a desperate and fearful mind. This revelation came to me during one of many sleepless nights. I might have heard it, or something like it, in the past, but it feels like it belongs to me now. I had killed a child and no amount of good deeds can be balanced against that. What heinous crime had little Liliana committed such that fate decided to place me in her path?
Our conversation ebbs and flows and I find my focus drifting. Questions likely from the manuals on Dr. Tononi’s bookcase are answered by what I think she wants to hear. Beside me, condensation drips from a glass of cold water to pool on a small side-table like life retreating from a mangled body.
“Are you taking your medication?”
She asks me this towards the end of each session.
“Yes, most days,” I answer. A variation on the same answer I have provided in previous weeks. It is truth, however. Pills to help me sleep, pills to soften the guilt, another pill that does something else I no longer remember or care to. I seem to have skipped straight from mid-thirties to elderly where popping pills is as much a part of life as eating and sleeping. I have been prematurely excluded from young, independent adulthood with no hope for a return.
“See you next week, Byron.”
*
Water ripples and clashes in the half-Olympic-sized pool, driven by student and instructor-created turbulence. Undulations sweep across the space to crash against the edges of the pool before being turned back inwards. A better metaphor for my life would be hard to find.
Across the pool, the other instructors are guiding their charges through their 25-minute lessons. Each class is in a precisely demarcated section with lane markers and submerged platforms for the kids. I have my space and everyone else has theirs.
Physical barriers separate us as surely as the tempestuous water does.
At the end of the day’s lessons, I leave the pool and offer brief good-byes to each student and parent. Dr. Tononi was right to direct me towards a job like this. I am gaining from the experiences; dealing with the grief and reconnecting the shredded parts of my spirit. The progress is glacial though; I doubt teaching and medication can drive enough progress before I stumble and fall one last time.
Other instructors move past me with quiet murmurs of “good-bye” and “excuse me” but warmth and care are missing. They gather in groups at the end of the pool or walk together towards the change rooms. Some are planning an evening out together and others are merely chatting and building friendships. None speak with me.
Drips of chlorinated water slide from my fingertips and clothes to land about me. The translucent spots momentarily flash into opaque blood-red and back again. A ghostly voice whispers “murderer”, but I am alone.
I look into the water and see a twisted caricature of a man peering back at me. The water is still for once.
*
Home is a small studio apartment in the rundown southern parts of the city. There are two locks on the door but only the lower one works. One is probably enough anyway; I don’t have much to steal.
Inside, I keep my meagre positions tidy and the space clean, but an uncleanable dull grey covers the ceiling and walls. The carpet is faded and worn in patches. Dirty light enters through small windows that can’t be scrubbed clear. I deserve and loathe this place.
The kitchen is like the rest of the apartment: clean with possessions placed where they should be. The atmosphere is depressed by faded grey walls and dull brown benchtops. I used to enjoy cooking on bright Sundays. This morning’s dishes and cutlery sit in a cracked drying rack waiting to be put away once they’ve dried.
A rickety sliding glass door leads onto a small balcony. Here is another space of contradictions. There is peace and safety, but also loneliness and separation from the world. Seven stories of height provides a conflicted view of nearby smoke stacks and high-rises with distant green-grey mountains peeking through gaps in the cityscape.
Recent rain has left streaks of dirt across the floor and lower parts of the walls. Dirty water is pooled in a depression in the balcony’s uneven concrete. I carefully pour some orange citronella oil into the puddle and see Liliana’s blood diluted by rainwater.
*
I haven’t driven since the death of the little girl. In fact, I haven’t been in any road vehicle since: buses, taxis or even a car driven by somewhere else. Not that anyone remains in my life to drive me anywhere.
My mind has kept trains disassociated from the tragedy so, other than walking, I ride the train from home to see Dr. Tononi or to work. There isn’t anywhere else to go. Sometimes I ride the train with no destination at all. I find a window seat and travel through and around the city. The world outside, separated from me by glass and steel, flashes past when the train is at speed, or meanders when the train approaches a curve or station.
This particular day, I strike out and intentionally walk an unfamiliar path through the busiest part of the city. I remain alone in the crowd and gently sway with the muscle memory of turbulent water.
A cry from mother to child cuts through the cacophony of urbanity and the invisible barrier around me. A cold tremor runs down my spine. It is a cry of desperation and hopelessness, as if the deepest fear that keeps parents awake at night was now inevitable in the waking.
I see the little girl run between parked cars with dense traffic a second away. Within moments I am with her, scoop her up and turn her away from the traffic. A car flashes past and clips me, sending me staggering towards the footpath with searing pain running a horizontal slash across my back.
We stop among the closest onlookers, breath ragged. She, at first, looks up at me with the innocence of a child but I see it drain from her as a harder edge replaces it and creeps into her deep brown eyes. She instinctively knows that her life was but a breath from ending, even if she doesn’t truly understand the mortal fear of permanent death.
And then her terrified mother is with us and sweeps the child into an embrace of relief, fear, love and distress; a maelstrom of emotions that I feel radiate outwards to penetrate my empty spirit.
A gentle squeeze of my shoulder and a desperately heartfelt “thank you” and they disappear into the crowd that has grown nearby.
The crowd begins to evaporate as the drama itself fades and I am left with the lingering touch; the beautiful words.
An onlooker has dropped a bottle of juice in the commotion. A puddle of thin, orange fluid is shaped like the sun, radiating flecks of golden light.
*
Another work day in the pool. The water is calmer today, however, as if the turbulence of months past actually came from within, rather than without.
I can’t believe in fate and inevitability as manifestations of the unseeable workings of a cold universe. Projection, however, perhaps that is real. Our state of mind and intent might radiate outwards and influence events to unfold in predictable ways.
The pain of being responsible for the loss of a child is still part of me; always shall be. Now, however, I see that I can help as well. I am not a lost monster, but a possible force for good.
I smile, and not the artificial mask I wear for the children whom I instruct, but because it feels right. The connection with the children is stronger today. I guide and they follow. We are all better at the end of the lesson than when we began it.
Lunchtime arrives, which signals the end of the morning’s lessons. As the last family exits the centre, I make my way, alone once more, to the cafeteria. A sandwich and coffee by myself under a tree in the university’s garden now seems like peaceful solitude rather than enforced exclusion.
These plans are forestalled by the approach of my peers. They ask if I want to join them today, instead.
I am stunned for a moment and stumble an embarrassing reply, before recovering with a “yes”.
*
The psychiatrist’s room remains unchanged as we begin another session. Looking past Dr. Tononi’s shoulder, I see a small plant in a pale brown pot, sitting on a chest of drawers; chestnut and modern. The arrangement is delicate with bright green leaves and three or four straight stalks tipped with white teardrop-shaped flowers reaching for the nearby window.
Oblivious to the doctor’s current line of discussion, I ask her when she got the new plant. Dr. Tononi turns and follows my line of sight, before returning to look at me with a slightly puzzled expression.
“The Peace Lily? It has always been there. Have you not noticed it before today?”
A Peace Lily? Of course it is.
We talk about work, lunch with colleagues, walking through the city and the child in the street. Throughout, I am looking at Dr. Tononi but speaking to the lily. The former offers guidance and the latter comfort. I have been closed to both since the death of the child but now I am open to them.
“Are you taking your medication?”
“Yes, every day,” I answer. I don’t think I need them, but I no longer fear them. For now, they are a helping hand worth holding on to.
Dr. Tononi smiles for the first time and the room brightens.
“I don’t need to see you next week, Byron. Shall we meet again in a month?”
