8:25am
by
Jessica Dean

These were the wrong shoes to walk to work in. Already pinching, step-by-step, blisters filling fluidy and fat.

Vivienne glanced at her watch. She’d lost time; half an hour passed in awkward silence. 

Her hand, limp and tingling longed to reach out and touch his. She curled her fingernails hard into her palm instead, flicking away a heavy thread of hair from her damp face with the other, and moved a body width away from him.

It was too hot. The heat stole the crispness from the morning and replaced it with an oppressive treacle thickness clinging to her body, lecherous and invasive, fogging her brain with heat-hug fuzz.

A dog barked ahead, she looked around the park, slow pedalling cyclists, dogs panting heavily but delighted to be off the leash, ahead of their lethargic owners.

Two fat drops of sweat tickled from her armpit down, surprisingly icy against her overheated skin.

“We need to walk faster, I’m going to be late for work,” the first words Tom had uttered since they’d left home, his voice tight and angry.

She turned to him - his handsome face smudged with stubble did not meet hers.

They followed the curve in the path, wilting grass hunkered down in tight faded knots. A group of children swarmed the play equipment, energetic despite the heat. The bright primary colours harsh in the sunlight as eager fingers braved the sting of the hot metal bars.

Their teacher directed, with windmill arms and finger point commands, her eyes protectively following their compact little bodies clamber, twist and drop.

“I’m walking as fast as I can in these shoes – they really hurt”

“You should have thought of that earlier.”

“Well, not everyone’s a genius like you Tom. Just go, I’ll catch the tram.

She marched away from him, turned the corner, the park spreading out before her. The lawn faded, retreating, piles of leaves at the feet of gasping liquid ambers – god damn when would it rain? 

Down the hill, to the left near a small cluster of bushes two boys lay face down in the brown grass, unmoving, silent - human exclamation that had been unnoticed – the happy cries of the playing children bouncing off their still bodies.

“Vivienne, you’re being unreasonable, why do you always – 

Tom stopped next to her, silenced by the scene below.

“Dickheads, they’ve had a big night,” Tom laughed knowingly.

“Yeah maybe…but I just need to check they’re ok,” Vivienne’s face tight with worry.

“They’re fine Vivienne,” annoyance loud and clear.

“You don’t know that. How can you possibly know that.”

She moved off the path, removed her shoes and walked down the hill towards the boys. The grass hot, hard and spiky underfoot.

The invisible tether of their argument stretched as she walked away from him. 

“Just call the cops, let them deal with it. I’m going to be late for work, why do you always have to make everything so difficult”

“Then go Tom – just bloody go, “ she shouted over her shoulder.

Tom expelled an exasperated sigh and followed her down the hill.

The scene screamed of the night before: beer cans littered the grass, cigarette packets screwed and discarded; and a bottle of Jack Daniels, lid off and empty, ants swarming the sweet syrupy remains.

The two boys lay face down, limbs disordered and still. Like collapsed puppets, crumpled and angular.

Vivienne approached the closest. A chill spread across her body. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around herself. 

He was pitifully thin, skin stretched tight across the bony protrusions of his pale arms, his fingernails gnawed and filthy. His feet cartoon big, out of proportion with such a delicate frame. His face shrouded by lank, dirty blonde hair, thick with grease. He laid horribly still – an iridescent statue, out of place.

She walked around his body, approaching it from another angle hoping for a fresh, more hopeful perspective. Blood neon blossomed across his t-shirt stiffening the material a deep rich red.

Spidery panic crawled her flesh. Her surroundings disappeared. No more screaming children, no more suffering landscape, no more argument, no more Tom, just her and this boy.

Hands covered her mouth, protecting her from the words she whispered to herself.

“I don’t want to touch him. I can’t touch him. Please don’t let him be dead, please don’t let him be dead.

A soccer ball arced towards them, fell to the ground and rolled to Tom’s feet. A child, dark-haired and freckled ran towards them – two adults standing over the bodies of the two boys.

“Hello mate,” said Tom nervously unsure what to say, handing the ball to the child.

Fear filled they child’s eyes, he snatched the ball and turned, running full pelt away from the scene.

“Shit, Viv we need to call the cops,” Tom pulled his mobile from his pocket and dialled.

Vivienne unhearing, glanced at the other boy, snoring softly, his consciousness a magnet to her. She crouched next to the breathing teenager. Short cropped sandy hair, jeans, t-shirt and expensive sneakers, a back pocket torn from his jeans.

He stunk. Stale alcohol, cigarettes and sweat: a pungent teenage male brew of testosterone, recklessness and sexual frustration.

His large back rose and fell. She reached out tentatively and touched his shoulder. He was hot. His face turned towards her, was an angry sunburned red. A glistening line of saliva anchored from fleshy lip to the grass at his face.

“Hello, you need to wake up. Please wake up,” Her voice stiff, nervous.

Nothing.

“You need to wake up, your friend is hurt,”

Vivienne reached out and grasped the fleshy shoulder and shook hard. 

“Wake up. You need to wake up!”

From the depths, a slow painful moan, one crust filled eye opened, blurry and red.

“Huh?”

“Get up, please get up – you need to get up right now your friend is hurt.”

“Huh?”

Vivienne moved away, unsure of how he would react.

The boy rolled onto his side, wiped a large hand across his mouth and onto his jeans and starred up at the couple disoriented.

“Whatthefuck?” The words dribbled and out of focus.

In the background Tom talking on his mobile. Conversation complete.

”Should I have called an ambulance? Viv, I’m going to get that teacher, see if she can help,” Tom turned and moved back up the hill.

“You need to wake up your friend. We think he’s been hurt, we can’t wake him", Vivienne spoke calmly, softly.

The boy hung his head between his knees, and gradually rose to his feet, unsteady and disoriented.

He lumbered across to his friend and leaned down towards him, his large body folded in half, his hand swamping his friend’s delicate shoulder. He shook him hard:

“Wake up dickhead.”

No response. His body lay still and silent as before.

“Wake up wanker,”

He swung back his foot and savagely kicked into his friend.

Hey! “Don’t do that! Don’t kick him,”

The boy turned and grinned at her. A dull emotionless grimace, his eyes reflected a momentary pain, before he heaved and a large stream of vomit hit the ground splattering the inert body of his friend.

“Uggh, fuckingwakeupyoutool”

He kicked his friend again.

Vivienne moved to him swiftly, pulling him back by his large forearm.

“Don’t touch him, He’s not moving, he’s hurt.

“Don’t touch me - get your hands off me.”

Sirens sounded close - he glanced back at the direction Tom had taken. 

“Have you called the cops?”

“Yeah.” – Vivienne looked unsure as if they’d done the wrong thing.

“Thanks a lot bitch,” 

He moved towards his friend, knelt down and shook him hard and stepped back.

The certainty that this young man was dead filled Vivienne completely. 

His friend looking momentarily concerned stepped back from the body confused. Looking at Vivienne, bravado stripped away, fear in its place. She stepped forward to comfort him.

“Nah – no way,” He knelt back down and shook his friend with such force, his head snapped forward and back, and bellowed in his face, “BRETT WAKE UP YOU TOOL,”

A slight twitch and the boy, the collapsed puppet, sprung to his feet as if life had decided at that second to return to his body, fill him with energy and let him take the strings.

He stumbled unsteadily on his feet, swaying, flung his hair out of his face. His face burned red, one eye swollen. His nose looked broken, twisted. His lip busted.

He hitched his jeans up his skinny hips. “Let’s get some maccas, I’m starving,”

His friend burst out laughing – “you look like shit mate.” 

Vivienne lost for words, handed him her water bottle. He snatched it from her and drank greedily.

His friend turned to him, “This stupid do-gooder bitch has called the cops, we’ve got to go,”

For a heartbeat, he & Vivienne looked at each other - the young man’s eyes soft, lost & sad.

“I think you should go to hospital Brett, Vivienne said, reaching out to touch his arm. “It’ll be ok,”

He looked at her hand - blinked, the wall back up. Shut down.

“Here ya go cunt – you can have ya fucking water back,”

He hurled the bottle in her direction, the water arching outwards, splashing the front of her clothes, turned with his friend, laughing and ran away.

The plastic bottle hit the grass, and rolled lazily into the indent his body had made.

Vivienne stood alone watching the boys disappear behind the trees. 

She looked down at her feet and dirty and blistered, sat down, and rubbed one foot after the other.

Tom reappeared alone, out of breath, his hands on his knees. “Couldn’t find the teacher… already left….hey where are the boys? What happened to you? Are you OK beautiful?

Vivienne looked back at him and smiled softly.