Just a Walk in the Park, Allyson Shaw
If no-one saw it, then did it even happen? Drawing a parallel to today’s world of fake writes about three people squabbling
news and disputed science,
over the truth of an event.
I -
t was a very ordinary time to take a stroll in the city park. The bits of green and stumpy trees created a fairly pleasant backdrop to an otherwise grey concrete stroll. It was dusk and those who walked the park appeared like shadows. Usual shadows, who traced about their own thoroughfares. In the western quadrant, there were just three people: Eda, Garrett and Hector. The three meandered back and forth, not so far apart given the urban size of the park. They’d each wandered away from the routines of others. Isolated enough that you could fit the three in one shot. And so, picture them all within a few metres of the largest yellowwood tree when it happened. I cannot say what, but Garrett was struck by something, and fell in the dirt that skirted the tree’s trunk. Eda, being a reasonable and respectable member of society, rushed over to aid the fallen stranger in a panicked trot. She shifted her leather bag onto one shoulder, and Garrett, a middle-aged slightly squat man in nylon shorts, was helped to his feet. The man gazed wide-eyed into the corners of the park, catching his breath in the dry air. He watched Eda look to the sky, and the way the buttons in her blazer flashed in the lamp light. She moved to peer into the scarce umbrage of the tree, her eyebrows knitted together. What was she seeing? Taking Eda’s lead, Garrett looked upwards too. “It came from up there you think?” “Nothing is there now—yes definitely this one—I thought I saw something,” she replied. 23
