Martin sat on the park bench and closed his eyes. He listened to the rustling leaves in the trees and the ones already fallen to the ground, dancing across the grass. He tried to focus on the sounds of the children playing and not the high pitch whine coming from the streets behind him. So many familiar sounds. So many new ones.
It had been years since he sat on this bench. A lifetime ago. He still remembers walking up Fifth Avenue with his son, enjoying the mild November day. They stopped for a pretzel, like they always did. Salted for Martin, cinnamon for his son. When the Alice in Wonderland statue became visible at 74th street, his son took off running. It was his favorite spot in Central Park. They could spend a whole day playing around the statue, racing along Conservatory Water, watching the model boats race. Martin was always in awe at the limitless energy a 7-year old could have.
This morning when he walked out of his lawyer’s office he didn’t know where he was going to go. He just knew he needed to walk. The last 24 hours had been a blur of emotion. His old bones ached from sleeping on a comfortable bed for the first time in decades and his lawyer’s voice had turned to white noise long ago. Somewhere in the middle of signing his electronic signature a hundred times on a what looked like a glass credit card and being told how great a day it was, Martin wanted to leave. When his lawyer’s ear started ringing, that’s when he knew he needed to go. He stared as his lawyer squeezed his ear lobe with his index finger and thumb before talking into thin air. He was told he would have to make adjustments to the world around him but this was too much. Too fast. He wasn’t a stranger to technology but he rarely saw it up close.
With his lawyer distracted, Martin grabbed his jacket and walked out the front door. New York had been his home for so long so the streets never changed. It was the scenery, however, that had become foreign. He watched as driverless cars whizzed by him, their electric motors almost silent except the high pitched buzz that Martin knew he would never get used too. More than once he had to move out of the way of pedestrians with wheels attached to their shoes wearing helmets that covered their entire face. It was only when someone in front of him stopped and removed her helmet that Martin could see a tiny television looking screen on the inside. Were people watching TV on it? The woman caught his eye and quickly replaced her helmet and zoomed off, zig-zagging out of view.
After walking a few more blocks Martin realized what was so different with this city he once called home. With all the driverless cars zipping about, there were no car horns. There were no angry New Yorkers cursing out a cab driver for cutting him off. There were no police sirens blaring in the distance. Computers did the driving. Sensors shot out in all different directions telling them the distance from other objects and the speed around them. There were no more accidents because computers didn’t make mistakes. New York, with its 15 million citizens, was more quiet now than ever before. The silence shook Martin. He needed the background noise. He needed contact with other people.
Sitting on the bench in Central Park Martin began watching the families. He smiled at seeing that dynamic hadn’t changed much. Parents still chased after children who thought everything was a game. Children still wanted to be carried, and tickled, and tossed in the air by their smiling fathers. In all the chaos that had been his life for thirty years, the sound of children laughing was the most calming thing imaginable.
He closed his eyes and listened to the laughter. And the leaves. And the strange world around him.
“Martin?”
The familiar voice broke his attention and confused him why it would be here, at the park. Martin turned to see his lawyer standing behind him, more annoyed than anything.
“What are you doing here?” his lawyer asked.
Martin stared for a second before replying. “I needed a break, from everything.”
“That’s understandable but you could have still told me. I’m in charge of you until we get all this legal work out of the way.”
“How did you find me?” Martin wondered.
“The temporary bank card I gave you this morning. It has a tracker on it.”
Martin pulled a paper thin clear plastic card from his pocket and stared at it. “This tracked me?”
“Everything tracks you now. Your car, your phone, your shoes.”
Martin didn’t know how he felt about that. Not comfortable, he knew that much. His lawyer finally dropped the annoyed face he was wearing and stepped closer.
“Come on. Let’s go back to my office. There’s only a little bit more to do. Spending 30 years in prison for a murder you didn’t commit doesn’t just get cleaned up overnight.”
Martin glanced at the Alice in Wonderland statue one more time and followed the lawyer to his car. They road in silence for a few moments after the lawyer gave it instructions where to go.
“Have you talked to my son?” Martin asked carefully.
His lawyer tread lightly with his response. “Yes. Briefly. He knows you’ve been released.”
“Does he know that I am innocent?”
A small pause. “Yes.”
“Did he say anything else?” Martin pried.
“No. All of this is a lot to take in for him as well, Martin. Almost his entire life he has believed that you killed his mother.”
He regretted wording it that way and could tell it stung Martin as bad as he thought it would. “Give him time, Martin. Give him time.”
The rest of the day was a blur as Martin signed the documents that were to make him a free man. He got a quick tutorial on how to use his new money card and that he had an option to get an implant under his thumb that would carry the same information if he didn’t want to bother carrying around the card. Tomorrow his lawyer would take him to his new apartment in Lower Manhattan.
There was a knock on the door as the sun began to set. Martin’s lawyer excused himself to answer it, giving Martin time to go through the few personal belongings that he was given upon his release. He pulled a worn iPhone first generation from a plastic bag and stared at its blank screen. He rubbed his fingers along it, almost willing it to turn on. His lawyers voice spoke from the door.
“Martin?”
Martin turned around and looked past his lawyer to his younger self. At least that’s what it seemed like. Standing in the doorway to the apartment was his son, the same age as Martin was when he went away. It was like looking into the past while standing in the future. The two men stared at each other, both unable to speak.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Martin’s lawyer said and disappeared out of view. Martin’s son took a step into the room, nervous.
“I didn’t…I didn’t know if I could come over here. Not yet, at least,” his son said quietly.
Martin couldn’t speak as his son continued.
“I can’t even explain what I’m feeling right now. This doesn’t seem real.”
Martin, frozen in his spot, burst free and wrapped his arms around his son before he even knew what he was doing. There were no words spoken. The two men held each other and cried. Cried for what their lives were, for what they could have been, for what they had become.
“I’m so sorry, son,” Martin sobbed into his son’s shoulder. His aging body now being held up by his son.
“Me too,” his son cried out.
Today was a great day.
