Five(47)

Sonny came here this morning with a different death in mind. A death that did not depend on the actions and inactions of others, on the decisions of those present to act with their instincts, or against them, or in spite of them. He had not accounted for the involvement of old women and immigrants and commuters and strangers. He had not expected them to be here, interrupting his death, getting in his way.

Sonny reaches Liam, and at 7:06 and thirty-six seconds he sees the blood. I don’t have to do this, he thinks. This isn’t my job. And yet he says, “He’s hurt, we’ve got to pick him up!” to the others on the platform, involuntarily, not in control of his own speech.

The closest person to Sonny is Bad Back. Bad Back knows what he should do. Drop the charade, grow a pair, realize that no one cares if he’s lying because this isn’t actually about him—how many times has his wife said that—and go help this tall skinny guy get that big guy off the tracks. But he doesn’t move.

He considers running away now, up the stairs, out of the station, to the car park. He could get into his car and drive, and drive, and drive, away from here, from his life, his wife, his job, and start again somewhere, where no one knows him, and no one looks at him, and no one bullies him into raising money for charity, and no one forces him to lie, and no one gives him social anxiety, and he can stop getting into messes like these, stupid entanglements caused by his own poor reflexes, and bad instincts, and general shitness as a person. He wants to be less of what he is. Not perfect, not amazing, not successful, just a slightly less shit version of himself would be a massive improvement.

Self-involved and indecisive, Bad Back is standing by, mouth agape, marveling at Sonny’s bravery, when To Do List limps over, sweating, panicked, to the platform edge.

“Oh my God!” she shrieks, too loudly.

“Paw Patrol is on a roll!” Gideon, being carried by Emma, exclaims next to To Do List.

He is staring down at his tablet as Emma shifts him with difficulty from one hip to the other. She shoves the tablet in front of him and grabs him and is on her way to the stairs to leave when To Do List warns, “Man on the tracks! Go!” And Emma’s heart drops because she knows without being told who it is.

“We’ve got to help!” To Do List cries hysterically at Bad Back. She limps down the platform to Sonny, waving her arms and exclaiming, “I’m a qualified first aider! I’m a qualified first aider!”

“Liam…Liam!…Liam!!!” Emma calls in a crescendo as her hunch is verified, and she runs lopsided down the platform with Gideon attached to her side.

Sonny doesn’t register the shouts of the women because Liam is starting to wake. “Uh,” he groans, lightly at first. “Let go, let go,” he slurs at Sonny, one eye open, a ferocious, roaring pain in his head so fierce he can barely breathe.

“You’re all right, mate, we’ve got to move you, you’re all right,” Sonny is surprised to hear himself say, the words coming from some deep inner reservoir of strength propelling him through this, making him do all the right things for this man that he cannot do for himself.

“I’m a first aider!” To Do List asserts above the alarm. “Is he breathing?” she says breathlessly, when she reaches them. She can barely speak having not done this much exercise for several years. She gets down on all fours and tries to reach ineffectually for one of Liam’s arms from the platform.

“Chase is on the case!” Gideon calls out delightedly, engrossed in his show as Emma puts him down to sit on the bench. He looks up from his tablet at the adults on the track, once. Then again. Then again.

“He’s heavy! We need help!” Sonny pleads, looking over his shoulder with difficulty, to see the train getting closer. And closer.

“I know him,” Emma says, which is important and irrelevant.

“Get that guy!” Sonny shouts, out of breath, struggling with Liam, a limp rag that weighs a ton. “With the old lady!” and Emma runs to Medical Student, brushing past Bad Back, who is still watching from the side, as she quickly checks for Gideon’s position over her shoulder.

“They need you!” she calls to Medical Student.

“Talk to them,” he says, handing her his mobile. “It’s a heart attack, it’s the paramedics,” and he runs to Sonny and Liam.

“But…” Emma starts to protest. She can’t sit here with this lady, not with Liam over there, not with Gideon. But Medical Student is gone before she can say anything. She reluctantly takes the phone, and says distractedly to Mrs. Worth, “Don’t worry.”

“C’mon, man!” she hears one of the men yell further down the tracks. Oh God, she thinks, oh God. The alarm continues blaring. It is 7:07.

“On three!” directs Sonny.

Sonny and Medical Student lift Liam to the platform edge, where he sits now, hands to his head, legs dangling over the side.

“Here, move your legs, move them like this,” To Do List says, pulling at one of Liam’s legs trying to get him fully onto the platform.

“Get off me!” Liam says to her gruffly in a haze of concussion.

“You have to move!” she screams, pulling at him, when he swings one giant arm, like a drunk man, and wallops her in the face. She staggers backward, her nose bleeding, her tears flowing. She is crying from pain, and from finally understanding that she is not needed here. She is not wanted. And she cannot help.