Edward Barnfield
1. THE DISPATCHPool Toy Guy
Victor inspected the waters’ edge every evening, around sunset. The complex had three pools—the ovoid kiddie shallows, the central exhibition area, and a serious rectangle at the end, subdivided into salami slices to provide swimmers with some direction. Victor checked them all.
He didn’t swim, of course. He didn’t come down during the day, when the air was full of shrieks and splashes, or earlier, when a health-conscious few panted their way along the lanes. He arrived at night, when only the flabby red lifeguard was present and packing up.
“Good evening,” he said, and the lifeguard grunted back.
Occasionally, there was an obvious item floating on the surface. A beach hat, perhaps, or a punctured water wing. Victor would gesture to the lifeguard for the pool scoop and fish the flotsam out.
The real treasure troves, however, were the little alcoves on the sides of each pool. He didn’t know the technical term for the shoebox-sized shelves that filter water, but he knew that their plastic lids could be removed, and the day’s leavings easily extricated.
Most days, he found a plastic toy in at least one of the filters. He had discovered pool balls in multiple colors, and foam floats shaped like fish and dinosaurs. He uncovered dolphins (not to scale) and hoops and even the occasional soldier or industrial diver, usually shy a flipper or mask.
He sorted them in a pile, dried them individually and took them home in a canvas bag stamped with a supermarket’s logo.
The residential development had around 1,800 houses, ranging from small duplexes up to the garish townhouses and faux mansions. Victor figured half of them were occupied, tight little families already under water with negative equity, and half again used the pool facilities at least once a week. He spent a good deal of time on the community forum, reading the sharp grudges between his neighbors, rows about refuse collections, or stray cats (the encouragement of), or selfish parking.
FOUND, he typed. CHILD POOL TOY, rainbow colored. Possible doll or mermaid.
He left his address and asked that the owner email him with a time to collect. No reward was expected, of course. People had learned to recognize his authority and even came to him with lost property reports. “Hey,” said one comment. “Pool toy guy.”
Victor never took the items beyond his hallway. They sat in a neat row on top of a white metal shoe rack, whose scratched shiny cover provided a perfect display area. To bring children’s things deeper into his home, to hold the soft plastic in his bedroom, would feel too close to a violation. Besides, he liked keeping his neighbors on the doorstep.
There was one, Sunita, who was a regular visitor. She had four or five kids who tore around the pools in a pack, loud enough for Victor to hear in his home office. The toys were always of the cheaper variety—simple tubular spray guns—and she always seemed almost tragically grateful. Then there was Karen, who carried her daughter with her, permanently stained with snot and tears. All the mothers.
The dolphin had been on the rack for almost a month, along with a small battery-operated boat someone had kicked under a sunbed. He imagined the latter must have cost twenty or thirty dollars. It said something about the parents, their indulgence, that they should reward their offspring with gimmicks and not care when they lost them.
One day, he told himself, he will shame these strangers. He will take a photo of the objects left behind and post it on the community board with a scathing comment or two. Aren’t you embarrassed, he should ask, to be so frivolous and so careless?
But that night, he had his own distraction. His most recent expedition had been fruitless, the alcoves empty, the lifeguard absent. Victor was ready to head home when he noticed that the lifebuoy case was open.
“Kids,” he muttered, and moved to latch it. An odd instinct made him check inside.
He held the item in his hand. It was a hideous thing, suspended by a noose from the bottom of the lifebuoy. A wide mouth with slim plastic fronds cascading off, a bulbous eye swinging loose from its socket. Victor suspected it was a Halloween novelty, although October was some way off, or some kind of folk art.
It was only when he placed the gonk with all the other discards that he noticed the ring. A rose gold band with scalloped diamonds extending three-fifths around and a claw in the middle embracing the center gem. It was wrapped tightly around the object’s neck.
He wasted a day composing the message. He didn’t want to abdicate responsibility and hand the ring over to the estate manager, but at the same time he didn’t want to be too obvious in the online description. This was something beautiful and expensive coming out of all the garbage. He couldn’t hand it over just because someone claimed it.
FOUND, he typed. TOY WITH VALUABLE ACCESSORY.
That wouldn’t work. Too coy. No one had posted anything about a lost ring on the forum yet, which surprised him. He would have thought the owner frantic.
Jewelry found by pool. Owner must provide description.
Nobody emailed. Nobody knocked on his door and offered thanks. He placed the troll on his bedside cabinet, breaking his rule because of its obvious value.
Victor had never married, had never shared his space with anyone. Over time, he had turned that fact to his advantage, his identity. The capacity to close the door and never have to justify himself. Times like these, though, he felt the loss in terms of his lack of understanding. Maybe the toy had been abandoned by some toddler, playing with its mother’s trinkets. But the noose, the gems, the neck—it felt much more like a symbol, a message passed between adults to indicate something seismic and permanent. The longer it stayed in his bedroom, the heavier it pressed down.
He woke earlier than usual and checked the noticeboard. It was busy, as always, inflamed by a discussion about the proposed new takeaway in the retail row, but no mention of lost rings. No one had responded to his jewelry message. He typed a new one, clearer, more direct, and then spent the day panicking in case he’d been too obvious.
He felt oppressed by the situation, embarrassed. He suspended his inspections in case a neighbor tried to accost him for details of his find. A fear grew within, that he might die in the night of an undiscovered aneurysm, and that the kids’ toys and recovered ring would be misinterpreted as evidence as to the kind of man he had been.
On Sunday night, there was a hammering on his door. The lifeguard, still red, still damp, pushed his way through into the living room.
“You’ve something of mine,” he said, and stood waiting while Victor recovered it.
The man took the novelty without thanks, and removed the ring in an easy, effortless movement. It sat in his palm for almost a full minute, and then the lifeguard began to sob, his shoulders shaking, the noise broken.
Victor watched uncertainly. The sadness felt contagious. He had seen this man most evenings since moving here and had never imagined he contained such depths.
“I found it last week,” he said finally, eager to break the moment. Also, if he was honest, excited to unravel the mystery behind it all. “I put something on the noticeboard, did you—”
The lifeguard sighed, then slapped him hard with the back of his hand, knocking him to the floor.
“You shouldn’t stick your beak into other people’s lives,” he said.
It took Victor a few weeks before he was brave enough to venture out again. He left the toys on his patch of lawn, surrendering them to any passerby who wanted them. It was a full month before he went to the pool again.
The lifeguard was gone, running in the night after a woman, according to the noticeboard gossips. The estate manager was recruiting a replacement, but parents were asked to supervise their children in the interim.
Victor walked around the kiddie pool once, twice, remembering his routine like muscle memory. Then he crouched and checked the alcove, wondering if there was a message inside for him.
2. BUREAU INVENTORYApple MacBook. I try to write something, anything, as often as possible.
iPhone. A lot of stories start in the notes application, drafted on car rides or last thing at night.
Notebooks. Copious and disorganised.
Fiction pile. This is the stack of books I’ve looked through recently for a specific quote or general inspiration. It differs from my ‘to-be-read’ pile, which is larger and more intimidating.
Tree bark. My daughter found it, and thought it was fossilised dinosaur skin.
Dog. (Optional).
Selfie light ring. I do not understand how I came to own this.
3. BIOGRAPHYEdward Barnfield is a writer and researcher living in the Middle East. His stories have appeared in Ellipsis Zine, Twin Pies Literary, Third Flatiron, Strands, Janus Literary, Leicester Writes, Cranked Anvil, and Reflex Press, among others. He is currently working on a collection of short fiction and a novel. In 2021, he won the Exeter Literary Festival and Bay Tales short story prizes. He knows that C.S. Lewis said you can make anything by writing but recognizes that he never had to assemble IKEA furniture. Follow him on Twitter at @edbarnfield if you’re moved to.