The People in My Head: Walter Fitch

Walter Fitch is a man around whom the entire world revolves. Sadly, he does not know this. As he walks past this row of houses, entire lives unfold purely to set in motion events that will impact his life. In the third house down, a child is conceived who will become his son-in-law. The couple living next door will soon give birth to a girl who will be his son-in-law’s childhood crush. That she becomes a lesbian and breaks his heart is not as important as the fact that Walter’s own daughter Violet will bear a strong resemblance to her. These things occur purely to fulfil Walter’s unspoken desire to be a grandfather. Sadly for Walter, this will also result in heartbreak. A direct corollary of his ambition towards a happy grandfatherhood will be Violet becoming a nymphomaniac who has five children by seven fathers. The heartbreak this results in will be offset by the joy of his grandchildren. But this joy will be shortlived. Violet will suicide after becoming aware that somehow her actions are linked to her father’s desire for grandchildren, creating in her a strange sense of violation, as she loses her desire for men because she sees her father in them all. The trauma of it all sends her over the edge and results in Walter being left to care for a clutch of traumatised children. Having no great desire to be a father again, he does a poor job of raising them and they grow up resentful of him, destroying his dreams of a happy dotage in which his loving children and grandchildren visit him in an idealised vision of family relations.

Walter Fitch has no idea how his dreams and desires shape the world around him. Or that the world, preoccupied with his wellbeing, determines that his hopes and desires cannot be fulfilled. Better that great dreams exist in his imagination rather than come to life and destroy his illusions.

This is why, as he steps out onto the street, he fails to notice the speeding car turning the corner.