1
Age seven or eight, I receive my first public library card of
hard, green plastic with black letters emblazoned across it and
I look at no other words apart from these precious two:
Book Token.
I wobble up and down the streets between my house
and the mobile library, perched like a mirage
between roaring cars and the curly slide I stand atop for hours,
unsure if I am brave enough to hurl myself down.
I have started to research clouds and how they might taste in different cities. Grandad tells me the clouds are bostin’ around here though: “Full of flavour, wench.” He tells me how he’d scrage his knees terrible to reach the top of the Wrekin, racing his mates to taste the sulphur on the peak. The whisp of the factories they’d come to work in. But Nan says: “He’s yampy, bab.
Biological reproduction was passé.
Elma, a wide-eyed brunette, and June, a knockout blonde, waited for their little package. Their surroundings were white and clinical, conveying a sense of purity. Beyond the glass was a sea of cots, each with a blue or pink pupa tucked inside. It was the age of human synthesis, but the imitation of cultural conventions — the gendered colours of the blankets and the hospital aesthetic — were designed to provide comfort for visitors.
On a moist autumn day, long before the nicotine dressed his lungs in black for his funeral, my father severed the line with his pocketknife, set down his rod, and lit another cigarette. Mayfair from the newsagent: he had always been a man of quantity over quality. I traced the castoff line, limp in the water, back to the tree that had claimed it. Neither of us could fish, but fishing, maybe for reasons of primal origin, was seen to be one of those father-son bonding experiences. Well done, kid, you killed something. High five.
I do not have an earliest memory of my mother. Instead, I have a moment. A moment of her laughter. She tilts her head back slightly as she opens her mouth wide and lets out a sound. A wild, free sound that tinkles through the room, enters the people around her, and makes them smile. Infectious. Charming. Charismatic.
I am not a part of this moment. I am simply a spectator – watching her laugh, admiring her from a distance, waiting for her to notice me. She is wearing a saree, her trusted maroon lipstick, and a red bindi – her usual work attire. She is on her way to college, where she is an English teacher, no – lecturer, no – vice principle. Labels are important.
I.
I don’t believe that things necessarily happen for a reason. I mean, I believe in cause and effect, which usually boils down to basic science. You know, equal and opposite reactions? I think that things should be “rewarded” with a resolution befitting of the action. It doesn’t always happen, though. I know it hasn’t been that way with me. I just keep taking what the universe keeps throwing at me with the wrath of a three-year-old who missed nap time.
The air is frigid and still, unable to absorb the bluish grey swirls of smoke floating outwards, and forced to let them slowly fade into nothingness at their own pace. There is no edge to the darkness, just vast blackness interrupted by the intrusive orange flames of street lights. The silence is undercut by the low, constant hum of energy flowing around the structure behind him.
The thin, black hoodie does nothing to counteract the chill, and he idly wonders if the jagged frost-covered wall he is leaning against will stitch itself to him and claimed him as part of the building. The nurse who unlocked the door had warned him not to stay outside for long, but three cigarettes later he was contemplating how long he could extend his escape before someone came to drag him back inside to the real darkness. He pushed his free hand further into his pocket and shuffled his weight from one numb foot to the other.