When I was little, I didn’t break my leg. It didn’t snap and I flew across the rails of my bike instead. Landing in between the fat leaves beneath bare faced pine trees. Manicured to perfection. Listening to my heartbeat and the white van screaming towards me. Into the woods. I ran with all my thoughts tangled up and spilling from my eyes. I hadn’t done anything, but knew I had to pay. I often worried about being a terrible monster, coming back to spoil everybody’s day. I didn’t know what being different meant, I thought everyone else thought like me. That they would have a good reason for wanting to hurt me. But I was young then.
I huffed against the back of another hiding tree, holding my arm. Secretly filling my lungs, listening to them scurry. Beefy scuttles and scattered swearwords I was not supposed to know. But I had heard my parents talk to each other over coffee and breakfast spills. I had grown up inside and clever enough not to fall.
I felt my legs push and stumble, I heard their heads turn and their bodies charge, but I was already ahead. Tearing my face through the foliage, balancing my fumbling feet back to the road. I dove into their transit van, the stench of beer, lavender, and old cologne ripping at my face. The blonde woman made it back first ,but I had her keys clutched between my bleeding fingers. I swore and shouted like a real Kevin Mccallister clutching a shotgun to end her, but I had none. No time. Her fat friends fumbled behind her and I began to run.
I was crying but smiling to myself. Knowing the flesh puppets would fall behind and I might get her on her own. Twist the knife I had in my pocket. It was small but it would have to be enough. I kept running. I was going home but had to get rid of the keys. I couldn’t take them with me, I didn’t want them in my room. I didn’t want any part of them near me.
Their keys danced down a storm drain two streets down. I listened for the splunk. “Good luck,” I hissed, breathing hot air through my nose. Backtracking to my road. My trousers felt wet at the knees, red and warm but I wasn’t shaking yet. My house was close by, not far enough from them, but if I hurried they’d pass me by.
The gate opened with a grind over the uneven bricks. They were grey and I was home. I never belonged here either, but I was safe. The front door felt cold and failed to twist in my wet hands. I wiped the blood from the door and tried again. Slipping inside, avoiding the creaking wooden pieces, keeping my feet to the corners and edges. My eyes adjusting, my ears listening out.
I made it to my room and cried alone. I wanted to climb into the cupboard just in case they came charging through, but they didn’t. I sat next to the door, wondering whether the dividing shelf could carry my weight. I was thin as a rake, small, but it still felt as if I would fall straight through.
My heart stopped when the doorbell rang, but it wasn’t them. They weren’t here anymore, I told myself. They were gone, or they would be once I killed them. I don’t remember deciding it, but I can still feel something sharp press into my forearm as I cleared my desk. Swiping everything onto the floor. My parents weren’t home and the doorbell called again. I changed my clothes, wearing something old, strange, and baggy. An Italian flag banded on the front and covered with bobbles. Anything that would make me bigger and hide the way I looked. The blood and my shaking wrists.
I would need a better weapon. I took my plastic katana from the red basket wishing it was real, but if it was I would have already lost my arm. Playing rough with my friends, holding our signature defences from old American Ninja films we found. Adventuring beyond the backyard, crawling through fences, falling badly, and dancing away from dogs. I found my red foam bat as the front door repeated.
It was soft but packed enough punch, hard enough to hurt when I hit my hand, but it wasn’t enough. I dropped it and rummaged my toy chest, a large drawer hidden beneath my bed, but no weapons rested there. I was a normal kid. Just action figures and Matchbox cars. Matchbox sized.
I stormed the kitchen, feeling braver. Dragging a heavy wooden chair behind me. One of the rare unbroken ones across the pale blue linoleum, as I didn’t feel like snapping my neck against the sink. Reaching up into the pine slatted cupboard, taking down the bucket of matches. Heading back to the bathroom for the freshener I hated. Lavender too. Pausing in the hall to catch my breath before dragging my feet towards my fears.
Pull yourself together, I bit at the inside of my mouth. A safety match pressed firmly against the red phosphorous band beneath my left thumb, while I wondered about getting the timing right. My right index finger trained on the nozzle. “Open and spray, open and spray,” I whispered as I reached the door and turned the handle.
ARH Forester 