A SERIES
OF SHORTS 1.
ANOTHER CENTURY
(Digging up
a past again)
I never
felt the beat of my heart until I was
six years old. A two hour white
knuckled
journey, two sick bags later the aeroplane
fell like a
time machine and taxied to
a halt on
the runway.
A rush of blood surged
through the young
boys' veins he kissed his mothers bruised hand.
He watched the
countryside disappear out
the back window of the taxi
falling through
civilisation shops school’s,
people churches,
As they travelled
a main road, he watched
the grey clouds of depression follow them.
He heard is
father say that boy needs good
kick in the
ass, you molly-coddle him, this
town will sort
him out, can't you see
he was
frightened.
As the car
turned at a mill, into the olde part
of town like
going into another century, that’s
where your
aunt Sarah works said his father
passing a schools double spiked gate,
he said
there’s your school, it stood empty
alone surrounded
by a red brick wall topped
with rusted barbed
wire.The car
turned right
onto a cobbled street,it thumped
up past
a group of rough looking boys playing
football
on the street while girls swung on
ropes around
gas lights converted year was nineteen sixty-seven.
The car pulled
up and his father knocked on
a blood-red
door. A mousy-haired woman
in a drab
apron stood, her and the street
kids eyed
them over like a family of animals.
All nine in
a two up two down, they huddled
around the
fire listening to Sarah who lost
three fingers
at the mill spun stories of, Flax
street and banshees.
That night
his mother tucked the little boy
into a mattress
on the lino floor. The boy was
afraid to
use the outside toilet after hearing
tales of
banshees. When she left he stood
tearing the flea
bites on his flesh.
he told Kcare that is etched into his broken
mind like livestock branded. The left him
crippled, his left brain was of 45 years of
memory, he couldn't remember his 3 kids
being born his childhood and a 20-year no
marriage, no x-mas celebrations no long-
term memory but this was tattooed under
his skin like the marrow in his bone.
He stood
there in his brothers hand me down
pyjamas rolled up he tore his
flesh, on the wall
above his bed was the picture
of a man in a crown
of thorns drenched in
blood. What is this evil place
he thought that people talk of banshees and death.
He pulled
the curtain aside to see a full moon
Light up the
street like it was high definition.
His mother
came in with the bed pan, he asked
what is this
evil place where people tell stories
of
banshees and death, she tucked him in again
don’t
worry she said we will have our own
place soon.
He tore at
his flesh looking out the window
Thinking the
other side of the street was only
yards away.
A man ran and stumbled on
the cobbled
street from the alley chased
by police
their numbers flashed in the moon-
light, they
truncheoned him down kicked
him into the
gutter one jumped into the air
and opened
his head like a rotten tomato.
He boy
stepped back from the street screen
That looked
like a cinema silent movie,
he
threw up and retched as peas rolled on
the lino floor.
The next morning he was sent
for broken biscuits
to the greengrocers at
the end of street it smelt
of earth on potatoes
and dulce from the sea
the man said taste it and he spat it out, rancid.
He checked the gutter on the way
back to make
sure he wasn’t just
dreaming but the blood
was bleached white. That would
be the norm
for thirty years.
