Xavier Leret

Their feet reached the ground. But they were sandwiched between two walls. She told him to scuffle over to his left. The other way was sure to lead to the divide between life and death. The pain in her legs was unbearable. Her right shoe was full of blood and sloshed. They arrived at the wall. There was a hole, they could feel air on their faces.

Their feet reached the ground. But they were sandwiched between two walls. She told him to scuffle over to his left. The other way was sure to lead to the divide between life and death. The pain in her legs was unbearable. Her right shoe was full of blood and sloshed. They arrived at the wall.
The bags, she said. We need the bags. She managed to hand the little one to him. He could barely hold her.
Don't let her drop.
And she headed back into the dark. The banging and screaming above was toxic. She came across the bag of belongings. She made herself find the baby carrier because she knew that neither she nor he would manage the babe without it. She dragged the bags back so they were complete for their escape.
She told him to keep hold of the child and began to feel the wall to his side. The bricks were loose and damp. She took the babe and told him to squidge past.
Why?
Just do it. She said it like her mother would. There was no time to argue.
He squeezed himself between her and the wall. When he was past she handed him their sister and began to find loose bricks and jiggle them. Clawing away sodden old cement. Pulling one brick free she was able to reach in and grab another. She put her whole body into pushing and pulling until that wrenched loose. Below that the other was weak. And below that the wall crumbled. There was enough space she felt for him.
Right, you go through.
What about you?
Just get through. Don't worry about me.
I don't want to.
And then she screamed at him, just do what you're told to do.
His lip began to tremble. She took no notice. She forced him to move past her. Pushed him on. Squeezed through the hole. Then she handed the sister to him and pushed the bag and the carrier through.
Don't move, a voice screamed from above.
She looked up into the searing light. It was shining directly into her face. She could make out no details. Perhaps the bright filament of the flashlight. The light like a siren's voice tempting her. Coaxing her into no more.
She began to try and squeeze herself through the gap. The edges were jagged. They dug into her back and stomach. She pushed every breath out of her body. She slipped a fraction further. Her left arm on one side, the right fighting the brickwork, feeling for a loose stone on the other.
I'm stuck.
He grabbed her hand and pulled. The pain was unbearable. He tugged with everything his little body could but there was no release, he just jammed her body brutally into the brickwork. The lad gave everything he had. Again and again. But all his little self could do was trap her further. Making the situation worse.
Stop, she said quietly. Stop. I can't move. I can't move. Tiredness overcame her. She felt her mother beside her, holding her hand. I'm sorry she said. I can't help them. I can't do anything. Her mother's hand gently caressed her face. The apparition gave her electricity. Tiny muscles in her stomach and shoulders, chest and hips. Her battle was like a fish in its last throws. Sudden gasps, punches for life as the oxygen fades, then one last gasp, then a flicker then a longer silence, a silence of surrender, a fade into a drowning acceptance. Her mothers face transformed into the faint face of the boy.
Go, she whispered. Go.

Posted by Xavier Leret at 9:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The children were sandwiched between the floorboards above and the ceiling below. Dust rained on them as Anchorite feet scuffled over them. The elder girl and the brother lay on their stomachs. Their bodies scanning beams. Breathing quietly into the haunted black pitch of this world between. He had dilated terrified eyes which were saucered large behind a dusty mask. He could feel his older sister lying beside him. He reached out and found her hand. She took it and held it. At her head lay the little one balanced long ways on a wooden rib. She was silent. Unconscious. She kissed her head. Silent pecks to remind her why life was worth living. She was shivering, the brother in a tremble and the little one was sunspot hot.

They could hear voices above them. Orders called. Shouting. Then a long silence. Then some muttering.
The girl tapped her brother that they should move. She could sense that above them they were waiting for something to arrive. She couldn't face being trapped there.
They began to inch forward. Hands ahead of them reaching to see if the ceiling was whole. The little one pushed silently a bit at a time. They could hear rats scuttling in front, behind and to their sides. The boy almost cried out as he felt a hideous feral corpse.
They kept to the beams. It was the first thing the sister had told him as they hid. The beams are the strength. Don't put your weight on the plaster. The beams are like ribs and we are the heart.
They had to heave themselves from one to the other. The little one balanced as her sister reached the bag onwards. The bag that was was full of food and toys, the book and nappies. It was heavy and awkward and static with claustrophobia.
The boy struggled with the baby carrier. It was light, but it had a belt and a metal frame. It got stuck. He grappled with it. The belt buckle was caught and the frame had become wedged. He tried to lift it back and then forward. But its uneven shape thwarted him. He imagined invisible hands in the darkness holding it down. Tears began to form in his eyes. He was beginning to panic. The elder girl could hear the metal on the wood and his breath increase. Metal scraping, wood tapping into volume and vigour. She steadied her sister on a beam. Some how spanned her own bag over two in such a way as to steady the toddler so that she would not fall to the side. She began to twist herself around. She had millimetres to either side, her torso was contorted.
The boy was becoming frantic. She was twisted back on herself. She stretched out her hand and tried to reach him. She notice a gap in the boards above her. She could make out an eye. It was blue. A speckled blue. A sullied sky. The shadow of the body attached to it like a crazy cloud. The perfect storm shitting forth ice and hail and torment.
Her body became tense. A twisted knot of a tree. The eye craned away and in that moment she was able to manoeuvre herself into the edge of the darkness. A fraction of a moment and then a light shone. A beam scanning the crack. A razor light. And from her shadow she could see her brother. His eyes full of tears in panic. A fear so horrendous that it made her very soul scream. The pool of light, the laser's edge, stopping a fraction before his nose. There was a whispered ordered from above. A rasp of the end. A death call which became as loud as a blast from the apocalyptic horn. And into the vacuum fell a speck of dust. A solitary flake of snow falling from that hideous cloud above. Turning, twisting, glinting in the ray of light. Over and over in explicit symmetry. An elongated flip flop down before a gentle reprise up. A stillness, a corpse silence on the wind, the stop of a clock, a station in time and through the light, his eyes reddened by the fear and the dirt, welling up, crying for his sister to help, his little years feeling his end, streaking red with the blood of finality. And as quick as the torch came it went black. Snap, a click of the fingers gone. Voices cursed and feet skulked away.
The was long silence into which the corpse of the rat stank. A retch of fear kicked the girl into action. She reached the bag and tore it loose and dragged her brother into movement. Above them came the sound of the little padding of four legs. She knew immediately that it was a dog. There was a commotion above. The little boy frantically began to move forward. She made for her sister and the bag. She hefted them over beams. She could hear scrabbling from the hole where the toilet had once stood, the hole into which they had absconded and then barking. They had found their means of escape.
The dog was in the hole. She pushed her sister forward, then the bag, then the child. The dog was yelping nearer. Her bladder gave out. She pushed her brother on. The dog snapped its jaws on her ankle. She scrambled her arms feeling for anything. She did not scream. The teeth dug in. The boy was fighting forward. Her hand found a long sharp splinter. The dog was moving up her body. Her knees. Her waist. She plunged the splinter forward and drove it deep into the dog's eye. Warm blood and oculus exploded on her hand. The dog became limp without a sound. There were calls from above.
She couldn't hear what they called the animal. She was fighting her body on. One rafter, then two, then three. Her brother had stopped. His body quivered. Her fingers stretched forward and found him and beyond him lay a chasm. A drop through the wall down. The space between this building and the next. They both twisted their bodies, moving their feet to find the emptiness. Only a child could do this. The bulk of an adult would have been trapped. Only their energy. Only their size. She dropped the bag down. It slid scraping, plunging. Soft bodied death into the well of their fear followed by the baby carrier. They each found a foothold. She tugged the little one towards her. She was limp and heavy. She held her tight with one hand. Her brother reached out to her. The three of them held in stasis. She found his forehead with her lips and kissed him. I love you, she whispered, like the great expanse of time and everything. You are eternity to me.
Voices and footsteps, the bald slayers above them.
You are the greatest climber in the world, she said. Do not be afraid.
One foot to the front, one foot to the wall behind and down they went, slipping the cliff and courting the fell. Hands, feet, fingers bled. Each aspect of their bodies controlling, digging into a gap, feeling for a way and reigning the drop. Their descent swift. The little one limp. Scraping and banging. Into the nothingness.
And then a crack, a splintered thud of an axe smashed the wooden floor above where they had been. Where the dog lay dead. A head poked into the hole with a flashlight. Extraterrestrial eyes following it's blue scan. Bald head resting in the blooded corpse of the animal. Orders came like screeches. There bodies angular mantises, on each other, over each other. Swarming, cracking, smashing and ripping the boards under them. A foot fell through the plaster below. The body pulled off balance fell sideways, the head cocked to the side put the temple into a nail. The ceiling opened up as if accepting its prey and the quarry thudded to the floor below. Not a hand to aid him. Not one. All creatures focused on the job in hand. Fingers tearing, flesh ripping. The smell of the rat mingled with the raw meat of the dog and the acid rank of men's sweat.
The boy was crying. Tears streaking the thick dust encrusting his face. The girl was bleeding from her knees and the dog wound in her ankle. The baby was weighing down. Killing her. Panic was filling her with an unearthly energy. She was telling him not listen to just keep climbing down. And all the time her feet kept slipping. She had to rest.
Just keep going she told him. Don't stop. Don't stop.
He reached over to her and held her. No.
Go.
No.
I'll race you.
All the way?
All the way.
The three of them pinned to the wall. Above them Death in an angry frenzy at having lost a soul. Ripping up the world and killing all in its path.
Their feet felt their way down. He held her up and she gritted her teeth to her pain and the slumped ballast of her sister. A centimetre, then a metre. Sliding. Using their shoulders to break themselves. Rubble breaking free and crashing to the depths. The fear of the drop dissolved by the terror above.

Posted by Xavier Leret at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Skyte took his place opposite the journalist. He was eerily serene. He had been explaining the fertility of his cross bred sheep. Fecund was the word he chose to describe them. That there was no need to enforce breeding incentives. They were quite capable of going about it themselves. The ram would never take no for an answer he said with a knowing public servant smile. The baby kisser. He himself had always been celibate. Sexless. Had never harboured any desires in this direction. He observed nature's business. You could say I am anthropologist. Life interests me.

The journalist smiled opposite. They had worked together before. He wrote for two publications and the interview would thus appear in two formats. The first engaging the better educated and the second would reach a profoundly larger readership, in the multiple millions. The first would contain figures and cross references to boost statements and the second would not. Fundamentally each would re-iterate the other. A reader of the first would never entertain a reader of the second. Skyte on the other hand recognised the value of the both and generally supported the dummying down of his line.
I don't want to bother people, said Skyte. I am a reluctant politician. I am too regularly distracted from my two loves. The law and - did you know my sheep give birth three times every two years and on average have 1.8 lambs per pregnancy. I am a victim of duty and destiny.
The journalist diligently took down his words. And also noted that Skyte was of an indeterminate age. A phrase that he felt erred on the side of youth and would thereby flatter the Legate.
And Skyte went on. I am portrayed as a hawk. A man of action. A purveyor of war. But nothing can be more from the truth. I see my role as that of a pastoral one. Yes, my policies can be seen as harsh. But it is protectionism in its most purist form. I protect not only those immediately around me but our way of life. If only it was enough to pass a law. If only that would suffice. But the human being is naturally rebellious. It seeks out the cracks in a society's structure and chips it away and before you know it
the building has collapsed. Even the most loyal are prone to this.
You are referring to Councillor Kratz?
The Legate nodded. Even my good friend Kratz. We have enemies outside of the state. And we have those within.
There was a knock at the door. An anchorite entered and whispered into Skyte's ear. The Legate excused himself. Informing the journalist that he would return shortly. He indicated that the Anchorite was at his disposal and if he wanted anything he only had to ask and then he left the room.
He walked to the other end of the corridor and took a lift three floors to the investigation centre. It was a large open plan floor populated by desks and screens and Anchorites moving silently in their gowns. At the far end, at a desk sat a young girl nervously looking around the room. As Skyte moved towards her men stood and bowed. He ignored them. He placed himself opposite the child, picked up the file on the desk and quickly scanned it.
The girl watched him. His bald head shining in the light. His thin face with sharp features. When he looked at her he had black eyes. No colour just the pupil.
You know her?
Yes sir.
From school.
Yes sir. And because we live next door.
Skyte swivelled on his chair to the desk behind him. We have her parents?
Yes, Legate.
He turned back to her. His black eyes watched her for a moment. You know that your friends are in trouble.
Yes sir.
And that we need to find them?
Her eyes dropped to the floor.
Do you know where they might have gone?
No sir.
He reached out and took her by the chin and lifted her face up and looked into her eyes. Are you sure?
Yes sir.
Would you say that you were her friend?
Her best friend, sir.
Then you would be helping them by letting us know where they are.
He let her go and smiled at her for a moment. Her eyes flicked around the room before returning to the floor. The girl fidgeted.
He swivelled around again. Take her down stairs. And then turning back to her he said, go with this man. He will take you to see your parents.
Will I be able to go home?
He smiled. He will need to ask you some more questions.
Skyte got up and walked to another table. The Anchorite told the girl to come with him. As she walked away she looked at Skyte. He kept his back to her.
Sitting back down opposite the journalist he apologised for taking so long. The left is advancing he said. Only a man with a reputation for toughness can halt it. He smiled. There is a five thousand year old sculpture of a rams head. It strongly represents the sheep on my property. I have not seen these sheep in any other part of the world. Apart from maybe a flock in Asia. They are similar although not entirely the same.
Are you able to tell us about what it is Councillor Kratz is accused of?
Skyte looked out of the window at the dusk dirge settling outside. Kratz is a man of fine character. I have worked with him for much of my career. This business is a cause of great personal sadness. He is man who for many many years I have called friend. I cannot speak more highly of him. Neither can I go into any great detail. But I will say this. The mere thought of what the councillor is accused of is death. And we must smother those who, however minor an infraction, deviate. We lead our fellows with reason. Our enemies with terror. To punish is clemency. To pardon is barbarity. Whatever the outcome. Justice. Justice will be seen to be done.
Skyte looked into the distance for a long time. I have a romanticised vision of life in rustic retirement. My life is not an easy thing. I have dedicated my existence to try and accomplish the goals that have been set forth. And I must finish before I go back to the farm to take care of the cattle, to ride horses, to milk sheep. To work on a tractor in the fields.

Posted by Xavier Leret at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My son was born in the late morning of the 24th July. He came quickly. We were expecting an almighty fight. We had been warned that the first one puts up a struggle and is not so willing to appear. He was eager to live. Rigorous from the outset. I watched as my wife cracked and whipped during the final stages. Possessed. Ancient. He came out of her as if he was shedding a former skin. Life transforms itself in this way. The old making way for the new. The new intercensal of the old.

As my wife slept we were both silent. Him and I. I could recognise myself in him as I held him in my arms. I thought, too, that I saw my father in him. The father who had always been a phantom to me. There before me. In the flesh. Puny. Vulnerable.
Newborns look both new and old.
Gazing on them is like looking into a flame. Their faces flicker and change. Timeless. Time matting itself in them. Fluctuating itself into the future. The bloodline making itself known. A moving portrait through dynasty. The mark of my kind. That was there. A unity between what was and what will be.
I said we do not talk about good and evil. These words are redundant. Facile. They strike no cords for any kind of future. We strike them from the record. Abolished. Trashed with the monuments to former gods and monsters, spirits and eidolon, souls and saints, martyrs and ministers. All that once stood outside on the brink of world. The imagined dimensions. Levelled. And begun again. I told him - the faces of those perennial orders are crumbled and discarded. All dust. Books, pages, manuscripts, celluloid, erased and washed clean. Museums ransacked, their contents vaporized. There is no past. All that remains is the moment of beginning.
And in that moment of beginning I saw it all set to work again.

Posted by Xavier Leret at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You scoured the area?
Yes, Legate. Under every nook and cranny.
Skyte's eyes had darkened. Everywhere. You looked everywhere?
For four hours, Legate.
And she has vanished?
Yes.
A child of eight years old. Into thin air?

The Anchorite's breath quivered. Yes.
Bald heads with eyes bowed stood ordered. Long black gowns hung pleated to the ground. The wind was silent. Skyte walked the line stopping occasionally to regard a face.
You believe in things that are other of this earth, Anchorite. Perhaps this child is some sort of sprite? A fairy?
The Anchorite looked blank.
Did you witness her walk through walls? No? Then can you tell me how a child, a nine year old girl can vanish from the face of this earth? Four hours? Four Hours. You looked?
Yes, Legate. She ran into a tenement and we lost her.
In a puff of smoke?
No Legate.
The majority of the Anchorite fell where he stood. The rest of him spread outwards. Blood splattered faces. Brain, bone and gak dripping off noses. Abstract shades of red, textured with marrow, oiling the floor.
Do not rest, said Skyte, until you have found the girl and her siblings. He turned and walk back into the Civic Tower. The line stood silent. Pusillanimous, chicken hearted in a goose pimpled shudder.
Bort stepped forward. Assumed command. Geed them on. Refused them permission to clean up. Told them to let the day's failure dry on their skin. Something like a war paint. As it did it pulled their skin tight.

.....

She came round. The immediate world oozed. Her breath a drunkards. Heavy. She reached out for a bit of wall. Helped herself to her feet. Standing she battled her head tilting forward. Took a step. And then another. Paused. Limped. Paused. Walked. Looked back at the alley behind her. Believing that this was from where she came. The sun was less bright. Almost tucking in for curfew. The day was a patch work of black outs. Memory frayed by unconsciousness. There ahead she saw the wall over which she had scrambled. It could only be it. There were no other gaps in the corridor of darkness. Without a box there was no way she could climb it. She lent with her forehead against it. Tried to recall how she had come to it. What direction had she been running? Through a fence from an an alley. It must run parallel. It must. If I walk to the top and turn right I will find it. From there it is not far to-
They are alone. Alone. The light is fading. That room. That room in the back will be coming alive.
She kicked herself on. Their sweet little selves. Her mother was breathing for her now. Don't worry. We will make it. We have to. She ran shouldering the wall to keep her up. Scraping along. Bruising. Ahead the light less scintillant. The day in the eupnea of death. Arriving at the corner she turned right and knew she was back. Could see the corner that he had arrested her. And that was the place where the man fell. And those windows crowding in. All those faces in on the spectacle.
Picking up her pace she took the street. To those that saw her she had the countenance of the condemned. Her knee a wreck. Hobbling. Head down. An inebriated stumble. Blinkered out peripherals. Racing the edge of dusk. Eyes ahead. Hoping that whatever is surely behind will not see her. Was that a drone? I'm sure I heard a Vee. Knowing that they will have found her bed of trash. The balcony. The drop. Yes they will have found that now. And the man that watched her. How many hours ago? And the couple.
Knocking on doors. Faces red with blood. Asian temple demons. Fiery Nosferatu. This child, if you see her. Has no home. Orphaned. Needs help. But necrosis is on them. No hiding it. Forces just a block away. Concentrated. Retracing.
The girl's heart. Punched up face and crooked knee. To the end and it is just a block away. She trips. Hands splay out and skin is taken from her chin. And up. Up she says.
In the alley they are now. Sensors picking up ectoplasmic rhythms. She fell here. Where are the Hawks? Where are the Hawks? Accelerated elsewhere. Her saving grace.
Opposite now the store. The jackass still attached to the line in some animated argument. Behind her the sun is orange and low in the sky. Anchorites on her tail. She crosses the street. Not a soul ahead. Her mother saying that she is blessed. No eyes watching. In a run to the end of the block. Left into the alley as the figures appear. Her foot slips into the darkness with not a moment to spare. Into the smell of shit and vomit and piss. Falling through the door. Pitch black in there now. Fumbles for the stairs. Kicks something. A body. She falls to the floor. The fetor of alcohol. Urine. Its on her. The heavy snores of a drunk. The stairs. The stairs. Faint light above. Just enough to see by. She pushes herself up. Up. To that landing. The second floor. Tumbles through the door frame into the corridor. The third door. On the right. She pushes it. Locked.
Knock four times then three. Four times then three. In the silence. Aphotic and sightless. Four times and then three. Open up. Please. Again. Please open up. Four times then three.
Is that you?
Yes.
Open up. Quick.
The door gives and she pushes. Big terrified eyes look at her. She closes the door behind her.
Where have you been?
She hugs him. Her little brother. Hugging him as if age had added years to her.
She's not well. He starts to cry.
It's alright, I'm here now.
Below in the alley they are there. Illuminating their way through the darkness.
She's a child. She wouldn't come in here. Blood smeared across their faces. I have children and I can tell you they would never enter here.
Looking at the drunk. Lying in his soil they all doubted. In the corner a bald head retched.
But she cannot vanish into nothing. Not again. It will be death for us if she has vanished again.
They fan out. The ground floor. Groans and creaks with footsteps. Saturated with the afterdarkers. Life less life. Infested. Clammed. Defecated. Guano heavy. The bald ones treading carefully not wishing for the spume to sully their shoes.
No sign of them. She would never run in there. And what of the other two? She would know better than to leave the little one here.
But Bort made them go on. You look up. You search the whole building. You saw her foot disappear into this alley and this is only place she could have gone. The girl is on the run. She is beyond fear.
One flight of stairs up. Ransacked doorless apartments. The blooded faces beginning to clear with their sweat. They move slowly with torches scanning. The white lights pulled wide and view a haze. The bones of furniture. The abused dwelling of down and outs.
To the second floor. And the corridor. One doorless frame and to the end a single door. Locked tight.
They amass with whispers and sign and create their form at the door. With a nod the door is kicked in and four bodies rush into the darkness. The small room, the sitting room with decrepit sofa, the kitchen, the bathroom, the room that had scared but held nothing. Not a soul.
I have something, a voice calls. Look. There.
The torch spotlights a nappy. An Anchorite bends and picks it up. He slowly unwraps it. The smell is overpowering.
This is fresh. They were here. He looks to his fellows.
They were here.

Posted by Xavier Leret at 6:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Wake up! Wake up! Her breath like a fist to the chest. Pupils on. What time? Where? Trash. In her nose. Hands damp. The smell. Shit in her hair. Feet kick. Arms, thighs, hips. The fall. The fall. Eyes wide. Head jerks. Out.
.....

When the girl comes round her back feels cracked. Her mother tells her to get up.
You've got to get back.
I know, I know. Where am I?
You ran along way.
It hurts mum. My back.
Can you wiggle our toes?
Yes.
Do you think you can walk?
I have to be able to walk.
She peers out from under the mass of trash. Sees the sky. How much of the day has passed? How long was she... She daren't think. Her brother. The little one.
Are they safe mum? But she doesn't answer.
She clambers into the air. Collapses out to the ground. Stumbles to the wall. Her bag is heavy, ribbed like a devil with feet digging exactly where the pain is. She falls herself on. The fiend places its hands over her ears.
I can't hear mum. I can't hear. There might EyeHawks. Her little head spinning. She cranks her neck up. Down in the gutter looking at the sky. Falls to her knees. Sits. Stares through a muffled silence. A chill in the alley. The shadow of the end. An eclipse out of life. For a second. Perhaps two.

.....
Up. Up, I tell you.
I'm fine, she says.
Can you walk?
Yes.
In a straight line.
Yes.
Then walk.
She stares ahead. The sun has drawn a line through the shadows. She edges forward on hands and knees. The top of her head pushes into the solar dimension first. As she slides more of herself through she turns her face first to the left and then to the right. A golden caress to each of her cheeks. The light ignites the flame in her heart. She slowly raised herself to her feet. Foal legs standing for the first time. Face craned high. Eyes closed. Fountained in the sun.

.....

She walked the equatorial corridor to the street. Out there it was silent. Not a soul. Squinting both to the left and to the right she tried to make sense of her surroundings. Opposite her was a tall white glaring tenement. She elected to walk left. Forced her feet on. Gritting her teeth as the demon kicked its feet into the small of her back. Across the way a door opened and a man skipped out. He turned to his left and crossed the road towards her. She kept her eyes to the ground. As he passed her he looked at her. She pushed herself on.
He got passed her ten yards and stopped and looked back. She felt him looking at the back of her as she moved slowly. Soles of her feet scraping the ground. Moving with the weight of ages on her back. His eyes flicked to the floor. Whoever she was, whatever it was that she was carrying it was too much for him. He let her walk. And in that moment every fear crowded her. Every potential of horror. And her brother, stuck in the filth. Death somewhere coaching in him for the end. And the baby. In the baby, the thing that most represented all that was gone. As the eldest, the first. Being spoilt and doted. Except that she couldn't quite recall. Just heard them say, don't be jealous. It was you once. But we can't bounce you on our knees anymore. Longing now to be a babe again.
She felt the man turn. Walking away. Discarding her. But he had watched her enough to take her in. Long enough to...
Before long another turn. Take the left she told herself. Left and circle back to the front of the back in which you awoke. Her mouth was dry. But she dare not stop and materialise the milk that she knew she carried. To not get back as time was ticking. Return having supped on her spoils. No that would not do. No it would not be fair. But the fiend said, just a sip. A little mouthful. It will help you to walk. Just a mouthful, what can it do? How can it hurt?
Fear kept her on. A couple stopped and watched her pass. The woman's heart ached for her. The world was not entirely faceless but fear was tangible. This girl covered in detritus. Little back broken. In the dunes. Best to let her go he said. Best. There is nothing that we can do for her.
But what if.
If what?
I don't know, just what if.
And the girl went on. Lost. Heart in turmoil. Missing them. Wanting them. The brother and sister. Remembering bouncing. All three of them. In the summer. In the garden. The little one crying. Not understanding any game that they might play. With no words of her own. And her and her brother in havoc at play. The summer into winter and the snow falling. And the world passing into a blur into a fog into nothingness. The family five vanish on the horizon. The blizzard wiping time clear.
Turning left. The road was still blank. No compass to point in her memory. She dragged on. She came to a door. It was the same door. Though the same as any door. All doors uniform. Slight of shade as the paint dried. A slight of shade only. Yes, that is. Are you sure? Yes. As sure as I can be. It was slightly darker. Not light but dark. But it was open. Open? Yes open. I don't remember. I don't remember. I must have run from there. Turning to see opposite a side street. On the road a spot of blood. Looking at her knee. The crash, the car. Yes. This is it.
Crossing the road. Crawling up an alley. The sun shaded. Walls loom in swamp bog gloom. The kitchen, a hall, a fence. Where was that? Did I come from here? I crashed to the floor from somewhere high. Was that here? Her legs gave way. She fell against the wall. Solitary. Fell there. In the bleak shadow. Dark wet scum in the cracks and the corners. Did I fall here? Scanning the view from where she had commenced there was nothing. No wall. Light at the end. Searing light. And the opposite way its golden mirror. Her knee split pain. Her head thick. Tongue dry. The demon kicking her. Sliding to the side she put out her hands to catch herself. Thinking of her siblings. How her parents would never abandon her. But there she was alone. They were vanished.
Get up. Get up. Using the wall to steady herself she rose to her feet. The sun in the distance howling at her. Pushing on. Just two steps at a time. Stomach tossing up black bile in her throat. The walls spinning. The demon retching at her efforts. Two more steps. The wall gave way to a doorway and her little form fell with it. Head and then shoulder cracked onto solid wood. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at the fading pitted concrete opposite. Focus pulling from short into long into haze and then gone.

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