Scuffed blue shoes shuffled along rough red bricks. Cracks and fissures branched off like hairs in a dust storm. These are the shapes of bad luck and bets lost. Each careful step contains a whimper of fear, the uncurling fist in the stomach that speaks of black eyes and bloody noses.
As he creeps along, E.B. Jarvis feels a drop of cold sweat slither down his skinny spine, slipping noiselessly below his waistband. One foot lifted, he almost falls, almost slips right off the planet and into a no-man's-land of whisper-thin and eyeless nothingness. Just in time, he manages to regain his tenuous balance, arms swiveling frantically like an emaciated windmill. He knows full-well how ridiculous he must look, creeping along at agonising speed. Panic has tied up each lung and rib, sent ropes up to catch his tongue. He knows he has no choice but to go on.
Greg and his friends are sucking smoke out of cigarettes, watching him silently like beady-eyed and malevolent blackbirds, ready to be entertained. A little saliva ripples the surface of his tight throat as he swallows. He imagines it dropping down to sizzle and steam in his stomach acid. He takes a deep breath in, his lungs expanding. A Soft "ssss" marks the passing of air on its way out, through lips tasting of salt and tears, of bitter failure and shame.
By his estimation, there are merely three meters left. "That's easy", he thinks to himself, trying to relax. After all, he's made it this far, despite the three pairs of pupils trained on him, not even shifting nor narrowing when the breeze picks up and curls acrid smoke into them from the nostrils below.
Jarvis glances down at his fragile body, thinking of the wiry muscles contracting, the legs moving forward and back down onto the narrow ledge again. He can see the sun; can see the white second-sun that is its halo and shines just behind his eyes, in the black pit of his mind when he looks away, a purple supernova at the corners of his eyes, almost out of sight.
"Somewhere", he imagines, "a woman has just given birth. A musician has finally gently laid down his guitar like it's a first-born child, fingertips warm and calloused from practice. A tawny dog is lolloping along a beach, sand spraying out from beneath its golden paws. A young man is putting his new car into gear while his children tussle on the lawn, having the same old fight as to who gets to ride in the passenger seat with Dad. Somewhere, somebody has just finished crying, and is beginning to enjoy the soreness of their eyes, that pull in the throat that a good long sob brings. One more meter to go, at this pace." These are the thoughts of E.B. Jarvis, as he presses agonisingly onward, his eyes focusing intently on where his feet should land. His shoelaces are a dusty dirty-white; the threads in his jeans are as slim as his veins. His arms are stretched wide like some ungainly large bird; long brave wings against the terrifying blue. His heart is drumming out the sound of his soul, a siren song for sin and shame, the first seedy sound he ever heard the world make. Out of the corner of his eye and a little to the left, there's pollution pushing plumes out of chimneys, like grey, pleated brains.
The ground is a heartbeat plunge into a shadowy abyss. The streets stink of rubbish and grief. He's almost there. He's like a trapped rabbit, eyes wet with bewilderment, a slick fish struggling at the end of the line. There's that last sweet and futile moment of disbelief before the drop, when the truths slam into him like a hammer and he is gone. Seventeen years have come to this.
Mark, a builder working not far from the young people's residences in East Street, looks up quickly as something plummets from the pale sky. "What the FUCK!?", he cries aghast, as he sees what it is. Horror is a swift and sickening kick in the guts. Calling to his workers, Mark runs to where the boy's body lies broken and bent, blue shadows curving under pale and still eyes. Astonishing scarlet blooms out like hearts.
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