10

I’m done. I can’t do it anymore. This city brings me nothing but god damn stress. The cloud stuffed in my skull is grey and heavy with rain. It needs to release. It needs a downpour. Problem is that I can’t just take a piss and get it over with. I need to get out of here so I can rain. Pun intended.

Too many familiar faces. Too many familiar places. Too many histories. Too many people that hate me. I’m losing track. I might meet somebody on the road and be like, “Hey wassup dude?” and then they’re like, “You twat!” and then stab me.

I need to leave. Right now. All the damn parkour in the world can’t help me anymore. And I’m afraid I might find a nice, open space, atop some giant building somewhere, and find Rieka waiting for me. Can’t deal with that right now.

So here I am, waiting at the train station along with dozens of other people anxiously checking their watches, and slipping notes into vending machines in exchange for snacks. I would do that to, but there’s no way I’m touching the leftover money I have in my pocket. It feels like a million years ago when she gave that to me. The sound of a train screeching closer fills the station. I haven’t got a ticket, but that’s never stopped me before.

As it comes into sight, I pull my hood over my head, the candy smell of Rieka’s perfume tickling my nose, as I enter the mob of people pushing to get on against the ones forcing their way out. It’s like two rivers that flow in opposite directions hitting each other. Naturally, it makes no sense. Wouldn’t it be faster just to let them get out first?

As I’m shouldered inside, I quickly slink to the back of the carriage near the bathroom and press myself into the corner seat. Five people squash into the four seats next to me, leading to the fat rolls of a man who is seriously testing the strength of his shirt pushing up against me. To make matters worse, he’s scoffing down a huge, sloppy burger, with half of the contents spilling into my lap. I shut my eyes tight, fold my arms across my chest and cross my legs. The throbbing of the tension in my shoulder syncs to the train, along the tracks, lulling me into a shallow, anxious sleep.

I awake when the tilt of my head has made my Ray Bands fall onto my lap, between my legs and clatter onto the floor. I quickly kneel and slip them back on, when I see the conductor, (or somebody conductor like), making his way down the isle with a little scanner thing, checking for people’s tickets. Shit.

The man wearing a dark blue conductor’s cap (Or at least what I think would be a conductor’s cap) glances at me with annoyance, and then returns to his duty. He’s about six seats down from me. I’ve got all the time in the world

Casually, I pick myself up, then prance over the tree trunk sized legs of the hippo that was sitting next to me, and step towards the bathroom. It’s locked. It’s freaking god damn locked.

I glance back at the conductor, who’s moved one seat closer. Shit, shit, shit.

I rap twice on the door, and a woman hollers back, “Occupied!”

Eyes turn to me. I return an awkward smile, and lean against the opposite wall, anxiously glancing at the conductor who moves ever closer. I go to the end of the carriage to see if I can slip into the next one, but it’s locked.

“No moving between carriages, munch,” the conductor calls, two seats away from mine.

I rap again on the bathroom door.

“I said, OCCUPIED!” she screams.

Shitittyshitshit.

I glance at the windows, but they’re not openable. The conductor is nearly to me. Maybe I can use the overhead luggage rail thingy to swing over him and take off. Open the door and jump out. I step towards them, when out the window I see the ground disappear.

“What the hell?” I breath, leaning over somebody to look outside.

“You never been over the strait before?” they ask.

From what I can see, it looks like the train is flying over the ocean, which happens to be over two hundred feet down. No jumping off there.

“Excuse me sir?” the conductor asks, tapping my shoulder.

“Huh?” I turn.

“Ticket please?”

I twist my legs and give him the most agonized look I can. “Sir, I’m sorry but I can’t hold it in,” I splutter like as if it’s one big word.

He nods and raps on the door. “Conductor here. Please stop holding up the bathroom.”

“Alright, alright. Hold on a second,” the annoyed woman says.

The conductor turns back to me. “Ticket?”

The door opens and I dart inside, shoving the woman out and locking the door. A sigh of relief escapes me. I drop to the floor, which is surprisingly clean, and peer under the door. I can see the soles of the conductor’s shoes, tapping the carpet impatiently. He’s waiting for me. Well, then he can wait.

I lift up the lid and relieve myself, not really caring when I miss. Then I stop the flow, and aim up to the sink, letting loose again. A brief cackle escapes me. He’ll have something to clean up now.

There’s another one of those unopenable windows as well, where I can see the expanse of water beneath us. I heard that falling into water from this height is worse than falling into dry cement. I yank the tap upwards, snapping it off in a single pull. Cheap shit. Then, I slap it into the window, and hear a satisfying crack. Glad the train has glass windows and not that plastic glass shit, which is impossible to break.

Unfortunately, the conductor hears it too. “Excuse me? Excuse me, sir?” he calls.

I slam it in again, enlarging it.

“Sir. Sir, what’s going on in there?”

Third time’s the charm. The crack shoots out, reaching the window frame on both sides.

“I’m coming inside!” the conductor yells.

“Hold on a second I got some bad shit over here!” I holler back.

Doesn’t stop him. Pervert. The lock unclicks, and he walks in, a look of shock on his face. I hurl the tap at him, hitting him square in the forehead, then I punch the glass, feeling it shatter and commence the two-hundred-foot descent. Wind howls through the opening.

The conductor holds his bleeding head, while I stick my upper half out the window, and curve upwards. There’s a deep groove on the roof that I sink my fingers into and pull myself out.

I wish I could’ve seen the look on the conductor’s face as I disappear out the window and haul myself onto the train. I scramble to my feet in triumph. A little trivia about me was that I failed the physics part of my science lesson in both grade six and seven.

The wind blasts me backwards and I hit the roof of the train with a thud, sliding along the slick surface. I was already at the end of the train, so there isn’t much space for me to slide before I reach the edge. My heart accelerates tenfold as I realize the consequences if I fall now but thank whatever the hell is above because there’s a metal bar along the edge, angled slightly upwards that people probably use for support when going from carriage to carriage. The god blessed bar doesn’t stop my fall but makes me tumble once over so I’m facing it, allowing my right arm to shoot out and grab it with three fingers. My left hand follows, and then I’m dangling between carriages. Beneath me, I see the tracks run by. If I drop, I’ll be crushed. To the sides is the endless expanse of blue. At least I thought it was blue when I first saw it, now it looks more greyish, more polluted.

Before I can get lost in thoughts until my fingers give out and I fall to my doom, then end of carriage door opens and the conductor leans out, a red spot on his forehead. “Are you insane?” he hollers.

I respond with a hard kick to the face, and scramble back up. This time, I lie on my belly and army crawl up the smooth, red, delicately curved roof of the plane. How I peer over the edge to the murky water. Even from up here I can see mounds and mounds of heaped trash, collecting in the water. How I would’ve wished to be a fish. Fish don’t have to worry about the police. They don’t need to worry about if they’ve done too many drugs for their age. They don’t need to worry about if their friends hate their guts because of all the shitty things they’ve done. But then again, the do need to worry about sharks. If there are any left, of course.

I flip onto my back, staring up into the light blue sky, dotted with scraggly clouds. Maybe a bird would be better. You can soar, high in the sky, only coming down to eat worms and stuff. Everybody knows the mating season, so when that time rolls around you just pump your juice until you’re drier than an industrially milked cow, and you’ve got like half a year to recharge. Sounds great to me. If I wasn’t choking on all the damn smog hovering around in the atmosphere. I want to fly. I want to swim. Maybe I should’ve been a duck. Ducks can do all that and more. Sounds great. No, because then I wouldn’t be able to run. I need to run, that’s a priority. Run as fast as a wolf, and as nimble as a deer. That’s me.

When I roll back over, land is back beneath the train. Grass. Real freaking grass! I don’t remember the last time I saw its beautiful, dewy, green blades!

Without thinking twice, I launch myself off the roof of the train, the ground moving faster than an autowalk beneath me. I land and my legs are in the air, my face is in the dirt, my arms are behind me. I spin, I roll, I tumble, I twist, I fall, all the while tasting the wet, organic taste of grass. It’s not like the plastic wrapped salads you can buy at a supermarket. It’s not like the fragments of potted plants in a cubicle office. This surrounds me. This envelopes me. When I roll to a halt, every bone in my body hurts, but I giggle with closed eye glee. I don’t need to see right now. Sight is the most important sense to humans, and that’s the same reason we neglect all of our other ones.

My bruised hands feel the wet, blades of tall grass beneath them. My head is cushioned by a pillow of wet soil. My nostrils fill with earthly scents that make me twitch with joy, like as if I’m having an orgasm.

When my eye’s finally do open, instead of the warm glow of the sun beaming down on me, I see a face. A feminine face with long, black hair that almost reaches me. “Are you… alright?” she asks.

I laugh.

She offers me a hand.

I take it with my wet, bruised, dirt covered one, and let her pull me up. My head spins, and I feel like I’m going to throw up… or faint. I tip towards her, and she catches me.

“Woah, dude,” she says, holding me upright by the shoulders. “So,;k DJKJFK I uh… saw you fling yourself off the roof of the train just now. You high on something I should know about?”

When I finally blink the spinning away, I see her face properly. She’s Asian, with nice features and I body I can’t complain about. She wears a purple checked hoodie, a black T-shirt with a skull that says, “The system is killing us”, blood red leggings and black skateboard shoes. She’s got purple feathers, braided into her hair.

“High on life,” I tell her, with a tooth grin.

She laughs. “My kinda guy!” she gives me a punch. “Names Kezlin Karactus, and you are?”

“Kallix. Kallix Rane,” I tell her, expecting her to recoil in shock.

“Sick name. Kallix and Kezlin, has a ring to it.”

I hear a yip. I look down to see a little, dark brown dog, with a mustache that makes it look like an old man. “Hey there,” I practically squeal, dropping down and ruffling its fur.

“Dog guy, huh? Me too. That’s Jiffy.”

“Why’d you call him Jiffy?” I ask, cuddling him close to my face.

“Because he’s so fast that wherever he goes, he’s back in a jiffy!”

I laugh and look around. Other people are walking through the grass with dogs on leashes, chatting with each other as the dogs sniffed at the surroundings. “What is this place?” I ask.

“Galagheri park. It’s where all the dog owners go to socialize. How… don’t you know about it?”

I look up at here. “Is that your most pressing question right now?” I ask her, gesturing to my dirt smeared face.

“Usually when people fling themselves off the roof of the train they do it over the water, not over the garden,” she laughs.

“Really? How can somebody coming suicide when they have this?” I ask, scooping up a wad of dirt and taking in a long breath as I press it to my nose.

Rather than getting grossed out, Kezlin laughs. “You’re not from around here I take it.”

I shake my head. “Not in the slightest. I’m from West Side.”

“Really? How is it? I always wished to go there.”

I scoff. “You don’t. I left that shithole where it belongs. Not a speck of greenery as far as the eye can see. From what I’ve see, East Side has got it figured out!” I exclaim, tossing the dirt in the air. It rains down on us.

Some of the other people in Galagheri park stare at me in shock, but Kezlin laughs again. “Would you mind if I showed you around a bit? We could get a drink, then crash at my place for the night. What’d’you say?”

I nod vigorously. “You’re asking a mole if he wants to dig.”

She leans close to me and whispers. “I’m a mole, asking a mole if he wants to dig. Come on!” she takes my hand and starts to run.

My hip hurts with every gait, and the side of my left knee feels like the bone is stabbing the tendon, but my shoulder is no longer aching agonizingly, and I wear the smile I haven’t put on in far too long.

She leads me through the garden, to the flower beds, through the hedge maze, past the fishpond and out the others side. When we emerge, we’re giggling, drunk on the newfound stranger love that we drown in. We reach a road, the first asphalt I’ve seen. A long, eccentric motorbike with purple, flaming roses lining its side is propped up on it’s kickstand. “That’s not…”

“It is,” Kezlin reassures, slipping onto it.

“Wait, wait hold on a second,” I say backing up. “You’re too cool. This can’t be right. Are you sure you’re not lesbian?”

She nearly dies with laughter. “Don’t worry Kaly, I’m straight enough for you, but don’t mind a threesome every now and then.”

“C…can you see the hearts fluttering out of my eyes right now?” I ask.

“Stop flattering me and get on,” she gestures.

I slide on behind her, wrapping my hands around her waist. She revs the engine and we’re on the road, my hair flying behind me like a flag.

“Shouldn’t we be wearing helmets?” I ask, nervously glancing at the cars as she weaves past them.

“What? You don’t trust me? Think I’ll crash?”

“Well… um…”

In response, she rears the front wheel in the air, making me scream in terror and hold onto her for my dear damn life. When we land, I hear her laughter over the noise of the engine.

“Screw you,” I breath.

“That scared you? You just jumped off a freaking train!”

“My fears are very particular,” I explain, pushing her fluttering hair to the side.

She leans into me. “That’s a girl’s hoodie. Who’d you get it from? Got a girlfriend?”

“What? No! It’s… my sister’s.”

She laughs. “I love how defensive you got. But honestly, you don’t have a damn sister.”

“Why not?”

“Guys like you don’t wear their sister’s hoodies.”

“Guys like me?”

“I don’t care if you have a girlfriend, Kallix. Let’s just have some fun today!” she hollers, accelerating so fast my stomach tries to lunge out my mouth.

When she finally slows down, it’s at a small roadside café. She hits open the kickstand and helps me off. She lets go of my hand and excitedly flings the door open. “Two of your finest!” she announces.

I’m instantly self conscious behind her, but I relax when I see the server, with her same skin tone, same thin dark hair and Asian eyes. “You picked up a stray raccoon?” he asks, nodding at me.

“Kallix, this is Jereva, my idiot brother. Fetch us something nice. We have places to be.”

Jereva extends a hand to me. I take it. His grip is strong, and his hands are calloused, just like my brother’s. He’s probably the same age as Kaloaan too.

Kezlin flops down on one of two chairs at a tiny, rustic, metal table. I cautiously sit down next to her.

“So, the myth is true. Men’s biggest fears besides a girl’s dad is a girl’s brother. Oh, and motorcycles of course.”

I can’t help but laugh. “If diamonds are a girl’s best friend, then yeah.”

“Hey, if you pop me a diamond right now, I’m not going to complain, but as my brother said, you’re shaggier than a raccoon, so I’m not expecting jack. At least you know I’m not a gold digger,” she shrugs.

“I’ll have you know I’ve met a couple very well kempt raccoons, for your information.”

Jereva returns, placing two drinks in sealed carton coffee cups before us. The warm waft from the small drinking hole tells Kallix that it’s anything but coffee.

“Come on let’s go!” Kezlin announces, her cup in one hand and my wrist in another. She leads me back onto her bike. After a short, terrifying, one-handed ride, she stops. “This building here, top floor is mine. But take a look at this.”

She leads me through the crepuscular light over a short distance, to a bridge. It’s an ancient, stone arch bridge, with moss, real moss, growing from them. She takes my hand, and we walk side by side to the highest point. I’m in awe.

As I lean over the aged, stone wall of the bridge, I see blue, non-polluted water, glittering with the light of setting sun, a massive, flaming, orange-red semicircle on the horizon. The vertical panorama, shaped by the tall buildings on either side of me, is painted with a crescendo of colors, starting with dazzling oranges and yellows that transcend to alluring reds and purples, and finally, drift to dark blues and on towards the west, towards my home, black. The western horizon, however, isn’t entirely black, but a fuzzy grey with the soft lights of West Side. My home.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she asks, her eyes sparkling in the dusk light like the water beneath us.

I’m so awestruck, I forget. I forget that I have a wall surrounding me, holding me strong and steadfast. The guards within me are transfixed on the sunset before me. A spectacle I have never, in my sixteen years, seen something as beautiful. For the briefest moment, the damn within my heart is opened.

“Oh my gosh, Kallix, you’re crying,” Kezlin realizes, reaching for my sunglasses.

I turn away from her. I need to run. I need to get out of here. I move forward, but she grabs my wrist.

“Don’t run,” she pleads.

I freeze, my back to her. She slides her hand up my arm and around me, up my chest pass my neck, and to my Ray Bands. Slowly, gently, starts to slide them off my face.

I jerk. She kisses my neck. “Kallix it’s ok. You’re safe. You’re alright.”

She must be able to feel my heart racing within my chest. My system has failed. I’m on lockdown. Everything within me is haywire. It’s not supposed to be like this.

I’m tantalized as she slides them further and further off my face until she sees my eyes. My tears, red-rimmed, bloodshot, plain brown eyes. A single tear, with no strength to hold it anymore, escapes. It rolls over my cheekbone, and into my dirt smeared cheek. Instead of stopping. Instead of allowing itself to be caught in the grooves and the troughs. Instead of letting itself be absorbed, it pushes on. It reroutes, switching direction as it snakes down until it reaches the corner of my mouth, but even then it doesn’t stop. The single tear I shed, for Tauren and Wesslin, for Rieka and Deqar, for Malyk and Salif, for my mum and dad and brother, for the city, for the animals that once roamed that land, for the sunset before me, and for Kezlin, reaches my chin and drops. It falls for an eternity as the world slows down and infinity passes. My existence dissolves into oblivion. My worries, my trauma, my anxiety. It culminates to the breaking point. To the sum of who I am, and then it explodes more spectacularly than the big bang. But when Kezlin’s lips reach mine, time catches up. It moves fast enough to make up for the infinity it lost, slamming into me like a tidal wave of all my joy, all my highs, all my thrills, and all my freedom.

My shades fall from Kezlin’s hand onto the stone floor, and she presses herself against me.

I don’t stop to pick them up.

I don’t force her away.

I don’t run.

For the first time in my life, I don’t run.