In Fading Scrawls

"Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh; shadows of the evening steal across the sky."

New Year again. I haven't been able to get that girl out of my head. I saw her yesterday with Paul, my stepbrother. I was on my way to work, hurrying to the station. I didn't realise it was her walking in front of me until Paul turned the corner and she started shouting at him, words I didn't catch. Curses, accusations, apologies. Paul's eyes flickered to me. No shame there. For a moment I was almost jealous.

"Y'alright, Mike. You got a quid, mate?" he said. He was bigger than I remembered, faster, a species of desperation in his face.

I shrugged. All I had was a five pound note, and I needed it to get to work.

"A cigarette?" he asked, already beginning to turn away.

"Sorry about New Years," Sue said, Sue shouted, Sue slurred. "I don't even remember it."

She laughed. I saw them silhouetted against this miserable suburban backdrop, against a million flashbacks. I remembered being at university, sitting on a bench in the middle of Cambridge with a homeless guy who shared my name. He'd asked me for change. All I had was a pound, so I gave it to him. He cried, said I didn't have to do that. We sat on the bench and he pointed at the church.

"You don't know what they've done to me," he said, over and over.

"It shouldn't be like this," I said, to the ground between my feet.

That other Michael, he laughed at me. He stood up and lurched out of my life. I doubt he'll ever find his way out of my memory.

I wondered if Paul had been in prison yet. He was bailed until after Christmas. If he'd been in, if he was off the brown, that would explain the weight gain. I patted my pockets and came up with a pack of cigarettes. I gave him one and we went our separate ways.

At New Year Sue was sitting in my stepdad's chair. I was cross-legged on the floor at her feet. She was admiring my tattoos and showing me hers, a life story in fading scrawls on her skin. Shame and perhaps a little pride in her face. Everything about her said she'd been to hell, yet here she was, either climbing out of the pit or too fucked up to realise that there comes a point when the room no longer has any exits.

She babbled about the needles and the Indian ink, about the people who had written their names in her flesh. She saw my reaction and rolled down her sleeves.

"No," I said. "Tell me."

One of those kids they lock in cupboards. The ones they hit and abuse. The ones forever dragged into the orbit of those who prey on the weak. Cigarette burns and track-marks and those awful tattoos, teeth with more black and yellow than white, dead hair and a pale face aged before its time.

Strange dreams since then. I dreamed I had gone back in time and re-entered my body at the age of thirteen. I knew everything I know now. I was excited. I was on a bus, watching the scenery go by, realising I could do it all again. We pulled into the car park of an unfamiliar building, and as I watched the kids spilling out the doors, scattering across grey concrete, I thought: I've made a terrible mistake

I dreamed of rabbits that could fly. I was running from somebody, and I hid in this field full of rabbits. They were fucking. I turned away. When I turned back, they had sprouted wings and were leaving the ground. I laughed, but I was terrified.

Last night I woke up in the dark, midway through a sentence. "...on Wednesday night," I said to the empty room, and in the moments before I realised who and where I was, I panicked because I couldn't remember the last time I cried.

You can never run fast or far enough.