I can taste shame in my mouth
like the furry effects of a hangover.
Close. Warm.
Guilt is my nightly companion.
His heavy body is too close to mine and
I cannot breathe in the darkness.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Outrage
A small child ran out in front of my car today. I came round a corner and he came flying out from behind a bush, leaving his friend standing frozen on the side of the road. I couldn’t swerve – I would hit the friend. But I couldn’t brake fast enough and I skidded sideways across the tarmac. Say what you like about angels, but the child reached the other side of the road, and kept running. Out of my mouth came the loudest, most terrified sound I have ever heard, ‘HATARI! Be CAREFUL, do you want to die?! DANGER! ANGALIA! This is a ROAD!’ My head vibrated with the sound of my fear. He hadn’t looked. He hadn’t seen. He hadn’t stopped.
I sat in the road for a good 5 minutes, my legs like jelly and my heart racing. My whole body felt numb with pins and needles, and the only feeling I could identify was my fury. This child couldn’t have been more than 4. He was not old enough to go to school. It was 7.30 in the morning. Why was he alone?! And if his parents couldn't be there, why had they not taught him to look after himself?
In primary school in suburban England, I was demure and timid and unquestioningly obedient. Mrs Wherry of Year Three fame strictly instructed us on how to cross the roads and I took great pains in looking both ways and holding the hand of an adult. I was scared and I was taught why.
In middle school we had to write a diary of our weekend activities. One Monday morning, Shane Woolacott’s entry began ‘When I was playing on the train tracks…’ My teacher took the diary to our headmistress, who called National Rail, who sent an expert, who spoke to 400 frightened children in a 1980s school hall on the dangers of train tracks, all prompted by Shane’s confession. National Rail showed us a film, which I can still picture. It showed two boys, our age at the time, playing amongst some old trains. They were racing and hiding, racing and hiding, and it looked so fun. One of the boys crawled under an old train to hide, and it rolled… When I close my eyes, all these years later, I can still hear the sounds – the train brakes creaking, the shifting and rolling of this enormous hulk of metal, the screaming boy whose body was cut in two. To this day, I have problems stepping onto a train. My heart jumps when I look between the gap and I have to control my mind from filling my thoughts with the screams of a dying child. My stomach knots up and I pretend to be busy and unapproachable as I assure myself that yes, I am on the train and yes, my whole body is too.
National Rail may have given me a lifelong fear of train travel. Mrs Wherry may have instilled in me a not-always-healthy fear of breaking the rules. But I never once ran out onto a road or played on a train track, and I can assure you that no child of mine will ever do so either.
When I at last pulled away to continue my journey to work, feeling terrified and angry and determined to drive at snails pace on all roads, forever, it was Shane Woolacott’s face in my thoughts. He hung himself when we were just 22.
I sat in the road for a good 5 minutes, my legs like jelly and my heart racing. My whole body felt numb with pins and needles, and the only feeling I could identify was my fury. This child couldn’t have been more than 4. He was not old enough to go to school. It was 7.30 in the morning. Why was he alone?! And if his parents couldn't be there, why had they not taught him to look after himself?
In primary school in suburban England, I was demure and timid and unquestioningly obedient. Mrs Wherry of Year Three fame strictly instructed us on how to cross the roads and I took great pains in looking both ways and holding the hand of an adult. I was scared and I was taught why.
In middle school we had to write a diary of our weekend activities. One Monday morning, Shane Woolacott’s entry began ‘When I was playing on the train tracks…’ My teacher took the diary to our headmistress, who called National Rail, who sent an expert, who spoke to 400 frightened children in a 1980s school hall on the dangers of train tracks, all prompted by Shane’s confession. National Rail showed us a film, which I can still picture. It showed two boys, our age at the time, playing amongst some old trains. They were racing and hiding, racing and hiding, and it looked so fun. One of the boys crawled under an old train to hide, and it rolled… When I close my eyes, all these years later, I can still hear the sounds – the train brakes creaking, the shifting and rolling of this enormous hulk of metal, the screaming boy whose body was cut in two. To this day, I have problems stepping onto a train. My heart jumps when I look between the gap and I have to control my mind from filling my thoughts with the screams of a dying child. My stomach knots up and I pretend to be busy and unapproachable as I assure myself that yes, I am on the train and yes, my whole body is too.
National Rail may have given me a lifelong fear of train travel. Mrs Wherry may have instilled in me a not-always-healthy fear of breaking the rules. But I never once ran out onto a road or played on a train track, and I can assure you that no child of mine will ever do so either.
When I at last pulled away to continue my journey to work, feeling terrified and angry and determined to drive at snails pace on all roads, forever, it was Shane Woolacott’s face in my thoughts. He hung himself when we were just 22.
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