By Steven Tait

‘I’m cold.’ I yell it out. Meaningless, pointless. I yell it again. ‘I’m cold.’

I’m sitting on the back of the motorbike, holding on for dear life.

‘Hey. Grin and bear it. It’ll be over soon.’

‘You always say that, but it never is.’

‘It never is what?’

‘Over. It’s never over. Not now, not ever.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Another lap. Round and round we go. Still slow, gathering speed little by little.

‘You know what I mean. There’s always something.’

‘Yeah, like food on the table, and a warm bed. That’s something.’

“Ha! Don’t make me laugh.’

I sit silently with a pout my sister will never see, a pout perfectly reflecting the way I face my life, my world. And why shouldn’t I pout? I got a glimpse. Enough to know this is a bum deal.

School. A portal into another world. I was okay at school. Okay in more ways than one. My state of mind was okay. I did okay too.

Mr. Heath. My favourite teacher. He smoked a pipe. Not in the classroom, of course. But you could smell the tobacco on him, a rich, pungent fragrance that had me imagining other worlds, worlds where there were warm rooms, rooms with dark hardwood walls, rich thick carpets, and deep, soft, leather armchairs. A world where important men discussed important things.

Mr. Heath could have been one of those men. He would brush his shaggy moustache with his hand absentmindedly and ruminate on the mysteries of the physical world.Indonesiais an archipelago…

There was a moment, just a moment, when I was happy, happy to escape, happy to see the world through others’ eyes. Not my world, this stagnant, chilly place where the damp seeps into your clothes, your body, your soul, this place where the only emotions that matter are anger and stoicism. One gives way to the other.

I saw the world beyond these shores. I imagined lands where the sun shone, where people went to bed with full stomachs, covered with warm blankets and a mother’s kisses. I saw a world of greens and blues. Anything other than grey, I thought.

And why wouldn’t I have done okay at school? It was an escape. Even the labyrinthine ways of mathematics suggested alternative universes, where puzzles had solutions, if only I had the patience to uncover their secrets.

School meant order. One place, one schedule. A reliable place where routine things happened in routine ways. Good things or bad thing – it hardly mattered. They were predictable things, simple things that gave life a structure. Something to hold on to. Something away from the brutal uncertainty of this life, this grimy sham of a life I’d been told to be grateful for.

But it was too good to last. I knew that from the start. I felt it like a thick coil of rope, binding my ankles, pulling insistently, relentlessly, as I willed myself towards the clouds. My father’s words, always with me, tugging me, hauling me down.

Don’t get used to it, son.

It’s not the life for you, lad.

This is where you belong, my boy.

Don’t get above your station now, boyo.

Until I was hauled in it was a kind of magic, a glimpse inside Pandora’s box. Closing that box sounded easy enough. But how could anyone put their imagination back under lock and key? Once set free, it’s like the wind – gone, always moving, always adrift.

But forget imagination. The family has other priorities. Thus I have other priorities. Not my priorities; the family’s. Could it ever be any other way?

I do as I am told. Of course I do. Beatings only make me sore, only make the days seem longer. And we all know father enjoys the release. So I do my part. I contribute. I’ve learnt how to be part of the team.

Oh there are good times. Aren’t there? Good moments, at least. Jerome’s singing, the practical jokes that Lester used to play on the sisters, old Billy’s stories. There are laughs to be had. Enough to occasionally get our minds off the hunger, the cold, the dirt.

Even Leslie the labrador has his use. And not just as another outlet for father’s anger. (He couldn’t survive on dishing it out to me alone). He barks at unwanted visitors. And unless they are paying, they are all unwanted. What does it mean to watch a dog chase and bite a man and then laugh about it? Are we so desperate for distractions? God knows it breaks up the day.

Different places, different people, different surroundings. Everything changes but it’s all the same. On the move. Leaving or being chased away. Arriving, fearful. Perpetual outsiders. Start to get close to people and start to fear. Would we be found out?

I live with this question. Will I be found out?

Found out for what? It’s usually my father’s doing, sometimes my mother’s. The life we lead in the light of day doesn’t pay. So of course they operate in the shadows, where others less desperate, or less hungry, are easy prey.

It’s my parents’ work. But will I be found out? Guilty by association? Apparently. Fear is contagious.

We learn fast. Stay together no matter what. Family first. Those others who are part of the team? Well okay, we’ll work with them. Never rely on them, never open up to them. Too dangerous. Too much to lose, he said.

Lose? What could possibly be lost? I still don’t know. Perhaps throwing it all away would be the start of something. I want to lose it. Really I do. But the danger, the fear. I am petrified. I yearn for the world but I cannot trust it. It will burn me, scar me, mess me up. That’s what I am told. What else could I believe? I want Mr. Heath’s world, but what would all those important people across the seas make of me? Me with my greasy hair and threadbare clothes and oil-smeared hands. Better I stay with what I know.

On the bike. With my sister. Around and around. Like my life. Always moving, going nowhere. I could have screamed. I did. I screamed. Give me fear. Give me something, Give me.

It’s never over. How could it be? Another day, another show. Another deflating, mind-numbing day. All witnessed by a half-dozen curious souls. Not enough to even buy food for the dogs. We are dying. Just not quickly enough.

The motorbike does another lap. Twenty feet above the bored spectators, round and round, on that narrow railing, suspended in the air. We’re gathering speed now. I look down.

Don’t look down. Look forward, stay steady, hold it all together.

I look down.

One foot, another. I raise myself, place my hands on her shoulders as she keeps the bike steady, speeding onward, round and round. Feet in the air. Upside down. Are the spectators gasping? Or are they like me. Dead inside. Lacking the spirit to raise even the slightest wonder at the deeds of their fellow humans?

Am I as grey and nondescript to them as I am to myself? Let them sort it out. Let them see if they still feel life inside them.

Last lap. My sister’s tense voice. Keep it steady.

I push off from my sister’s shoulders. Floating, drifting, falling. Time stops. It is over. Release.

The circus can live or die without me.