Read Online Iron Balloons by Colin Channer - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Colin Channer
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want Mary Janga. But you feel too shame to shout these things out and so you just think them to yourself. And while you are thinking these things to yourself, you start to think about what happened to put you in this bed that is not yours, in this place that is not yours. But all this thinking starts your head spinning again and you have to close your eyes.
In the darkness behind your eyes, you try to remember without thinking, but nothing happens. If your memory is a computer screen, it is blank. If it is a box, it is empty. If it is a sound, it is silent. You start to feel scared. You feel just like when you were seven and you went to cricket with your father and he told you not to let go of his hand, but instead of not letting go you let go because you were too big to be holding his hand. And so you let go, and in that second his hand, his arm, his whole body disappeared, and instead of it being you and your daddy at cricket, it was just you. You and millions and millions and millions of arms and legs and bodies you did not know. And you felt alone and scared, just like you feel now, because here you are in this strange place and the only person you know has gone to get a drink you don’t want.
Your body is turning into a robot. Your head is a spinning top and your memory is an empty box, a blank screen, a silent sound. You feel all alone and … but wait! You do remember something. It’s not the something you want to remember, but it is something. The cricket story is something. And your father and your mother and Mary Janga. They are somethings too. You don’t feel so bad now. Not so, so bad, but there is still some feelbad in you because yuh mash up and alone. The only thing you can think to do is pray and so you do.
Just as you finish praying you hear swoosh … swoosh, and you see Nurse Lawes coming back through the big plastic doors at the end of the room. The doors make that sound— swoosh … swoosh —when they open and close. Before she gets to your bed with the drink, you hear swoosh … swoosh again, and you think you see a little girl in a jeans skirt and a pink top come running in. Yes, it’s a little Mary Janga girl in a pink top calling your name in a loud, screechy, excited voice that does not belong in a hospital.
Sometimes it takes a long time to get an answer to a prayer. Sometimes it can happen before you even finish praying and sometimes the answer comes and it makes you feel shame. Mary Janga calling out your name in that voice that belongs somewhere far away from here—somewhere where nobody can hear it—is an answer that makes you feel shame. But mix up with the shame is a smile and a gladness, and when the doors go swoosh … swoosh again, you know you don’t even have to look up.
Your mother has brought you mangoes and bananas and June plums. Her eyes look like they want to cry and she keeps stroking your head. She tells your father to sit down instead of pacing backwards and forwards like that, but he doesn’t. He keeps on pacing and shaking his head and saying, “Bwoy, me no know wha’ ’appen to dis bwoy. Wha’ de hell get into dis child? Eeh?” And you wish he would sit down because he is making your head spin again with all the up and down he’s doing.
Mary Janga gives you something in a brown paper bag and then she drinks off all your drinks without asking, “PleasemayI?” and then some madness flies up into her head and she pounds on the concrete around your leg like she is pounding on a door.
Your crying-out-in-pain voice is even louder than Mary Janga’s voice, and everyone in the room looks at you like you have something to tell them. Nurse Lawes comes for Mary Janga. You think, Maybe they’ll operate on her straight away and take out whatever it is that is in her that makes her so … so … Mary Janga.
Then your father does sit down, and straightaway you wish he was standing up and pacing around, because as soon as he sits he has more questions—questions
In the darkness behind your eyes, you try to remember without thinking, but nothing happens. If your memory is a computer screen, it is blank. If it is a box, it is empty. If it is a sound, it is silent. You start to feel scared. You feel just like when you were seven and you went to cricket with your father and he told you not to let go of his hand, but instead of not letting go you let go because you were too big to be holding his hand. And so you let go, and in that second his hand, his arm, his whole body disappeared, and instead of it being you and your daddy at cricket, it was just you. You and millions and millions and millions of arms and legs and bodies you did not know. And you felt alone and scared, just like you feel now, because here you are in this strange place and the only person you know has gone to get a drink you don’t want.
Your body is turning into a robot. Your head is a spinning top and your memory is an empty box, a blank screen, a silent sound. You feel all alone and … but wait! You do remember something. It’s not the something you want to remember, but it is something. The cricket story is something. And your father and your mother and Mary Janga. They are somethings too. You don’t feel so bad now. Not so, so bad, but there is still some feelbad in you because yuh mash up and alone. The only thing you can think to do is pray and so you do.
Just as you finish praying you hear swoosh … swoosh, and you see Nurse Lawes coming back through the big plastic doors at the end of the room. The doors make that sound— swoosh … swoosh —when they open and close. Before she gets to your bed with the drink, you hear swoosh … swoosh again, and you think you see a little girl in a jeans skirt and a pink top come running in. Yes, it’s a little Mary Janga girl in a pink top calling your name in a loud, screechy, excited voice that does not belong in a hospital.
Sometimes it takes a long time to get an answer to a prayer. Sometimes it can happen before you even finish praying and sometimes the answer comes and it makes you feel shame. Mary Janga calling out your name in that voice that belongs somewhere far away from here—somewhere where nobody can hear it—is an answer that makes you feel shame. But mix up with the shame is a smile and a gladness, and when the doors go swoosh … swoosh again, you know you don’t even have to look up.
Your mother has brought you mangoes and bananas and June plums. Her eyes look like they want to cry and she keeps stroking your head. She tells your father to sit down instead of pacing backwards and forwards like that, but he doesn’t. He keeps on pacing and shaking his head and saying, “Bwoy, me no know wha’ ’appen to dis bwoy. Wha’ de hell get into dis child? Eeh?” And you wish he would sit down because he is making your head spin again with all the up and down he’s doing.
Mary Janga gives you something in a brown paper bag and then she drinks off all your drinks without asking, “PleasemayI?” and then some madness flies up into her head and she pounds on the concrete around your leg like she is pounding on a door.
Your crying-out-in-pain voice is even louder than Mary Janga’s voice, and everyone in the room looks at you like you have something to tell them. Nurse Lawes comes for Mary Janga. You think, Maybe they’ll operate on her straight away and take out whatever it is that is in her that makes her so … so … Mary Janga.
Then your father does sit down, and straightaway you wish he was standing up and pacing around, because as soon as he sits he has more questions—questions
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