The Brightlings

12. Paper tiger

It is a strange sensation to be all but consumed by an intense urge to run. To experience a sudden compulsion to just drop everything, and sprint without stopping, not looking back, until your lungs are fit to burst and your legs are no longer functional. Felix has only been in his uniform for thirty-two minutes, but he has already resigned himself to the fact that it will very probably be one of those mornings.

He awkwardly leans back against the green powder coated panel, relishing the cool breeze generated by every passing car. It is only twenty minutes past eight, but already the humidity is so intense that he can sense his brows struggling to keep the rapidly forming beads of sweat away from his eyes. He tugs at his tie and undoes the top button of his shirt. Every cell in his brain is fighting against the extreme desire to escape from his current predicament.

On the pavement, a huddle of hyperactive year seven girls, wearing oversized blazers, excitedly gabble at each other, like they've ingested too much sugar on their cereal. Each one is so engrossed in what they are personally saying, that they are not listening to any of the others. They barely stop for breath in between rapid-fire talk of boy bands and make-up. When one of the group notices that he is watching and nods towards him, they each take their turn to quickly glance over, before collapsing into fits of hushed giggles. 

He diverts his attention towards his black shoes, which look ridiculously clumpy on the end of his skinny legs, and are also starting to pinch against his big toe, that still hasn't fully recovered from kicking the leg of the bed. They are dusty and scuffed from the last time that he wore them, during summer term, when life was still relatively normal. 

He can immediately sense the rabbit hole opening up at the back of his mind. There is no point in fighting it any more. Every thought is a potential trigger. Every object can provoke a visual memory. He can only attempt to foil the machinations of his overactive imagination via distraction techniques.

He tries to shake a vision of his father, seated in the gallery of the youth court, his face as pale as a ghost in a snowstorm, but Alan is quickly replaced with another snapshot of the dead worms. He hasn't even seen the damn things with his own eyes, yet somehow they appear so vividly to him that he can almost taste the stink of their putrid skin at the back of his throat. 

It is becoming increasingly difficult to know what is real anymore. His recent experiences that somehow exist in a space the inhabits both the past and the present, and now the visions that colour his every waking hour. He has been driven to ask himself the question before, but now it is getting serious. Could he really be losing his mind?

He gently bumps the back of his head against the metal, feeling the vibrations from the dull thud as they reverberate throughout the shelter, and hum back into his body through firm contact with his shoulder blades. Perhaps if he concentrates hard enough on a repetitive action, the past will leave him alone.

His stomach feels tight and hollow, and it gurgles once again in disapproval at having only been given five sips of coffee before he left the house. There's been no word from Alan, the farmer is still missing, and now, as if all of this wasn't already bad enough, this morning Lucy told him that Auntie Beth is coming to stay.

So long, summer...

A scruffy old double-decker bus screeches into the lay-by, and he rises to his feet as all of the other kids begin to pile onboard. He is the last to begrudgingly take to the grimy step, and the doors close behind him as he walks a few paces along the lower deck to find a seat. After it dawns on him that they are all taken, he begins to panic a little. It feels like every pair of eyes on the bus is staring him down.

"Upstairs, please!" bellows the driver, as the bus begins to judder forward and merge into the traffic. There is a giggle from the lower deck as Felix almost loses his balance reaching for the metal handrail to assist in his wobbly ascent of the curved staircase. It is just as noisy on the upper deck.