YOU TOO CAN BE A WASTE OF TIME | ✓

▬ 09: DON'T LOOK A DOG IN THE EYES

               A tap leaks. Its steady drip echoes in the bathtub. I'm safe inside it as henna-decorated hands detangle my hair. She hums a tune, not one I recognise. Then stops abruptly. 'Remember, Cecilio, only girls draw butterflies.'

At her words, the one in my hands —a brilliant cobalt blue— takes off. 'Wait!' I try to catch it but it spirals easily past my fingers and settles onto the aquamarine wall tiles. 'Why'd you—?' The question dies in my throat when I turn to the voice.

There's no face, no head. No body. The arms cut off at the bicep, float in mid-air as though their owner is wearing an invisibility cloak.

The tap beside the hands is shut. Brass: not the one from Claremont Children's Home. No leak. What's dripping into the basin is a knocked-over bottle of Tesco Everyday Value vodka. Drip, drip, drip, it ricochets in my bones.

Even in the absence of a head, the voice is sedative. 'Your mum's not coming back. She doesn't want you.'

As though they've been waiting for their cue at the corners of my eyes, tears flood down my cheeks. I turn back to the butterfly, but it's gone. The aquamarine bathroom tiles have flown so far away I can't make out the checkers of the grout.

The snug enamel walls of the bathtub stretch. Not a bathtub.

A pool.

By some miracle, I'm afloat. On my back, limbs spread out, my small body is relaxed as I stare up.

There's no ceiling. I don't think there's a sky either. Whatever darkness rises to infinity above me is alive — no, dead but conscious. Though I can't see as much as a pinprick in it, I know it's moving. It hums as it does, not the mechanical kind of overheated laptop fans or cheap refrigerators but the rush of millions upon millions of hornets.

Summat drips onto my cheek and I flinch. Is it raining? Another hits my eyelid, trickles into my lashes. I don't wipe it away. I can't swim. Somehow I know that whatever magic keeps me afloat will break if I move. If I move a muscle, I'll drown.

A third drop falls to my lips and it seeps between them to coat my tongue and it's not water at all.

It's blood.

'Your mum doesn't want you.'

I cover my face. Mistake: plummet.

Struggling to keep my face above water, I thrash. I've seen people swim in movies. I can mimic the way their arms ladle their bodies forward. But all four walls stretch out for miles now and my arms are already tired.

As I watch, I realise there are silhouettes lining the edge of the pool and hope rushes through my muscles. Help me! I try to scream but no sound comes out. Why won't any of them help me? They stand still as statues, move only to blink. Eyes glowing red.

A flash of blue. The butterfly flutters past.

Except it's only a soggy A4 floating on the surface of the pool with butterflies I drew at age twelve. I reach for it still. I need to get it back. Everything will be fine if I get it back.

Each gasp for air pierces a new ring nail through my trachea. My arms scream in agony. Either my brain bloats or my skull shrinks. My teeth might fall out. Blood storms from the hissing void above, hammering the surface of the water until it burns scarlet.

There's no time for any of that. I splash after the butterfly.

But tarsal claws clamp to my shoulders.