mångata
the word for the glimmering, road-like reflection that the moon creates on water
Luke Hemmings had always enjoyed being read to, whether it was his mum or his dad reading him bedtime stories, or his brothers stumbling through their school books when they were younger, or his primary school teacher reading the class exciting stories about knights and princesses and dragons and animals that could talk.
Luke remembers how, as a kid, his favourite book had always been Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland. He remembers how he’d snuggle up under his blue striped duvet in his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pyjamas with Squishy the Penguin clutched tightly under one arm (Luke refuses to allow anyone to judge him on the soft toy’s name on account of the fact that he was three when he named it), and he remembers the way Ben and Jack would clamber onto the bed to listen too, even though they would frequently inform Liz that they were too old to be read bedtime stories. (Luke remembers how that didn’t stop them from staying though).
Luke remembers how he’d always loved Lewis Carroll’s Alice books for pretty much his entire life so far, except for that one year when he was about thirteen and had discovered South Park for the first time. (Then he spent most of his time giggling helplessly in his room with Calum Hood and Michael Clifford on the rare occasions that the oldest boy would stop sulking long enough, sneakily watching the programme on Luke’s dad Andrew’s old VCR on a tape that Ben had given to Luke in exchange for his brand new Pokemon game. (That still stung).)
Luke remembers this one particular quote he’d found of Lewis Carroll, and he can still remember – even now – excitedly typing out the quote in theugliest, most garish yellow writing on Word Art that he could find and printing it out with their ancient printer before he pinned it to the ceiling above his bed.
(Luke remembers how it fell down from the ceiling when he was about fourteen, the corners crumbled away and the pins still firmly jammed into the plaster above Luke’s head, and Luke remembers sellotaping the old piece of paper to the back cover of the lyric book he always carried around with him so that Luke would always have it close if he wanted to read it.)
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.
Lewis Carroll
Luke remembers spending a whole lot of time thinking about that quote while they were touring, whether they were travelling on a plane or on Gus the tour bus, or even if they had just stopped to refuel or buy a drink from a petrol station somewhere.
Luke remembers how Michael and Calum would smile indulgently and mutter about Luke being “away with the fairies again”, and he remembers how Ashton Irwin’s gaze would always become a whole lot more intense when he realised that Luke was “still thinking about that damn road quote”.
Luke remembers how, after they opened the last show of One Direction’s Where We Are Tour, something changed between him and Ash.
Luke remembers how the pair had been on their own as they wandered back towards their dressing room – Calum and Michael had already ran on ahead and, if Luke listened carefully, he could still hear their laughter as they sprayed each other with their water bottles – and Luke let himself drift off into his own head again, his blond hair damp against his forehead from a combination of rain, the contents of Michael’s water bottle, and, more unpleasantly but not entirely unexpectedly, sweat.
Luke remembers how Ash had given his shoulder a gentle shake and murmured: “Lukey?”
(Only Ash is allowed to call Luke that. When Mikey uses the nickname, he just sounds patronising and Calum only ever says it when he’s taking the piss out of Luke. So it’s just Ashton, and rightly so.)
