----EC1---ep4----

Isabella

I’m now completely sick of people whining about Mandela. I posted a quote when I got in from class last night, a quote from my favorite speech. This morning I wake up to arguments underneath it, questions about his politics?

I turned the computer off and transferred the quote into my diary, along with my overly average date with Nicolas. I usually start my morning with some stretching, music or cleaning, but I couldn’t escape it. Nicolas was as un-moved as I when we left each other at the gate last night.

Beneath my window, commuters line up at chicken shops to stuff their faces on the bar stools before work. They cover the tables in sauce and clear their wrappers into diabetic bins. They argue. I aim to sidestep it, but walking to work I’m delayed by another loud protest. I would like to see some of these occupy kids on the streets of Africa or India even.  

…

I walk into the coffee house and hear Carl hovering behind the till, “She won’t actually come, and if she does, I will know she’s...”

He doesn’t notice me till I am literally pushing up behind him.

“She just might Carl, I expect she's attached”

Linda see’s me and gives me the stoned smile,

“Hi hun. How was Nicolas then?”

I nod it off, she’s more interested in the full-scale breakdown behind. Carl has dropped the coffee tray and bends over the burnt scrapings mumbling.

“I can’t be dealing with this guys, not today, not today”

Linda leans back from the sink.

“Come on babe. Ask Isabel what you asked me.”

Carl has finished his bad job on the floor and hurries to the front entrance,

“If she comes in, I’m not here”

Linda leans her head out the kitchen.

“Ask Isabel Carl”

He looks over at me, his lanky frame bouncing from foot to foot.

“Ok, yeah. If you woke up next to a strange man Isabel. Would you decide to follow him into work the next day”.

Linda laughs, looking over to me with the, oh how hopeless he is eyes. The one's we use more often now we’ve both slept with him.

“Uh, probably no”

I say. Linda laughs.

“It’s not really like that though is it?”

Carl has stopped bouncing and walks in long strides to the counter,

“Yeah, I kinda invited her then I guess”

I pat the short black stubble of his chin and he squeezes behind me.

 “Seriously Isabel, if she comes in, I’m guna fucking drop down here, behind this thing, and I’m guna make this sign with my hands”

Carl points his thumbs and forefingers in a V-shape up at me.

“And what should I do?”

He leans over the counter at eye level with me.

“If I do that Isabel, and make that sign. You fucking carry on making the coffee like it’s all cool.”

I smile.

“Don’t laugh, this my life right here.”

Linda comes out of the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands on a pile of serviettes.

“Tell her the best part Carlos.”

Carl holds a finger up to her mouth to stop her speaking. She fights it off,

“Go on Carlos, tell her the absolute best part.”

She grabs a coffee stirrer from the side and holds it like a knife towards him. Carl grabs her by the sides and pulls her body in front of him to hide from me. He pokes his head out from behind the slender brown shoulder.

“She told me she was suicidal”

“What?”

“I know”

“Crazy bitch. I’m in it, I’m like, inside of her. And we’re fucking, and her face starts to get all screwed up and she’s shaking and that, and I’m thinking it’s on you know. And she’s going and going, and she grabs me round the back of the neck, pulls my ear to her mouth like she’s about to explode, and then fucking whispers it”

At this point Linda bursts out laughing and Carl looks about as lost as I’ve ever seen him.

“And what happened then?”

The six-foot male shakes his head like a confused toddler.

“I don’t know. I mean, I think she came, but I’m not sure. It was messed up man. Like messed”

5 hours later

“Can I get a skinny mocha and one of those Panini things from up there yes?”

The afternoon rush and as usual we’re low on milk. I look sideways for Carl but he’s not fucking there, then I feel a tug on my foot.

“That is her Isabel, that’s her”

Carl throws the sign up at my heels like a dog. And yes, joining the back of the line, a skinny tall chick with no breasts and last nights clothes on. I continue to serve customers while the overgrown ignant hides beneath my feet gesturing humorous apologies.

As the woman comes closer, I watch. 35 maybe, her left heel tapping the wooden floor like a woodpecker. When she reaches the till, she keeps her eyes to her phone screen and speaks the order quickly. And then they flash up to mine,

“And is, um, is Carl there?”

I’m expecting it yes, but still caught off guard. I step back and look down, Carl squeezing his eyes closed at my feet.

“Um, Carl. Uh, no, no I haven’t seen him in today. Sorry, a black coffee was it?”

The woman looks back to her phone, her voice shaking slightly.

“He’s not here? He said he would be here till 8:00 today”

I hide my face behind the machine and run a load of empty steam into the cup.

“Yeah, I no, it’s weird, he was supposed to be here today. Maybe he got held up on the way or something.”

Carl pulls on my leg hard.

“No, no, actually. I think his sister was pregnant, yeah. Yeah, his sister was due today I think.”

I laugh nervously and watch the thick black liquid dribble into the cup

“He must have got the call maybe. Milk?”

The woman looks up at me, white faced and wide eyed.

“No, no milk”

She holds my eyes. She can see it, her nostrils flaring out in deep breaths.

“You tell him. I need to talk to him today ok. You tell him him, I’ll be waiting for his call”

I pass the burning cup across the counter top.

“I will tell him”

3 hours later.

“Why are you pissed at me?”

Carl has quit stacking his side of the room to concentrate on the question.

“You haven’t spoke to me all afternoon, you’re pissed off, why?”

I complete my side and look down the neat stacks of chairs beside their tables.

“I’m not pissed off at you Carl, are you going to finish that?”

I start on his side,

“I can hear it in the fucking stacking Isabel. I really would rather apologise to you. If you can tell me what it is”

The annoying thing is, as I cannot be bothered to answer, I can see Carl telling the story, telling his friends tonight that he shouldn’t fuck girls he works with because they only get fucking crazy. And then even worse, telling himself, that I’m probably just jealous. I still want him.

Carl walks over and stands in front of me, shouting up into the ceiling dramatically.

“Linda can you come out here urgently please”

Linda walks from the kitchen and stands crossed arms at the counter.

“This is an employee dispute Linda, and seen as you are the manager, and thus HR directive, I believe it is your business, and that”

She leans back and cracks up, covering her mouth with the dishcloth in that sweet European way she does.

“Carl I’m very busy ok, can you please get on with it?”

Carl holds up his finger,

“Yes. Finally, and with you as my witness, I can state, that the problem I believe to be occurring with employee Isabel over there.”

He points the finger to me.

“Is that she has some kind of problem with me sleeping around with girls, or having one night stands, or something of like that”

I can feel Linda turning to me with that fucking hopeless smile again. Carl shouts on.

“Am I right Isabel?”

He shakes his finger in the air and I keep my eyes to the floor and speak slowly.

“I haven’t done anything Carl. You have started shouting, instead of finishing your work.”

I can only hope that Linda has picked up on the lack of humour in my voice, although as she laughs and starts to speak, it seems she hasn’t.

“Um, Carl. I’m going to have to say, that there is not enough evidence for your claim, so, stand down”

Carl grows louder,

“No”

He moves closer to me, shaking his finger out in front.

“I will not be silenced. I have further evidence… listen up.

He turns his body three sixty, holding his hands up to the air.

It seems to me, and anyone in this court who isn’t fucking blind, that ever since me and Isabel here, sorry, I and Isabel- spent the night together. Which I add, was her idea. She has been shitty with me at many points and over many indecipherable issues. What I conclude, and what I am saying, judge Linda- is that the incident today was just another of these… catalysts. Another of these reasons for Mary here- to act unfairly against me”

As Carl ends the speech he stamps his foot down on the floorboards, shaking the room. I don’t know what Linda looks like now. I can’t look up cause Carl’s finger hovers right there. I can’t take the silence.

“Are you going to let him speak like that at me Linda?”

I ask her. And then I do have to look, look over at Linda. And she still has some kind of grin in her eyes. She gestures openly to me with her hand as she speaks.

“Ok, to finish this. Isabel, is this about when you fucked Carl?”

As the words leave her mouth, Linda lifts her eyebrows in a question, but I can’t answer. I can only grab my coat from behind the counter and show them as little of my face as I get out of there. And I find myself in tears on the busy street.

….

The students are out throwing cash into the dark night, but as soon as I escape into the city blocks, I’m alone. The wind is cold against my face. I see a male figure in a dark jacket cross the street. The wind bites at me, bites at my face and tears. The wind is chill, it claws at my face and bites at my red-stained cheeks.

I like the emptiness of these streets at the weekends. The glass towers look down on me, their raindrops heavy with my own pain. I ride the escalator into the belly of one of these beasts, onto the overland concrete walkways to my flat. I want to be in my home, alone, to write, and Linda can keep the rest.

The concrete above me stops the rain but the night is cold. I can see my breath in the amber light. From around a blind corner, I can see the end of a box, like a picnic container, then an arm and a figure. I hurry past. I listen. It’s silent but for the distant traffic, then I hear the step begin behind me, echoing from the concrete tunnels.

The figure follows me through the maze, the box swinging at my ankles ‘till we reach my door. And I continue past, eyeing the warm hallway and my post on the mat. He is there, right behind, to grab for my keys could be suicide. I’m shaken.

I pull out the mobile. The screen lights up, 4 missed calls, if they’re fucking Linda, at least I can tell her. But it’s not Linda. The name fills the screen. ‘Nicolas Brazil’. I see the texts, 3 of them, to come round. I steady my breathing, picturing the lights of the roundabout and Nicolas’s tall figure waiting for me. I picture the roundabout and walk fast through the concrete corridors, forgetting the sound of the steps till I drop down the stairs and back onto street level.

30 minutes later

On the roundabout, the building stretches above me, seeming taller from below. I key in Nicolas’s room number and hold the buzzer. “Hello”, he answers, drunk.

“Nicolas? It’s Isabel I’m here, you coming down?” He sounds distracted, slurring. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll buzz you in”. The door goes and I push into the heated lobby. It is silent in here, the streets outside a world away. I watch the numbers descending from 100 to ground.

-----EC1--ep3-----

Malick 

The men open up to show an old one hunched over the rocks behind. His body is bent and his open palm reaches on a long skinny arm into the air.

I keep my eyes on the knife.

The old man lifts his head, his long grey beard brushing across the rock below. He looks up at me, his dirt covered face, his nose and mouth lost in the wrinkles.

“Come closer.”

The old man says. The man with the knife steps between us,

“What’s he…?”

He bounces his weight and waves the knife beneath his chin,

“It’s like you were saying Crent, they come here easy, but what is, I mean, what’s it that they are, they’re here for?”

The old man brings up his palm again. He nods his head towards me.

 “I thought there could be shelter?”

The man with the knife leans forward and waves it.

“There’s shelters out there you blind fuck.”

The old man rises to his feet,

 “Stand back.”

And then quieter,

“A kid could be useful.”

…

The old figure climbs forward through the rubble to meet me. His body is crooked and bent but he moves with light feet, balancing over the rocks like an insect.

“I am Crent.”

In his other arm the man holds a short stick with a metal top, he raises the stick and points it at the group.

“Mark, Carlton and Dave.”

The two black men nod over at me, one of them heavy, the other African looking and as tall and slim as a streetlight. Mark twists the knife in his grip and smiles over.

“Don’t mind him, he’s eager.”

The younger of the black men laughs deeply.

“Yeah, his father was a purple- slurper if you know.”

The kid wears a huge black jacket and rubs his hands across his belly.

“Daddy was a pogo player.”

Mark looks over at him.

“Alright, i'll chill, daddy weren’t a pogo sticker, nah nah, daddy didn't like pogo's at all.”

….

I could hear the dogs somewhere across the yard- as the evening came in and the men argued about a thick plastic sheet before hooking it over the camp and lighting a fire beneath. Crent pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and held it before them. A black and white print out with pictures of a building front across it. The men closed in, passing the sheet around in low whispers. Mark continued to finger his knife and I left for more wood. 

....

It is halfway across the dirt yard that I can see the animals, or one of them, a large orange muscle stalking the front of the cage. The outline is sharp, nothing like a dog. As I approach, the smaller ones come forward and press their pointed noises against the cage. The colour of them, the way they move together- these animals are more like wolves.

“Shit-mutt scavenger foxes.”

Mark walks out in front of me and bends to pick up a stick from beside the cage. The animals separate, the smallest ones falling back, the rest meeting him with a wall of wet teeth.

Mark weights the stick between his hands, teasing the cage. But the lead fox remains still, his long teeth dripping in a deep growl.

Mark lets the stick rest in his right hand like a fire poker. He looks over to me, pleased. Then he jumps forward, stabbing the weapon through the fence grates hard.

The smaller animals are rolled by the spike and sent backwards injured, but the lead fox fights on. Out stepping the man, pre-guessing him. 

With the hits that do find the target, the animal is toppled and dragged, releasing a soft whine through the pit yard.  

“You have to show them who’s the boss.”

Mark looks over at me, his arm stabbing blindly like a child. 

He pauses, the stick leans heavy on his arm. He pulls his jacket sleeve down and switches the stick to the fresh hand. The stick hovers for a second between the grips. 

The fox strikes, bringing his teeth down, setting his weight over the wood and dragging his body back into the cage.

Mark grabs for the sliding stick, the smaller animals racing forward to his feet.

“Fucking shits.”

The animals collect their prize, clawing along the woods length. Mark walks to the side of the cage and grabs a piece of wire resting on the ground. He pulls it, the other end trailing a metal bowl of water out of the fox-cage and into his hands. He flips the bowl and throws it to the side, watching the water spill out across the ground. The smaller animals jump to lap at the disappearing remnants.

“Dinnertime.”

Mark holds my eyes as he walks past. I turn to look at the shaken cage. The lead fox has laid neatly around the back corner, the smaller animals hidden beneath. The animal is still, staring upwards at the high boundaries of the yard. I can hear her young shivering beneath.  

PRESS ME for fox interlude, I do hope they'll ride again some day...

 

 …

Crent points to a space beside the flames.

“You can sleep there.”

He waves a hand at the men and they walk to the boundary fence and disappear over it, the fat boy struggling loudly against the silence of the yard.

“I can help you Malick.”

He sits down across from me, leaning his bony body over the stick,

“But you are young.”

The metal top catches the firelight,

“And you look lost.”

I circle my hand in the dirt

“Ok Malick. What about this. I think you can help me.”

He leans towards me,

“I will tell you how you can help me, and then if you need something in return, you will let me know.”

His body is twisted in the light, the bones look like they will come out of the skin,

“But you can't tell no one.”

I nod.
"A deal"
Crent reaches into his pocket and removes the crumpled print out,

“A genius plan.”

He laughs low,

“A fuckin teetering, thought-switching plan”

He coughs and spits on the floor beside him.

 “But we need a fifth man…”

Crent stands up as straight as he can and points a ringed finger towards me,

“We fuckin need you soldier.”

His laugh crackles, forcing him over again in fits. 
"You"
Crent holds his face up to the sky, producing another large ball of spit into the air. He has stopped laughing and sat down. The ball lands on the ground between us, wobbling against the fire like a wet slug.
……

It is dark and freezing. A white hand braces against my neck

“Don’t even sneeze.”

It wets my ear. I can feel something cold against my neck, pressing into my skin. Mark twists the knife across the light of the low embers.

“Up.”

The other men are asleep only metres from us. Crent is still sitting but his eyes are shut and his stick lays bedside him on the floor.

“Walk.”

The blade presses against me. Mark leads us over to the left hand corner of the dirt yard and leans a knee into my back.

“I have to teach you something.”

The blade hovers over my throat. Mark pulls my arm back towards him so my hand bends against his chest. He is breathing hard, his body shaking with the effort.

“Who then?”

He pushes the knee harder into my back.

“I’m not blind Malick, or a dumb fuck.”

I can hear the fox stalking in its cage behind us.

“The fucking church, that fucking soupy bitch.”

The fox’s breath is low and calm. Mark grabs both my wrists so my head drops into the dirt. He pulls them together behind my back. The knife has disappeared. He lifts my shirt up over my back. I struggle, the blade's tip scraping me somewhere to the side of my spine. Mark breaths hard, mumbling. The blade scratches across my skin, then pierces in with a jolt of pain,

“Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes”

I struggle. I whine. I can feel the warm blood, the pain folding as the knife runs through my skin. My eyes are shut. The image of her body screams.

“I’m looking for her.”

 Saliva dribbles through my teeth. The pain slows.

“I’m looking for my mother.”

Mark relaxes his grip on me for a second.

“You’ve pissed yourself you lame bitch.”

He laughs. The tip of the knife presses into my back, Mark's voice spits again,

“you lame fucking bitch, you pretty little fuck, I'm not so easy.”

My head feels light. The fox’s breath quivers. Then the place explodes into noise.

…

Crent stands over me.

“More comfortable over here was it kid?”

It’s freezing and the yard is filled with fresh light. My trousers and back are wet. The black kid calls at me from across the yard laughing,

“You like foxes do you man, that’s cool. You can like foxes if you like foxes, hell you should've met his mother.”

Mark glances over at me across his shoulder, pushing something deep into his bag.

Crent empties a water bottle into the metal bowl behind my head and places it carefully into the cage.

“It’s time to get up kid.”

I can hear the foxes lapping it up,

“ Take a look at this guy.”

I turn my head and Crent stands beside the cage, stroking his knuckles across the fighter's head.

“We could do with him in there today.”

He drops something from his fist and starts back to the other men. The fox jumps over it and sinks in his teeth. Crent walks away bent, then pauses. He taps his stick to the dirt and turns slowly to catch my eye,

“Don't be worried about today uh kid. You Just stay next to me and keep your eyes on that fucking lift.”

-----EC1--ep2-----

EC1-Malick

It must be the second week now and it has rained almost every day. I haven’t felt it today, but it’s colder... My clothes, my sleeping bag are soaked. The wind blows up rubbish from last night that rolls across the floor and over me. An item catches and flags loudly. I undo the drawstring to see the plastic bag free itself and bounce away towards the wall. A black boot passes by in front and I hear two coins drop to the pavement. 

 I climb from the wet. It’s a Sunday. The people walk down to the market, where I am going later, but not for food or clothes. I am going because last time I was there, I saw something.

A man walking ahead of me, eyes down, homeless- I don’t know how far I would have followed, but he reached up and grabbed something: a high metal railing like a building site. The man pulled himself over in one movement and dropped away unseen. His coat was torn, his shoes were mudded- it must be some kind of shelter or hiding place, anywhere but here now.

…

The woman comes towards me behind two rows of buses. She might be on the street herself. She wears a heavy black coat, pulling down the fur-lined hood as she skips between traffic. The package is brown and she holds it towards me.

“You want this?”

It must be food. The bag is warm and see-through with grease. I take it and she crouches over me, resting her rucksack in her lap.

“You slept here last night did you?”

I nod. The woman reaches a thin arm into her bag and pulls out a black container. She twists off the lid and places it in front of me. The water is dark and it steams as it pours.

“You know there is a hostel round the corner?”

I keep my head over the hot pastry. She leans across, looking over at my possessions in the box beside me,

“You look young.”

I shake my head and push the box behind me.

“Where’s your mother hey?”

I take another large bite, burning my mouth as I chew.

“Come with me, we'll go find her yeah."

The woman waves backwards towards the tube station and I see scars across the insides of each arm. She sits down next to me and smiles. I pull my sleeping bag over my legs.

“Don’t be scared of me uh, it isn’t me you need to watch for yeah.”

She slides my things towards her, I grab at the box but she holds its sides with a strong hand and picks through.

“Toothbrush. Hair gel, yeah. Uh, passport.”

She opens up the picture and I hold myself from grabbing her.
“I see you ‘Malick Merkali…’. It isn’t me you have to worry about no, get that.”

I snatch it. The woman smiles up at me, stretching the tight skin of her neck and face,

“You’ve come a long way, I wouldn’t come so far to be sleeping on the fuckin roadway.”

She stares straight at me,

“I know a place where it’s warm if you want to...”

I grab my sleeping bag and roll it into a ball, stand up and walk away but the box drops from my grip and cartwheels sideways in the wind. I chase it, clasping it into my body. I can hear the woman coughing behind,

“You cant just run from me Malick, you wouldn’t know how, too fresh smellin, I’d find you.”

Her shoes click across the pavement in the gaps of the wind. I reach the road and run across, a car horn beeping behind, the woman is forced to wait. Maybe I have lost her.

Last night between the raindrops on my sleeping bag and the shouts of another drunkard on the street, I had seen things in my sleep again. Warm beneath the covers of a bed sheet, a white maze of folds that stretched out, out towards my mother resting limply an arm length away.

I turned across the hard pavement, or a bus broke beside me and she was gone. The folds were dark, I couldn’t breathe; her voice grew further as I turned. She called for my father, cursed him, her voice changed, more like an animal: the sound of an engine, I couldn’t breathe…

 The busy high street rolls by with café’s, taxi offices and Internet shops as we fight against the first rain. She has caught me, the woman. I hear the clicking of her shoes, feel her head behind my shoulder.

“Where you going Malick?”

I ignore her, the voice shifting from one shoulder to the other.

“Shopping centers, car parks…no I got it.”  

She pulls the coat tightly around her throat,

“A favourite bridge.”

She looks down to her feet to keep pace with me,

“There’s no need yeah, I know a place, let’s stop in here and you can get some cigarettes yeah… let me show you this place, just round the corner. It’s got everything, sofa, fridge, T.V. Hey, hey Malick, you seen fifteen-minute meals yet?”

Her voice rises upwards,

“This chubby little short man making all these different dishes, all these plates of food yeah, the best food you’ve ever seen, and all in fifteen minutes. And he doesn’t even put it on plates, no, he puts it all on boards and then his friends come in and eat it in huge...”

A dog steps out in front of me and I almost trip as I dodge beside it.

“We could watch it, we could.”

Between the drops of rain on the sleeping bag, or a turn across the hard pavement, the shutters of a closing shop front, my fathers figure had risen before my dreams again and stretched above us.

 He looked down across my mother. And his ringed fist came down. She was crying out.

I swerve and the woman’s face is right below me now, still talking,

“It’s like this holiday show yeah, you’d probably know the places where you're from. Only the people are going to buy a house, and they take this woman with them, who’s a giant, but she’s an expert in houses and she shows them round, but at the end they just go home, but it’s good.”

Finally the high street ends and we cross the road to the pathway. I can see the small stone building sitting alone in the middle of the park, it looks empty- I head for it.

“Where are we going?”

And she was gone, my mother gone again. And my fathers grip shut black around me and I woke in the loudness of my sleeping bag and prayed for morning.

Because in the freezing night above, I could still feel him: his body standing over me, his eyes burning down, the heavy hand searching across the city.  
...  

I am three-steps, two-steps, one-step from the door. I push in. The toilet smells of cleaning liquid and urine, then the door flies back and she’s there again, shaking off the rain.

“Jesus mate, I bet you don’t even know who Sisqo is.”

She dances in a circle round the floor, taking off her jacket. I pull my toothbrush from the box and look up into the mirror. My face has a new layer of dirt. I run the tap and splash a handful of cold water over. The woman has pulled her skirt up and sits on the sink next to me, if she does not leave, I am afraid I will have to push her out. She takes something from her bag and rubs it over her lips. I look over at her, our faces are close; I see the yellow of her face, the black smudges under her eyes. She hovers the makeup and squeezes her lips together,

“I’m Britney.”

She is looking straight up at me again, her lips blood red and twice the size. She holds out a thin hand and shows the painted red teeth in a wide smile,

“Britney Dasani Teriyaki Edmonds.”

Her laughter echoes through the brick room like a pack of dogs. She drops her bag from the washing top and it spills across the floor, rubbish-paper and coins. She collects it quickly. I wash the dirt from my brush and begin cleaning.

“Malick? Malick?”

I rub another hand of water over my face and look over. She is looking at me funny,

“D’you think I am pretty Malick?”

I look back into the mirror, run the tap and splash another larger burst of water across my face. That’s when I feel her cold arms, wrapped over my shoulders. Her skeleton cold arms, and her breath wet in my ear,

“D’you think I am pretty Malick?”

Her lips are warm on my shoulder. Her grasp tightens.

“Kiss me then, kiss me before I kiss you.”

I close my eyes and turn around, shaking her light body off. She falls to the floor, her thin frame wedged between the cubicles. She holds her leg, a red gash across the knee.

“You’ve hurt me haven’t you?”

The voice is soft like a wounded animal, then her face changes,

“You’ve hurt me haven’t you Malick?”

She shifts her weight back onto her arms, a high-pitched scream,

“You’ve hurt me.”

I grab my box and sleeping bag and make for the door, tripping over the outstretched leg and falling out into the bitter stillness of the park. As the door swings closed behind me, I hear the voice again.

“You’ve hurt me Malick, you’ve bloody hurt me haven’t you.”

It echoes out from the thin windows of the cabin, anger and laughter. This is the fastest I have run.

…
In the market street the stalls huddle between the grey buildings stretching away into the distance. A tapestry of coloured sheets that fight against the rain- steam rising in puffs above the sea of bobbing heads. 

Over-ripe vegetables, stolen bicycles and cheap Chinese food: these crowds are dangerous but they’re warm, and I can see the fence in the distance ahead.

I lean my back against it, let the crowds pass. Nobody looks. I reach a hand up like the man yesterday. My reach is short. I pull my hood up, clawing on tiptoes to reach the cold metal and scramble my weight over. I lift my head, frozen for a second, my face desperate above the crowds.

I drop onto the wet mud beneath and scramble through the hole in the wood. The noise, the crowd has gone. I free the ripped jumper strands and turn to view the mud-land before me. A group of five or six figures stand across a pile of broken rubble to my left. One of them steps out, a large white man in muddy cargo pants and laced leather boots. I catch his eyes and he pulls out a short knife and smiles to me.

From behind the huddle, a dirtied palm rises slowly into the air. The knife pauses in the still silence.

“Wait”