It was still early morning. The sun blazed
baldly like a lie its heat only beginning the journey down to earth. He stretched his arms up so his fingers tipped it in the sky. Daddy smoked a cigarette and sipped tea from
the flask. They had a bar each even
though they hadn’t done any work yet. Daddy
screwed the wrapper into a silver ball and flicked it on the ground. Kai picked it up and put it in a plastic bag
that was now their official bin.
A lone call of distress came warbling
across the bog. It bubbled and wavered,
spooky and sad. ‘That’ll be a curlew’ said John-Joe, Kai strained into the distance
without seeing it. He jumped on the spot to stop from shivering.
Then
later
Insects skated lazily across the scum
surface of the ditch water. He poured water from his bottle to disturb the
stagnant film. It broke to drifting
islands of filth. He examined his callouses, his split and bleeding finger
joints and his blackened nails.
Sandwiches tasted better in the bog.
Not Nature
Then the city, not its redbrick and
cobblestone centre but its ring roads and tunnels, auto dealers and factories,
storage depots and cranes, the giant containers strewn along the roadside to
the docks. The air was tangy with salt,
not fresh like at the seaside but astringent, corroding the iron of the man made
monsters bleeding them in rivulets of rust.
