by Philip Berry
Amy, 11, couldn’t know how the day would end. In the sharp metallic hour as the first train rolled in, ideas danced and hope thrummed. While thickening rivulets of opinion moved calmly among the city’s sand-blasted flanks and reflective skins, father could not see what the streets held. Nor could mother sense the rising threat, her gaze tipped up to the playful phrase daubed in thick brushstrokes the night before.
This tight trio, held fast by nuclear forces, was most comfortable at the margins. They followed the stream but were adjacent to it, free to pause, observe, comment and judge. Amy absorbed the rebel-sound. It drummed her lungs, tweaked the roots of her hair and enlarged her mind. But just as slow moving leaves and twigs are snagged at the river’s edge, so Amy was pushed against a Kevlar clad thorn of the state.
Trying merely to steer her, he pressed too hard on the crook of her arm. Amy’s knees buckled in fright. Mother threw down her placard. Father reached out with his own white-collared hand, unconscious of the law’s fixed etiquette. It skimmed the vise that appeared to crush Amy’s young bones, and struck the policeman’s cheek. Angered, momentarily unrestrained by his training, this nameless organ thrust out a second palm. Blood sprung from the centre of father’s face as though under pressure, boiled by this unaccustomed flight from apathy.
Floored, father gasped for breath; the blood bubbled and popped above his chuffing nostrils. Mother fell to her knees. The clever words, black paint still moist, were abandoned, quickly punctured by a hundred heels. Standing alone, released, Amy looked down. The two pillars of her life lay broken, weeping and bleeding. She looked back up, to the reinforced chest, rising and falling, tight with anxiety, and above that hard convexity, an angular profile seeking validation from those around him.
Others stopped, shocked at the sight. They formed a shield of bowed backs. A scarf was unwound to wipe away the worst and restore father’s features. His pale lips trembled. The couple were helped to their feet. The trio slipped through a tight junction in the human wall and walked away.
On the train, the city blurred and oblivious to society’s great divide, Amy sat in awed silence. She felt a splinter settle within her chest. The icy pain was soon dulled by body heat and the double embrace of her shattered parents. The splinter came to lie alongside the pulsing chambers of her heart.
As the splinter dissolves and its passionate molecules are released, Amy will keep a part of herself hidden. In adulthood she will become the convener of meetings and an architect of protest. Facing columns of reaction, she will touch the place that was crushed between finger and thumb and grow heavier with resolve. She will cut through barriers and disrupt the complacent. When she hears the murmur of like minds gathering in the streets, she will be strengthened by the rebel-sound and will throw her voice to the front. Marked for life, she will not stop until the argument is won.
Philip’s CNF and flash have appeared in DNA Magazine, Re-side, Lucent Dreaming and Hypnopomp among others. He lives in London, works as a doctor, and also enjoys writing poetry. His work can be explored at www.philberrycreative.wordpress.com or @philaberry.