by Kevin Brooks
‘Come on,’ I said eventually. ‘We’ve got to do something. We can’t go on like this. It’s killing us.’
Bird laughed. ‘Yeah, right. Good idea. Do something.’
‘Linus is right,’ mumbled Anja.
Bird gave her a cold stare. ‘You think so?’
Anja lowered her eyes.
Bird shook his head. ‘The last time we tried doing something it didn’t work out too well, did it?’ He looked at me. ‘If we hadn’t done anything then, we wouldn’t be suffering now.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ I said. ‘You want me to apologize? OK, I apologize. I’m sorry I tried to get us out of here. Please forgive me.’
Bird rolled his eyes.
I really hate that bastard. It’s not just him, although he’s bad enough, it’s everything he represents. Commuter man. Suit man. Business man. Always moaning and whingeing about something, never satisfied. The train’s late, it’s too cold, I’m so tired. They’re all the same, like full-grown babies in suits. Toys in their briefcases, trains instead of bikes, wives instead of mothers, beer instead of milk … you know what I mean? It’s like they’ve grown up into nothing more than twisted children. They’ve taken their childhood, taken all the nice stuff, and turned it into crap. It really annoys me. I don’t know why, it just does. People like Bird, I see them every day … I used to see them every day, when I was busking around the station. I used to see the way they looked at me, like I was nothing, a piece of shit. And I used to think – I could buy you. I could buy everything you own forty times over, so don’t look at me like that.
And I think that’s what sickened me the most. I hated the way they turned me into one of them.
Back to the table.
So Bird’s rolling his eyes at me, giving me that piece-of-shit look, and it’s really starting to annoy me. I’m about to say something to him when Jenny tugs at my hand and whispers something in my ear.
‘What?’ I say.
‘Tell Him you’re sorry,’ she whispers.
‘I just did –’
‘No, not Bird.’ She glances upwards. ‘Him, The Man Upstairs.’
I look at her. ‘Sorry?’
‘That’s what He wants.’
Bird leans across the table. ‘What’s she saying?’
I ignore him. I can’t stop smiling at Jenny.
‘Hey,’ says Bird, slapping his hand on the table. I glare at him. His face is ugly and red. He says, ‘You yapping to your girlfriend or talking to me?’
I lean across the table and punch him in the head.
Meeting adjourned.
I’ve done what Jenny suggested. I’ve apologized to The Man Upstairs. I wrote another note. It wasn’t hard. It’s easy to say sorry, especially when you don’t mean it. Please forgive me for trying to escape, I wrote. I promise I won’t do it again and I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused. I realize it was a selfish thing to do. I’m genuinely sorry. Please don’t punish us any more. Linus.
I put the note with a shopping list and placed it in the lift.
I felt like a little kid sending a note to Santa. He doesn’t believe in Santa, this little kid, but what harm can it do? What’s he got to lose?
Note to The Man Upstairs: if you are reading this, please ignore the bit about not meaning it when I said I was sorry. I am sorry. Really. I was only pretending when I said I didn’t mean it. I was just showing off. You know, trying to act tough.
OK?
Of course, if you’re not reading this …
Thursday, 23 February
I’ve spent the whole day wallowing in self-pity. I don’t know what’s brought it on all of a sudden. Nothing terrible has happened, nothing out of the ordinary. I just woke up feeling really shitty. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. In fact, I quite like feeling sorry for myself. It’s got a warm, kind of snuggly feel to it. And it’s not a bad thing to feel, is it? I don’t think it is. As long as you keep it to yourself, I think self-pity is fine.
Of course, strictly speaking, I’m not keeping it to myself. I’m telling you about it. But if I accept you as me for the moment, then I think I can just about get away with it.
And if I can’t?
Who cares?
The funny thing is, the more I feel sorry for myself, the less deadly it all becomes. Yes, it’s crap. It’s unfair. It’s unbelievable. Unbearable … well, no, it’s not unbearable. Nothing’s unbearable. Unbearable means unendurable. If you can’t endure something, you’re dead. If it doesn’t kill you, you’ve endured it. Isn’t that right? It can’t be unbearable. As long as I’m alive, I’m bearing it. And even if it does kill me, what will I care? I’ll be dead. There’ll be nothing to endure. Unless, of course, there really is a place called Hell.
Now there’s a scary thought.
Eternal fire and damnation, devils, pitchforks, hot coals … Jesus, imagine that! You spend all your life laughing at the idea of Heaven and Hell, and then you die, thinking that’s the end of it, but it’s not. There really is a Hell. It’s true, after all. It’s true. And you’re there, getting all burned up and cursed by the Devil, getting your eyes poked out by screaming goblins …
How annoying would that be?
There’s another way of looking at it.
Let me think a minute.
Right.
Actually, this isn’t anything to do with Hell. It was something else I was thinking about. I was thinking how unfortunate I am. How unfortunate to be plucked from nowhere and stuck in this shit-hole with no prospect of ever getting out. I was thinking – I must be one of the most unfortunate people in the world. And then I really started thinking about it.
OK, I told myself, forget about the others, just pretend you’re on your own down here. It’s just you. And then ask yourself, Am I the most unfortunate person in the world?
Think about it.
Theoretically, it must be possible to make a list. You start with the luckiest person in the world, the person who has everything they could ever want and more, then you work your way down through all the seven billion or so people who live on this planet until eventually you get to the most unfortunate person in the world. The unluckiest, the unhappiest, the one whose life is worse than everyone else’s.
But then you’ve got a problem.
You’ve got this person, the most unfortunate person in the world, the person who’s right at the bottom of the list, OK? But just above this person, you’ve got the second most unfortunate person in the world. Now think about it. Which one would you rather be? The most unfortunate person in the world? Or the second most unfortunate person in the world? I know which one I’d choose. I’d go for the first one, The Most Unfortunate Person in the World. At least I’d be something. I’d have a title. I’d have something that no one else had. I mean, who the hell would want to be The Second Most Unfortunate Person in the World? Second is nowhere. Second is nothing. No one wants to know about second. And there’s the problem. Because if being The Most Unfortunate Person in the World gives you something that the Second Most Unfortunate Person in the World doesn’t have, then you can’t be The Most Unfortunate Person in the World, can you? But then, if the Most Unfortunate title really belongs to the Second Most Unfortunate Person, that means they’ve got something the new Second Most Unfortunate Person doesn’t have …
And on and on and on.
I can’t remember what I was thinking about now.
It doesn’t matter.
Whatever it was, it’s made me feel better.
When the lift came down this morning there were two bags of food on the floor. We were all pretty hungry b
ut we had no way of telling if it was drugged or not.
‘I’m not touching it,’ Bird said. ‘I’d rather starve than go through all that again.’
I looked at him. He glared back at me for a moment, then looked away. There’s an ugly red welt on his cheek from where I hit him. I wish I hadn’t hit him. I don’t regret it, but I regret all the crap that comes with it – the friction, the inference, the possibilities, the reaction … the bruised knuckles.
I should have remembered Pretty Bob’s advice.
Bob’s a born fighter. He told me once that fighting is all about attitude. Hit early, hit hard, fight dirty. Cheat. And the thing I really should have remembered – if you’re going to hit someone in the head, don’t use your hands. Hands are fragile. They break. If you’re going to hit someone in the head, use a stick, or a brick, or a guitar, or your head. Heads are hard and heavy. They hurt people. They surprise people. People expect a punch, they don’t expect a head butt.
I hadn’t used my head.
‘Someone’s got to try the food,’ I said. ‘We can’t just stand here staring at it all day.’
Jenny said, ‘Why don’t we draw lots?’
‘What for?’ said Bird.
‘To see which one of us is going to taste it.’
‘Not me,’ Bird snorted.
‘Chrissake,’ said Fred, stepping forward and reaching into one of the bags. He pulled out an apple and sank his teeth into it. Half the apple disappeared in one bite. We stood there watching him. He chewed noisily for a while, swallowed, then ate the rest, core and pips and all. Without pausing, he reached into the bag again and selected a packet of cheese. Ripped it open, tore off a chunk, and stuffed it in his mouth.
‘Hey,’ said Bird. ‘Slow down.’
‘You want some?’ Fred said, offering the cheese.
Bird backed away. ‘Just take it easy. Leave some for the rest of us.’
Fred grinned. ‘He who dares …’
‘Don’t eat it all,’ I said.
Fred stopped chewing and stared at me. ‘You what?’
I looked him in the eye. ‘Don’t eat it all. Save some for Jenny. She needs it more than you.’
He carried on staring at me for a long moment, his eyes hard and vicious, and I thought for a moment that he was going to crush my head or something. But after a while he just nodded his head, winked at Jenny, and gave me a cheesy smile.
‘No sweat,’ he said. He dropped the cheese into the bag and picked out some chocolate and a loaf of bread. ‘Give me fifteen minutes with these. That should be enough. If I’m not lying on my back jabbering at the moon in fifteen minutes, then get stuck in, OK?’
‘Thanks.’
He stuffed a chunk of chocolate into his mouth and started off towards his room, keeping his eyes fixed on me as he went. He was still smiling, but it was the kind of smile that shrivels your heart. As he passed me he leaned down and spoke quietly in my ear. Two short words. ‘Watch it.’ And then he was gone.
The food was fine. No drugs, no weirdness, just a nice full belly. It looks like Jenny was right. He just wanted me to say sorry.
It baffles me.
I’ve been lying here for the last two hours trying to work out if it means anything. I apologize, He gives us food. What’s that all about? Does it mean He’s got a weak spot? Is He a sucker for good manners? Or is He trying to train us? I don’t think so. I don’t think it means anything. I think He was probably going to feed us anyway. The food coming down this morning, the morning after I apologized, that was just a coincidence. He’s just toying with us. Give and take. Good and bad. Hot and cold. The food wasn’t a gift or a reward or anything …
Or maybe it was.
Maybe that’s His thing, punishment and reward. You know, like we’re rats in a cage and we have to learn which buttons to push. Push the right one and we get some food, push the wrong one and we get whacked.
Maybe that’s it.
I don’t know.
I’m fed up thinking about it, to be honest.
I’m fed up thinking about anything.
And I’m fed up talking to you, as well. It’s like talking to a brick wall. I mean, what do you do? Nothing. You just sit there saying nothing and doing nothing. You make me sick.
God, I want to do something. Anything. Dig a hole, smash down the wall, blow something up, hit someone, anything …
I just want to DO SOMETHING!
11.30 p.m.
Sorry.
Saturday, 25 February
Two days of food, two days of peace and quiet. Normally I like a bit of peace and quiet, but this isn’t normal. Nothing’s normal any more. This isn’t a relaxing sort of peacefulness, it’s dull and deadly, like everyone’s given up hope.
We all spend a lot of time alone in our rooms now, me included. It’s not healthy, I know, but it’s hard to find the energy to do anything else. I do my best. I force myself to get up and walk around every couple of hours or so. It keeps me sane and stops my head imploding. Also, I’m still looking for a way out. My brain keeps telling me I’m wasting my time, but my heart hasn’t given up yet.
Jenny joins me on my walks quite often, and sometimes Fred tags along for a while, but the rest of them rarely get out of bed any more. They only show their faces when the lift comes down or when they need to go to the lavatory.
I don’t know what they do in their rooms.
Anja cries a lot.
I went to see her yesterday. I don’t know why I bothered. I knew it was pointless.
Knock, knock.
‘What?’
‘It’s me, Linus.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Nothing, really. I just wondered how you’re doing.’
‘Go away.’
Russell sleeps most of the time.
I don’t know what Bird does. I never hear any noise from his room and I very rarely see him. Even when I do, he doesn’t speak to me. He still hasn’t forgiven me for hitting him. Fair enough, I suppose. I expect he’s planning some kind of humiliating retaliation. Good luck to him. It takes a lot to humiliate me.
Jenny sings when she’s on her own. I hear her sometimes, singing quietly to herself – kids’ songs, made-up songs, unthinking songs. It’s a very nice sound, but very sad too.
And what about me? What do I do in my room?
I think.
I write.
I don’t read the bible.
I laugh.
I shudder.
But most of the time, I just think.
A lot of it is escaping stuff, stuff I can’t tell you about. Not yet anyway. Hopefully never. And the rest of it … I don’t know. It’s mostly too boring to talk about. Dad, Mum, memories, feelings …
Who wants to know about that kind of crap?
I’ll tell you one thing though.
When I get out of here, the first thing I’m going to do is find myself a nice quiet room with a nice comfy settee and a nice big TV, and I’m just going to lie there and watch the most boring programmes I can find until every little thought has been sucked out of my head. Then I’m going to lie there some more until my emotions are drained, and then I’m going to eat a LARGE quarterpounder with cheese, with LARGE fries, and I’ll wash it all down with a LARGE Coke with tons of ice, and then I’m going to have a steaming-hot bubble bath, and I’m not getting out until the water’s cold and my fingers have gone all wrinkly.
Then I’m going to have another LARGE quarterpounder with cheese.
And then …
Well, I’ll think about that when the time comes.
Right now, I’m going to sleep.
&n
bsp; Tuesday, 28 February
Now I’ve really gone and done it. I tried to escape again. This time I didn’t tell anyone else what I was doing.
This time …
Shit.
This time I think I’ve made a big mistake.
I thought I’d got it all worked out. I used my head. I used logic. I used past experience. What’s the problem? I asked myself. Step back and strip it down to the basics, Linus. What. Is. The. Problem? Well, the problem is – He’s up there and we’re down here. And as long as He stays up there, we’re staying down here.
Right?
Right.
So why not try to get Him down here?
He came down before, didn’t he? He likes to punish you. If you do something wrong, He punishes you. The last time you tried to escape He gassed the lot of you, then came down here and took all the food away. Think about it. He came down in the lift. So He must have some kind of remote-control device, otherwise He wouldn’t have been able to get back up again, would He?
So all you’ve got to do is get Him down here, and then do the necessary.
Just do it.
So I spent Saturday and Sunday thinking and planning, and by Monday I was ready. I had a plan. Admittedly, the plan was full of holes, but the way I saw it a plan full of holes was better than no plan at all.
Step 1: I got some bin liners from the kitchen, filled a saucepan with water, and pretended to clean up my room. Wetting a cloth, wiping down surfaces, careful not to wet the cloth too much.
Step 2: I stripped the sheet off my bed and took it into the bathroom. Filled the bath, put the sheet in the bath, gave it a wash. Then I took the sheet back to my room and hung it over the door to dry.
Step 3: I got the jitters. I re-realized how holey the plan was and I was struck with the absolute certainty that it wasn’t going to work. Nothing is 100% certain, I told myself. Just ignore it.
Step 4: I left my room, went over to the dining table and picked up a chair. Then I went over to the clock on the wall and smashed it to pieces with the chair. I put the chair down and went back to my room.