I looked around me. I was laughing; the first time I had done so in weeks, my laughter blending in with the other children screaming excitedly. The noise of the carnival wrapped around me like a blanket, shielding me from my own stolen childhood, and I forgot about everything. The sweet smell of candyfloss hung in the air, mingling with the earthy, grassy smell of the ground where the carnival had arrived exactly one week ago.
It had landed here virtually overnight. I had woken up one morning, and I could see it from our tall apartment, all the way from the other side of town. The transformation was incredible. The large, grassy area had previously gone unused and largely unnoticed, due to neglect. Big, busy people in their smart navy pinstripe suits passed the place and went right up to the modern, glass office buildings with posh signs surrounding it, tutting about the state of the place whilst not bothering to do anything about it. The grass had started turning yellow from the summer heat and falling out; the dry brown earth covering most of the land. But when I looked out, there was more life than there had ever been in the place before. The land was covered in rides and tents, games and food stalls, and huge flashing neon gates. The scene looked like a scene from my colouring book, all colours of the rainbow and flashing lights. When mommy and I had walked past, I caught the smell of hotdogs and tomato ketchup. I heard the screams of other children as they rode the dodgems, and from between the high, metal gates painted a shade of the kind of bright yellow you get in colour crayons, I caught a glimpse of a merry-go-round. I had only seen pictures of these before! I desperately wanted to go on it, to sit on a high brown horse with a smooth, flowing mane and gallop around and around, again and again, smiling proudly as I went round. But mommy had dragged me away and the candy coloured stripes of the merry-go-round and the horses had disappeared. Since then I had pestered mommy to go, and finally she caved in on the last day. It was my favourite place in the whole world.
Suddenly a voice boomed out from the centre of everything, loud and clear,
"Balloons! Get your balloons here!"
Balloons! I looked for the source of the voice. It was coming from the raised, white platform set up in the middle of the carnival. It had steps coming of from the side of it and the red, heavy looking curtains were open, revealing a jester holding a huge bunch of balloons in every colour you could imagine. Children were already hurrying quickly towards the platform, anxious parents following them. I followed a little girl towards the platform. Her face was painted- she had a pink butterfly with purple hearts covering her face like a mask. I wished my face was painted too, so then I could hide behind a mask too. The walk to the platform was painfully slow. I thought about what colour balloon I would pick. Red? Orange? Yellow? The possibilities were endless. But when I finally got to the platform, there were no balloons left. The jester, in his ridiculous suit and hat with bells that
Jingle, jingle, jingled, turned round.
"Sorry kid, no more balloons left. Come back next year, maybe?"
But I knew there wasn't going to be a next year. Tears welled up in my eyes but I didn't dare to spill a drop.
"Mommy, is there no balloon for me because I'm a child that nobody wants?"
But there was no answer.
I turned around slowly.
My mom wasn't there.
Panicking, I looked around, but I couldn't see her anywhere.
I began to run, dodging people, seeing nothing as the tears poured down my face and wet my glasses.
"Mommy? Where are you? Mommy?"I screamed.
No one turned around. No one had heard my scream. It had gone unnoticed, as if I wasn't there at all. I tried again. As loud as possible, I screamed.
"MOMMYYYYYYYYY!"
Nothing.
Tears fell down faster, running quickly down my face and dropping of my chin onto my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-Shirt. Leonardo and Raphaelo got wet, salty wet. Through my blurred screen I could make out a huge, red tepee. It had blue stripes. I took a few steps towards it and sat down, leaning against it. The pole dug into my back but I didn't care. I put my head on my knees. I took of my glasses. Without them, I didn't see features. Warped, distorted happy families walked past, happy to be together. Was that just a happy act for a happy event? Slowly, my eyes began to close.
A drop of moisture landed on my arm. Then another. I opened my eyes, slowly. They felt heavy. Of course! I was still at the carnival. Why had I thought I would wake up at home? The night was pitch black and the white full moon hung low in the sky, glowing dully. I glanced around. The carnival was dead. There was nothing. I could hardly see anything without light. It was strangely quiet. It was raining slowly, the drops landing on me or splatting softly onto the dried ground and disappearing. I turned around and started to walk the long way home.
Home was all the way across the city. I managed of course, I always did, right from the start where I had learned I had to fend for myself, no one was going to take care of you. I had accepted this from the start. I peeked out from the wet leaves of the trees. I was at the end of the woods, right at the edge. I could see our house from here. The woods stretched along the road, and across the road were the cheap, brown brick apartment blocks with dusty windows were I lived. I sat down on the wet, muddy floor of the woods. I picked up a twig and snapped it. These weren't really woods, just some trees separating one road from the other, but they were always scary to me as a child, the massive textured oaks stretching up to the sky with their long, thin branches swiping at me. I used to come here, just to see how long I would last here before I got scared, maybe trying to see if mommy would come looking for me, but she never did. I had spent whole days here once, pretending the trees were evil villains coming for me. I would kick them and snap the branches, but I would always come back home at the end of the day. Mommy would never come and hug me, crying out with relief that I was home safe. She would never ask me were I had been all day, or why my jeans were muddy and my arms were scratched and bleeding. I stood up, slightly unsteady on my feet from hunger and exhaustion. I parted the fat green leaves with my hands and stumbled out. It was nearly night, maybe around 6. Nobody was out in this weather, the rain becoming increasingly heavier since the night before. I ran across the road, my dirty, once white sneakers slapping against the tarmac. Home was the very first apartment block, and the top apartment. I passed through the park. The old swings were moving slightly in the wind, creaking softly, and the red paint was chipped, revealing grey metal underneath. I walked to the other side of the park. I climbed up the blue slide and slid down. It was wet and the metal was cold. And then I was at the end of the park. I opened the damp, rotting wooden gate and stepped through. A few more steps and I would be home.
The door was open, as usual, kept there with a large, chipped grey brick. I sprinted up the stairs, up to the eighth floor, past the graffiti on the walls in black marker and the letterboxes. The whole apartment block smelled of dampness, and the dismal attempt to liven it up with green paint on the walls worsened it. Finally, I was at the top and home was right in front of me.
Our door was also always open, as the door handle had fallen off about a year ago and mommy had never bothered to replace it. Quietly, I opened the door and stepped inside. Nothing had changed. The dirty grey paint on the walls flaking off and random objects strewn about chaotically. Suddenly, I froze right in my tracks. I was standing at the foot of the steep, bare, rickety stairs and the living room was on my direct left. I could hear a man's heavy, irregular breathing and my mother's moans. This was not new to me. Mommy always had men round, and usually she sent me to my room and told me to stay there for a few hours. I had hoped, foolishly, yet again that when I arrived home she would start crying and hugging me, tell me she'd been going out of her mind worrying.
Suddenly, I heard my mom's scream.
"Mommy!" I screamed, and ran inside.
The man had his back to me, but I could see the knife in his hand, the sharp blade glinting in the light. He was stabbing her again and again, and she was screaming as he sliced her open repeatedly. There was blood everywhere, blood on the dirty brown sofa, on the carpet, on the knife. She was on the sofa, screaming and shaking as if she was electrocuted, like in the cartoons I used to watch.
"You stupid, dumb BITCH! Good for nothing whore!" screamed the man, raising his hand again and again. Suddenly, he turned around and saw me standing there, at the opposite end of the room, against the fireplace. I can't remember him clearly, but I remember his eyes were wild, huge and crazy, as if he was mad. Maybe he was. They fixed upon me for a second. I was too scared to move, rooted on the spot. Then his eyes darted round quickly. He dropped his knife and ran past me, out of the door, his footsteps echoing around the dusty, old building.
"Mommy?" I whispered. I moved closer to her. She looked surprised to see me.
"Adrian… quick… please… call an ambulance… I'll… I'll take you to the carnival again…" she stuttered. She looked so different lying there, mangled and bled out, her long dark hair stuck to her face, her eyes huge and pleading.
"Adrian…" she moaned.
"Will you leave me there again, mommy?" I asked. I walked towards her. Her eyes never left me. I picked up the knife lying on the ground. The handle was slippery with blood.
"Adrian!" she gasped, her eyes turning even bigger, wild with panic and fear as she saw me coming closer to her with the knife.
"You never looked at me before," I whispered. "Don't look at me now." I glanced at her. "DON'T LOOK AT ME NOW!" I shouted, and plunged the knife into her chest. She convulsed, screaming madly whilst I watched her. She took one, long drawn out breath, then fell back against the sofa, her eyes closing as she fell. She hit the sofa awkwardly, her arms and legs splayed out in unnatural positions, like the puppets I saw at the carnival.
I watched her die, seeing her life ebb away. When she seemed as if she was really and truly dead, I ran around the house. I took every single photograph of her in the house that I could find, ones of her from her childhood, to her younger years and finally to her present day self. And there I sat, scribbling out her eyes in every photograph, scribbling madly with the felt tips she had bought me, scribbling until nice people came, scribbling out the eyes of the woman who had never been a mother to me, the woman's fate that I had sealed in the way I would repeat for other innocents later in my later life. How she couldn't look at me. I didn't want to repeat this, but I couldn't help it, until Lawrence taught me there was a different way. Lawrence, my saviour from myself.