Enclosure
part 2
The sun sank beneath the horizon and the lights out signal sounded through the low
building. The boys tumbled from classrooms and playrooms into wardrobes and
shower stalls to wash up after the day, brush their teeth and change for bed, then
spilled into the dormitories to crawl under the bedcovers for the night. He received
one hard pull of his hair and a push in the back by someone running past too quickly
for him to spot before reaching the safety of his bed. There he listened to the boys
around him slowly fall asleep until all that could be heard in the long room was the
sound of slow breathing and bodies turning in sleep.
He closed his eyes and willed himself to wake up at four o'clock the following
morning. It would then still be dark, dawn wouldn't be too far away, but the city
would be asleep, giving him time to find a hideaway for the day and hopefully, a
successful escape to the western continent.
Sleep took him soundlessly away, then the world reappeared. He lifted his left arm
and peered at his wristwatch in the blue darkness. He could barely make out the hour
hand, it was at four, just as he had planned. A faint, almost imperceptible predawn
light shone through the curtains on the opposite wall. He quietly sat up in bed and
pulled the blanket aside, then got on the floor, crawled to the trunk that was
underneath the bed, opened it and fetched the pillowcase that was inside. He took the
running shoes standing besides the chest in one hand and quickly moved out of the
room. Then he was out on the second story landing, walking quietly on the
mossgreen linoleum, down the stairs, trying not to make them creak. Reaching the
floor below with its long and empty corridor, he opened and slipped through the first
door, the ground floor storage room. He touched the switch to the right of the door to
turn the lights on. The narrow and dim room smelled of ink and paper, the wooden
shelves covering the walls from floor to ceiling were filled to capacity with
stationery, pencils, paper envelopes and stacks of notebooks. He quickly reached into
the pillowcase and put on the gym shorts he had left there and then the running shoes,
carefully tying the laces into hard double knots. He collected his hair into a ponytail
with an old piece of twine from the pillowcase and stuffed it down the back of his T-
shirt. They'd be looking for a boy with long hair, the least he could do was to conceal
it until he got hold of a pair of scissors to cut it with.
When he was finished, he quickly moved to the window at the end of the room,
flicked the latch and pulled the window open. He was out in a jiffy, shut the window
after him, then dashed as fast as he could across the compound, through the gate in
the wire fence in the direction of the company's main building. There might be more
people in the streets in that direction, but he didn't take a chance of heading towards
the docks again, that was the first place they'd look for him. Above him, the eastern
sky was a discreet green, the prelude to dawn and another sweltering summer's day.
Quenching the sensation of urgency and the need to get as far away from the
academy as possible, he forced himself to refrain from running and instead walk at a
fast pace. In the quiet morning streets, the sound of running would attract the
unwanted attention of company soldiers on duty in the city. No, it was better to walk
even if it required more time. He hoped to pass for a civilian boy on his way home in
the warm summer night for a few more hours until the teachers discovered he was
gone and reported him missing to the company. He had memorized the general
layout of the city and the main streets leading to the sector housing the air base. By
using the three tallest buildings in the section as navigational cues, he moved through
the empty streets in the direction he believed the air base lay. The exhilaration of
being on his own, of being away from the academy, was only dampened by the
knowledge that his escape was far from successful yet.
He reached a quiet residential area where the houses were two and three stories tall
and had small gardens in the front where flowers and bushes bloomed profusely. The
streets lay in silence under the orange sky, the air tinged blue with the approaching
day. He passed a low wooden fence bounding a patch of lawn with a rotary dryer full
of garments. There was a shirt and a pair of pants there that looked considerably
smaller than the rest and they pulled his eyes towards them. Maybe... He peered up
towards the house. Yellow light shone through the windows but the white lace
curtains covering them were still drawn. Through them, he could see shadows move
inside the house. The sound of a radio broadcast reached him through the half open
verandah door. The people living in the house were awake and preparing for the new
day, but if he was fast, they wouldn't see him. He didn't think it would be much of a
loss to them if he climbed the fence and borrowed some of the clothes that hung on
the line. There were so many of them.
He opened the low wooden gate, crouched down and hurried towards the rotary
dryer. The sheets that hung there fluttered, emitting a low flapping noise into the
quiet morning. He froze and crouched further down, glanced nervously up towards
the house. His heart beat loudly in his ears and he could barely swallow. But no one
appeared on the little porch to investigate, no one flung the door aside and yelled
"Thief! Stop him!" The morning was quiet. Shakingly he drew air and stole closer to
the thin metal structure. He had washed his own clothes enough times to know their
approximate size. The pants and the shirt that hung between the sheets and the adult
clothing looked as if they would fit. He quickly reached up and removed one
clothespin from the blue shirt, then another, before pulling the shirt down. Then the
pants, another pin, then one more and then the last keeping the waistband fastened to
the white plastic line. The thin fabric had dried stiff and stuck to the line. He yanked
impatiently at the trousers to dislodge them.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" a voice said behind him. He felt as if he
shot a meter up into the air and had to work hard to suppress the urge to yell. He
turned, ready to defend himself against whomever had discovered him. A boy his age
but slightly taller than him was standing at the gate, supporting a red bicycle with his
hands, a newspaper tucked beneath one arm. "Those are my pants," he said
reproachfully, "and my shirt." The boy looked poised but not aggressive and sounded
as if he was genuinely sad that he was taking his clothes. He had no way of
responding to the other's query, and even if he had wanted to speak, he couldn't. The
only thing he could think about was to get out as fast as possible and continue the
escape. He threw himself around, ready to explode into movement and will.
"Why are you running off with my clothes?" the boy asked. Hit by a lightning bolt of
annoyance, he stopped. Why? That had to be obvious. Couldn't he really see he was
a fugitive and needed new clothes to hide in? Angered, he turned towards the other
boy.
"It's obvious, isn't it?" he whispered hoarsely. "I don't have any of my
own." The boy blinked for a moment, taking the reply in, then nodded towards him.
"Yes you do. You've got a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. That's clothes."
"I need some other ones," he muttered hesitantly, taken aback at the reply,
wondering what he had gotten himself into by answering the stupid question instead
of running away. He had to get away from this boy and continue.
"Can't we trade?" the boy asked, setting his grey eyes on him. He couldn't believe
his ears, trade? Exchange clothes? Was that how people in the city did things? Well,
if he had to go along with it to get away, he'd do it. He forced himself to relax, shut
down the impulses that screamed he had to flee and nodded.
"All right," he said. "Let's trade then." The other boy returned his nod.
"Good. Give me your T-shirt and shorts and I'll let you have the shirt and
pants." He nodded and pulled his sweaty and moist T-shirt up from the shorts and
pulled it over his head.
"It's not clean," he quietly apologized as he handed it to the boy.
"Mom will wash it for me," the other said unfazed. He pulled the mud
spattered black cotton shorts down and stepped out of them.
"They're not clean either," he muttered as he handed the garment to the
stranger. The other took it with a pinch and grinned.
"They stink!" he said, wrinkling his nose and laughing, but his eyes held no
malice, only humor and mischief. He lowered his hand, met the other boy's eyes and
laughed too, there was something irresistible in the other boy's humor, even though
he didn't find the situation particularly funny.
"I do hope you'll like my stinking pants," the boy said nonchalantly and
leaned against his bike.
"I thought you said they were clean?" he asked and grinned. The other
laughed his easy laugh again.
"They are. I was just joking. Put them on so I can see if they fit." He
hesitated, why did the other boy want to make sure of that?
"Go on," the boy insisted. "Put them on so I can see how they fit and I'll let
you go afterwards." He bent down, pulled hard at the fabric to get it past his shoes
and further up around his hips. The trousers were a bit loose in the waist and hung in
folds over his shoes, but they stayed on.
The other looked at him, obviously not knowing what to say now that he had gotten
things his way. He wondered if the boy was changing his mind about letting him go.
"What's that?" the boy asked, pointing at the pillowcase drooping in his
hand.
"Just my things," he replied. "What I need..." He trailed off, not wanting to
reveal more.
"What do you need it for?" the other inquired. He looked down. What
should he say?
"I'm just... taking it home..." he said unsure of how that sounded and not
able to think up anything more.
"Where's that?"
"Home?" He asked while thinking hard, throwing up section names of the
city in his mind.
"Yeah, do you live far from here?"
"I..." he swallowed. "...I live right by the air base, I'm just on my way
home."
The boy had a few other questions he wanted answered before his curiosity was
stilled. He told him his clothes had been stolen while he was swimming in the pool in
the section three park and couldn't return home without them, since his family
couldn't afford to buy new clothes. He said he had been searching for the clothes all
evening and had had to spend the night in the park because it had gotten late, which
was why he was returning home at dawn. It wasn't that far from the truth after all, or
at least truth as he saw it. He didn't have any money and therefore couldn't buy new
clothes, and he was poor. A few omitted details didn't matter in this situation. When
he revealed to the other boy that his parents didn't have much money, a strange
expression passed over the other's face, a look of surprise instead of the taunting
humor he had expected.
"Would you like to come in for breakfast?" the boy asked. "I usually have
cornflakes and milk in the morning, but I could always find something else for you."
Surprised, he didn't know what to say at first, but suddenly aware of his empty
stomach and tired body, he accepted the invitation.
The interior of the house revealed a kitchen through which a cooling draft from the
open windows billowed under a warm yellow light. Friendly adults came and went in
the small room, two young siblings played in the living room outside. The kitchen
was soon filled with the clean sound of cutlery against china and low, calm voices.
He ate the food the family offered and felt grateful for it. He was hungry but it was
the experience of eating bread and meat and vegetables different from what he was
used to that persuaded him to accept their meal without modesty. The boy's world
was full of familial intimacy and humor, which came as a surprise to him. He hadn't
expected the father to be teasing his son and the son laughing and handing the jokes
back with added zest. Seeing the ease with which the boy's family related to each
other and comparing it with his own willful inflexibility and bitterness, he felt cowed
and humiliated. The difference in demeanor and attitude between the family and
himself only emphasized his status as a stranger. When the sensation of being an
outsider grew unbearable, he thanked them for the meal and rose to leave, blaming
the approaching day for his retreat.
The boy followed him outside, glancing curiously at him under his brown bangs and
clearly wanting to ask him about the location of his home and family but stopped by
a sense of discretion. Not knowing how to still the other's curiosity without putting
him and his family at risk from his powerful pursuers, he evaded the boy's searching
eyes and retreated into quietude and self control. He promised to stop by later, maybe
the day after tomorrow, if the weather was nice and he returned to the section three
park for another swim (a lie but not one he deemed to be injurious) and passed by the
house. The other's face lit up at the possibility of meeting again, and he couldn't help
but wonder why. The other offered warmth and straightforwardness while lies and
disappearance were his only gifts. Saddened, he turned away from the boy and the
house and the curtains that moved silently in the dawn breeze and reentered the blue
light of the city.
part 2
The sun sank beneath the horizon and the lights out signal sounded through the low
building. The boys tumbled from classrooms and playrooms into wardrobes and
shower stalls to wash up after the day, brush their teeth and change for bed, then
spilled into the dormitories to crawl under the bedcovers for the night. He received
one hard pull of his hair and a push in the back by someone running past too quickly
for him to spot before reaching the safety of his bed. There he listened to the boys
around him slowly fall asleep until all that could be heard in the long room was the
sound of slow breathing and bodies turning in sleep.
He closed his eyes and willed himself to wake up at four o'clock the following
morning. It would then still be dark, dawn wouldn't be too far away, but the city
would be asleep, giving him time to find a hideaway for the day and hopefully, a
successful escape to the western continent.
Sleep took him soundlessly away, then the world reappeared. He lifted his left arm
and peered at his wristwatch in the blue darkness. He could barely make out the hour
hand, it was at four, just as he had planned. A faint, almost imperceptible predawn
light shone through the curtains on the opposite wall. He quietly sat up in bed and
pulled the blanket aside, then got on the floor, crawled to the trunk that was
underneath the bed, opened it and fetched the pillowcase that was inside. He took the
running shoes standing besides the chest in one hand and quickly moved out of the
room. Then he was out on the second story landing, walking quietly on the
mossgreen linoleum, down the stairs, trying not to make them creak. Reaching the
floor below with its long and empty corridor, he opened and slipped through the first
door, the ground floor storage room. He touched the switch to the right of the door to
turn the lights on. The narrow and dim room smelled of ink and paper, the wooden
shelves covering the walls from floor to ceiling were filled to capacity with
stationery, pencils, paper envelopes and stacks of notebooks. He quickly reached into
the pillowcase and put on the gym shorts he had left there and then the running shoes,
carefully tying the laces into hard double knots. He collected his hair into a ponytail
with an old piece of twine from the pillowcase and stuffed it down the back of his T-
shirt. They'd be looking for a boy with long hair, the least he could do was to conceal
it until he got hold of a pair of scissors to cut it with.
When he was finished, he quickly moved to the window at the end of the room,
flicked the latch and pulled the window open. He was out in a jiffy, shut the window
after him, then dashed as fast as he could across the compound, through the gate in
the wire fence in the direction of the company's main building. There might be more
people in the streets in that direction, but he didn't take a chance of heading towards
the docks again, that was the first place they'd look for him. Above him, the eastern
sky was a discreet green, the prelude to dawn and another sweltering summer's day.
Quenching the sensation of urgency and the need to get as far away from the
academy as possible, he forced himself to refrain from running and instead walk at a
fast pace. In the quiet morning streets, the sound of running would attract the
unwanted attention of company soldiers on duty in the city. No, it was better to walk
even if it required more time. He hoped to pass for a civilian boy on his way home in
the warm summer night for a few more hours until the teachers discovered he was
gone and reported him missing to the company. He had memorized the general
layout of the city and the main streets leading to the sector housing the air base. By
using the three tallest buildings in the section as navigational cues, he moved through
the empty streets in the direction he believed the air base lay. The exhilaration of
being on his own, of being away from the academy, was only dampened by the
knowledge that his escape was far from successful yet.
He reached a quiet residential area where the houses were two and three stories tall
and had small gardens in the front where flowers and bushes bloomed profusely. The
streets lay in silence under the orange sky, the air tinged blue with the approaching
day. He passed a low wooden fence bounding a patch of lawn with a rotary dryer full
of garments. There was a shirt and a pair of pants there that looked considerably
smaller than the rest and they pulled his eyes towards them. Maybe... He peered up
towards the house. Yellow light shone through the windows but the white lace
curtains covering them were still drawn. Through them, he could see shadows move
inside the house. The sound of a radio broadcast reached him through the half open
verandah door. The people living in the house were awake and preparing for the new
day, but if he was fast, they wouldn't see him. He didn't think it would be much of a
loss to them if he climbed the fence and borrowed some of the clothes that hung on
the line. There were so many of them.
He opened the low wooden gate, crouched down and hurried towards the rotary
dryer. The sheets that hung there fluttered, emitting a low flapping noise into the
quiet morning. He froze and crouched further down, glanced nervously up towards
the house. His heart beat loudly in his ears and he could barely swallow. But no one
appeared on the little porch to investigate, no one flung the door aside and yelled
"Thief! Stop him!" The morning was quiet. Shakingly he drew air and stole closer to
the thin metal structure. He had washed his own clothes enough times to know their
approximate size. The pants and the shirt that hung between the sheets and the adult
clothing looked as if they would fit. He quickly reached up and removed one
clothespin from the blue shirt, then another, before pulling the shirt down. Then the
pants, another pin, then one more and then the last keeping the waistband fastened to
the white plastic line. The thin fabric had dried stiff and stuck to the line. He yanked
impatiently at the trousers to dislodge them.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" a voice said behind him. He felt as if he
shot a meter up into the air and had to work hard to suppress the urge to yell. He
turned, ready to defend himself against whomever had discovered him. A boy his age
but slightly taller than him was standing at the gate, supporting a red bicycle with his
hands, a newspaper tucked beneath one arm. "Those are my pants," he said
reproachfully, "and my shirt." The boy looked poised but not aggressive and sounded
as if he was genuinely sad that he was taking his clothes. He had no way of
responding to the other's query, and even if he had wanted to speak, he couldn't. The
only thing he could think about was to get out as fast as possible and continue the
escape. He threw himself around, ready to explode into movement and will.
"Why are you running off with my clothes?" the boy asked. Hit by a lightning bolt of
annoyance, he stopped. Why? That had to be obvious. Couldn't he really see he was
a fugitive and needed new clothes to hide in? Angered, he turned towards the other
boy.
"It's obvious, isn't it?" he whispered hoarsely. "I don't have any of my
own." The boy blinked for a moment, taking the reply in, then nodded towards him.
"Yes you do. You've got a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. That's clothes."
"I need some other ones," he muttered hesitantly, taken aback at the reply,
wondering what he had gotten himself into by answering the stupid question instead
of running away. He had to get away from this boy and continue.
"Can't we trade?" the boy asked, setting his grey eyes on him. He couldn't believe
his ears, trade? Exchange clothes? Was that how people in the city did things? Well,
if he had to go along with it to get away, he'd do it. He forced himself to relax, shut
down the impulses that screamed he had to flee and nodded.
"All right," he said. "Let's trade then." The other boy returned his nod.
"Good. Give me your T-shirt and shorts and I'll let you have the shirt and
pants." He nodded and pulled his sweaty and moist T-shirt up from the shorts and
pulled it over his head.
"It's not clean," he quietly apologized as he handed it to the boy.
"Mom will wash it for me," the other said unfazed. He pulled the mud
spattered black cotton shorts down and stepped out of them.
"They're not clean either," he muttered as he handed the garment to the
stranger. The other took it with a pinch and grinned.
"They stink!" he said, wrinkling his nose and laughing, but his eyes held no
malice, only humor and mischief. He lowered his hand, met the other boy's eyes and
laughed too, there was something irresistible in the other boy's humor, even though
he didn't find the situation particularly funny.
"I do hope you'll like my stinking pants," the boy said nonchalantly and
leaned against his bike.
"I thought you said they were clean?" he asked and grinned. The other
laughed his easy laugh again.
"They are. I was just joking. Put them on so I can see if they fit." He
hesitated, why did the other boy want to make sure of that?
"Go on," the boy insisted. "Put them on so I can see how they fit and I'll let
you go afterwards." He bent down, pulled hard at the fabric to get it past his shoes
and further up around his hips. The trousers were a bit loose in the waist and hung in
folds over his shoes, but they stayed on.
The other looked at him, obviously not knowing what to say now that he had gotten
things his way. He wondered if the boy was changing his mind about letting him go.
"What's that?" the boy asked, pointing at the pillowcase drooping in his
hand.
"Just my things," he replied. "What I need..." He trailed off, not wanting to
reveal more.
"What do you need it for?" the other inquired. He looked down. What
should he say?
"I'm just... taking it home..." he said unsure of how that sounded and not
able to think up anything more.
"Where's that?"
"Home?" He asked while thinking hard, throwing up section names of the
city in his mind.
"Yeah, do you live far from here?"
"I..." he swallowed. "...I live right by the air base, I'm just on my way
home."
The boy had a few other questions he wanted answered before his curiosity was
stilled. He told him his clothes had been stolen while he was swimming in the pool in
the section three park and couldn't return home without them, since his family
couldn't afford to buy new clothes. He said he had been searching for the clothes all
evening and had had to spend the night in the park because it had gotten late, which
was why he was returning home at dawn. It wasn't that far from the truth after all, or
at least truth as he saw it. He didn't have any money and therefore couldn't buy new
clothes, and he was poor. A few omitted details didn't matter in this situation. When
he revealed to the other boy that his parents didn't have much money, a strange
expression passed over the other's face, a look of surprise instead of the taunting
humor he had expected.
"Would you like to come in for breakfast?" the boy asked. "I usually have
cornflakes and milk in the morning, but I could always find something else for you."
Surprised, he didn't know what to say at first, but suddenly aware of his empty
stomach and tired body, he accepted the invitation.
The interior of the house revealed a kitchen through which a cooling draft from the
open windows billowed under a warm yellow light. Friendly adults came and went in
the small room, two young siblings played in the living room outside. The kitchen
was soon filled with the clean sound of cutlery against china and low, calm voices.
He ate the food the family offered and felt grateful for it. He was hungry but it was
the experience of eating bread and meat and vegetables different from what he was
used to that persuaded him to accept their meal without modesty. The boy's world
was full of familial intimacy and humor, which came as a surprise to him. He hadn't
expected the father to be teasing his son and the son laughing and handing the jokes
back with added zest. Seeing the ease with which the boy's family related to each
other and comparing it with his own willful inflexibility and bitterness, he felt cowed
and humiliated. The difference in demeanor and attitude between the family and
himself only emphasized his status as a stranger. When the sensation of being an
outsider grew unbearable, he thanked them for the meal and rose to leave, blaming
the approaching day for his retreat.
The boy followed him outside, glancing curiously at him under his brown bangs and
clearly wanting to ask him about the location of his home and family but stopped by
a sense of discretion. Not knowing how to still the other's curiosity without putting
him and his family at risk from his powerful pursuers, he evaded the boy's searching
eyes and retreated into quietude and self control. He promised to stop by later, maybe
the day after tomorrow, if the weather was nice and he returned to the section three
park for another swim (a lie but not one he deemed to be injurious) and passed by the
house. The other's face lit up at the possibility of meeting again, and he couldn't help
but wonder why. The other offered warmth and straightforwardness while lies and
disappearance were his only gifts. Saddened, he turned away from the boy and the
house and the curtains that moved silently in the dawn breeze and reentered the blue
light of the city.
