Enclosure Part 4 of 4






He was back at the docks, flashlights and dogs and stomping feet chasing him. The
day had been so peaceful and now everything was spoiled, the quiet morning, the
warm day, his hard-earned hope for freedom. Now they were there again to take
him back to the academy and the daily hell of hatefully slitted eyes, scornful
smiles, sharp elbows, ruthless hands and months of unending loneliness. No! It
wasn't going to work this time, they'd never get him alive, he couldn't go back, it
would kill him. How many weeks, months, years like that? An endless string of
similar days and identical torment until he reached sixteen and could get away. He
couldn't take it. It would be better to die than to go back. He pushed the pain of the
twisted ankle to the back of his mind and ran, starting out on the drawn out
distance of runway and chainlink fence to try and slip back into the park and from
there, to the endless streets of the city. It didn't look as if the city would let him go
tonight, now his only option was to try and sink into it.

He heard his feet beat a fast rhythm on the black runway surface, but felt nothing,
not even his legs as they pounded the ground, sensed little else but flying fast
across the asphalt. He could hear the dogs now, he knew they'd bring them. He
turned his head and saw five canine shapes rushing towards him from the long
darkness of the tarmac, red tongues slapping against their chins, heads low, a pack
of hunting dogs out for prey. Desperate, he veered to the left, to the edge of the
asphalt to enter the forest. But he realized he wouldn't get far before the dogs
caught up with him there in the thick undergrowth, they were too fast and he much
too slow. He quickly changed his tactic, first priority now was to get away from
their slavering jaws.

A lone plane parked on the side of the tarmac rose up in front of him, its broad
body having a peculiar silver surface he had never seen on any other plane. The
runway xenon lights burned blue in the smooth metal. He passed the front wheel
and approached the two black propellers sitting at the front of the wing. Desperate,
he took hold of one propeller, got one foot on the lowest blade, swung himself up
in front of it and scrambled up on the wing, surprised he had managed to get up
there. He quickly glanced down to the ground, the dogs were assembling at the
front wheel, baying and circling and waiting for their masters. He turned around,
continued in the only direction that was open to him. He ran across the broad wing,
his reflection a dark form in the small oblong windows staring out at him. His
advance barred by the oblong cylinder of the plane's body proper, he stopped for a
moment, mouth dry and heart pounding, chest constricting painfully under his
ragged breath. He heard them approach the plane with vehicles, following the
dogs, the company soldiers hunting for him. Higher, he would have to get higher if
he wanted to get away. He punched one of the small windows in front of him,
shattering it into jagged shards of transparent plastic. When he pulled his hand
back from the broken surface, the sharp sensation of pain flashed through him. His
wrist came away red, the remains of the window having sliced him after all. He
clenched the bleeding hand against his belly and used the other to brush aside the
pieces of plastic left in the window. He placed one foot in the window frame and
put his hands on the roof of the plane. He pulled up, crawled onto the roof and
rolled over on his back, finally having gotten as high up on the plane as he could.

He closed his eyes and lay still to catch his frantic breath and pounding heart. On
the ground, the dogs were barking. What wouldn't he have done to quiet them, in
any way possible. But he had no way of reaching the dogs or stopping their
masters, no way of imparting his will onto a merciless world. He held his bleeding
hand up in front of him, fast flowing rivulets of blood were trailing down his wrist
towards the elbow. Pressing his hand against the shirt, he gasped with pain and
rolled some of the blue fabric around it as temporary dressing. He breathed and
swallowed. The plane metal felt cold beneath his shoulders and buttocks. So this
was where it ended? Instead of in a concrete pipe at the docks on a foggy night, his
flight this time ceased on the back of a plane, dogs barring his further advance then
as now. How ironic it was, he had planned to escape by air and here he was on a
plane, unable to get further.

Now he heard the slamming of car doors, footsteps and voices below, they were
coming for him, determined to bring him back. To hell with them all. He blocked
the sounds of his arriving captors out and fixed his gaze on the night sky. The glare
from the runway lights and the haze of the city's summer smog made stargazing
impossible, but he knew the stars were somewhere above him. He took a moment's
comfort in knowing they were there, just as he knew they'd be at the southern
continent, far away from there, before returning to the merciless present. Now
what? What should he do now? He couldn't run any further and he couldn't go
back.

Someone called his name, thickly, an amplified voice sounding like a radio with
poor reception. "We know you're there!" the voice bleated. "Please show yourself!
We just want to talk to you!" The voice almost sounded apologetic in its insistence.
He scrunched his face in despairing rage. Why couldn't they let him be? What did
it matter if one boy out of a hundred and fifty got away and got lost somewhere on
the southern continent? Why couldn't they just let him go?

He rolled onto his stomach, then rose unsteadily in the breeze.
"Come down!" someone yelled, lights swirling in the darkness. Down
there, the teenaged company soldiers were moving around, clearly unsure of what
he would do next. He walked closer to the plane's nose and peered down to the
ground. It was a frighteningly large drop, but he couldn't turn back now.
"Leave me alone!" he shouted to their jittery, searching flashlights and the
darkness beyond. "I'll never go back!" Spreading his arms, he walked closer to the
plane's edge. Behind him he heard someone step onto the roof to take him back.
As he suspected, they didn't listen. They had never listened because his voice was
not important, only theirs; he could only bend to their will. But his time of
obedience was over. He closed his eyes and with a heart that beat feverishly inside
his chest, he threw himself from the metal edge into a dark and silent embrace.

He woke two days later, back behind the yellow peeling walls and the tall
chainlink fence, inside the smell of industrial cleaner, occupying a narrow bed in
the school infirmary. One by one his teachers came to see him, their voices shrill
with reproach for his selfish ingratitude and pointless willfulness. They informed
him that he had been monitored throughout the escape and that it had been nothing
but a test of his military talents and usefulness for the company. He would not be
allowed any more such liberties, he was their property. His life was theirs, not his
own.
Mortified and violated, he closed himself to their voices until they had
finished chastising him. Finally alone, he considered the endless plain of lonely
days ahead of him and the longing that would now go unanswered, realizing he
wouldn't get away, that escape would never come, no matter how hard he tried,
and wept silently and despairingly into the pillow.