3. Blue String

3. Blue String

Life’s a bitch. This was something it had taken most of Michael’s adolescence to learn. People, naturally, were horrible - it didn’t take him many years of life to understand this concept. But the idea that Life itself, the whole great machine that controls every penny you find on the street and every whisper in the ear of a schizo, that Life was one enormous vengeful cow with a serious grudge - that was something Michael had learned through bitter experience.

Take school, as but one example. The fact that the toilet should have been clogged up by its previous mystery occupant, leaving no one to blame but Michael, earning him the nickname Mikey Poos-a-lot for the rest of Year 1. Or moving up to secondary school and a tiny mistake leaving him with an extra ‘a’ at the end of his name on the school register, much to the amusement of everyone else. How about GCSE classes? Every single class was inhabited by Grant Everson, David Britton or Tom Sweeny, or a combination of the three.

English classes were particularly unpleasant. Life had blessed all three with a talent for writing, and so they were all grouped together. Anytime the teacher was late, the trio would gather around Michael’s desk, sometimes bending over crudely and smirking ‘bet you want some of this?’, other times inventing as many synonyms as possible for the word ‘queer’ (it being an English class, they were particularly inventive. A+ for originality). And then Life’s piece de resistance, sending the same trio to the same sixth form college as Michael. That was a particularly low blow from Life. At sixth form, you are supposed to be able to make a new start, reinvent yourself. This was not easy with the English trio catcalling down corridors, breaking open lockers and drawing crude graffiti. So well done Life! Check mate to you.

This is why, walking back up Burton Street, Michael was not so much disappointed as completely unsurprised. Life wasn’t going to give up without a fight, not when there were so many more traumas to inflict on him. The fun had barely started. There were years of depression, bitterness and misfortunes still to come, and Michael simply did not want to experience them. A less sympathetic person might have told him ‘the hard times are what build character’ or ‘make you a stronger person’. Well Michael had had his share of hard times, thank you very much, and he was neither strong nor brimming with ‘character’.

Sylvie Bolton glanced at the dark lad sloping back past her café window. Her gaze followed him, so physically transformed from a few minutes ago, causing her to butter both sides of a slice of bread. She frowned, thought to herself ‘that boy needs a good shafting, that’ll set him right’, then began piercing a packet of Lincolnshire sausages.

What exactly was Michael supposed to do with all this excess time, stretching out into infinity? Go back home? The prospect appealed to him as much as a slaughterhouse would appeal to a vegetarian. Home was not a happy place. Go ‘out’? No, the music was too loud, the people too pissed. The was always the park. He could sleep like a hobo on the bench next to the swings. With luck, hypothermia would set in and he could drift off and never wake up.

This was Michael’s plan of action as he trudged back along the route he came, this time feeling much heavier. And then something caught his eye. A violet neon light flickered on the wall in one of the alleyways to his left, one of those fly zappers Michael had never seen work. But it wasn’t the light which caught his attention, rather the scaffolding next to it, from which hung a dangling piece of electric-blue nylon string. It was as though a giant flashing arrow was pointing to the string and saying ‘Death: this way!’. So he followed the arrow.

The string itself, weathered and frayed, was attached to one of the metal poles overhead. It dangled languidly in the cold air. Michael climbed up onto one of the old metal dustbins underneath, and grasped at it. The plastic felt smooth in the way that only manufactured things can. He checked its length, then began tying it into a loop with a loose knot. His nimble fingers, numbing to the cold, nevertheless worked diligently at the material, and he silently thanked all those long hours he had spent tying the knots on the back of his art coursework (a beautiful textile piece which Tom Sweeny had accidentally knocked a pot of black ink onto). He held the loop up for inspection, and was just as proud as he had been of the artwork. Then he gave the string a hard tug, making sure it was secure, before slipping the hoodie from his head and slipping the noose around his throat.

Michael inhaled. Then he dug his heel into the bin below, and pushed it forward.

The noise of the steel dustbin clanging onto concrete must have been considerable, and several of the occupants in nearby houses must have looked quizzically into the air, before, hearing nothing else, returning to whatever it is they were doing. Strangely, Michael heard nothing. It may seem an obvious thing to anticipate, but nothing quite prepared him for the shock of not being able to breathe. The string dug bitterly above his Adam’s apple. What felt so smooth before now felt rough and calloused as it scratched harshly into his neck like a scouring pad.

Against his own wishes, human survival instinct began to kick in. His fingers grasped around his neck, struggling unsuccessfully to get between the noose and his airway. Stars began to sparkle in front of his eyes, like when you stand up too quickly, followed by the same sense of light-headedness. But more than anything, panic. The blind sort of panic that you get when your head is stuck in a t-shirt with a neck hole that’s too small, or when that snotty-nosed boy at school threw a worm at you. That ‘I will do anything to get out of this situation’ sort of Life preservation. And so Michael struggled, his toes just a few tantalising inches from the ground, wriggling like a worm on a hook.

The next sensation he felt was dull knock to his knees, followed quickly by a scraping on his palms. Air rushed into his stinging lungs, only to be coughed and spluttered back out. He was vaguely aware of being back on the icy ground, next to the overturned bin. His fingers prised away at nylon around his neck, pulling it back from the raw skin underneath. He didn’t yet have the strength to pull it off, so it hung there, a perverse necklace. He concentrated on trying to breathe without throwing up. Eventually, once the stars had started to dissolve from his vision, Michael brought himself to look up.

There, standing five feet in front of him, with his arms crossed and that same amused expression, was that boy again. The purple neon flashed on a bright pair of eyes. His blond hair didn’t match the dark eyebrows that arched up in the middle or the dark sideburns that crept to the bottom of his jaw. Michael rubbed his eyes. The stranger offered his hand.

“Looks like the rope wasn’t strong enough.”