Since my mother had died two years previously, things like Christmas and birthdays had become just ordinary days. I probably would have come to the conclusion that I had dreamt up the entire build-up to my birthday because I had been so excited but for one thing: I hadn’t been very excited about it. ‘Alright,’ I replied and stepped out of the car.īy the end of that day I had figured out that it was still about five weeks until I turned six. ‘Alright?’ he repeated, losing his patience. The same bandage he’d been wearing all year up until about three weeks ago. I didn’t answer immediately, I was staring at Colin Burness who had a bandage over his left eye. ‘Get out, tell your teacher you’re sorry you’re late and get the bus back, alright?’ Dad said. I began to feel as though I recognised this day the weather, the smell, the advertising billboards outside the newsagents and then when my school came into sight with the gates wide open and kids playing freeze-tag and football, I felt as though I would faint. I was annoyed because I knew he was wrong but I did what he said.Īs he drove me to school in his sun-faded Granada, right hand out of the window with the usual smouldering Richmond glowing in the wind, I began to feel strange. ‘You cheeky little shit, get up those stairs and get changed right now!’ he yelled and slammed the window. ‘You’re meant to be in school!’ he said, his eyes narrowed with anger. I let go of my yellow truck and looked at him. ‘What the hell are you still doing here, Michael?’ I went to the kitchen to see if there was anything to eat.Īfter a bowl of dry cornflakes I went outside to play and that’s where I was at midday when my dad yelled from the open living room window. I wasn’t moved by this picture, I had seen it before. Dad was asleep on the couch, the ashtrays were full, and between his fingers was an entire cigarette burned into a perfect cylinder that would crumble like a sunlit vampire if he stirred, though he didn’t. I switched it off wondering why it had been on at all and went downstairs. I was woken up the next morning by the radio proclaiming that it was a glorious Friday and summer was just around the corner. I managed to get back to sleep that night after my dad’s whiskey-drenched breath had told me there were ‘no monsters’ even though I wasn’t scared of monsters. I cried and by the time my dad had staggered to my bedroom I knew it had been a dream. I remember not knowing whether I was facing up or down, I remember waiting to feel my dad’s strong hands dragging me to safety, and then I remember nothing at all for what might have been an eternity, or maybe just a heartbeat, and then I woke up in my bed with my Spiderman blanket wrapped around me, in a cold sweat.
Popshot gun free#
The rest is broken memories of panic, struggling to get free of the netting and gasping for air any time I found the surface with never enough time to both breathe and scream for help.
Popshot gun cracked#
I remember registering the wetness in my shoe before noticing the searing pain in my shin that I had cracked off the edge of the pond. My left foot made it to the other side, my right foot, however, lingered behind me, pushed down against the netting and dipped into the water. I leapt as far as my pudgy little legs would carry me. I remember seeing the net over the top of the pond (which I later learned was to stop birds preying on the goldfish) and feeling confident that if I didn’t make the jump I would be perfectly safe.
Everybody else had gone back inside for wine and small triangular sandwiches. It was the summer of 1979 and I had decided that I could jump far enough to make it to the other side. I drowned in the pond at the back of my aunt’s home. The first time that I died was on my sixth birthday. Ben Whitfield’s short story follows the life and deaths of Michael Finch, a normal individual with a remarkable gift.
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