“I really, really, want to die!” the child sobbed, rivulets of tears streaming down his chubby cheeks.
It’s not often that children step into the path of an oncoming bike, holding out the palm of their hand as a traffic warden would. Heaven knows what would have happened if I’d crashed into him. Had he had run away from home after a hiding?
This was not the time to offer platitudes. I got off the bike and hugged him, then rummaged in my backpack to get him a tissue. I also fished out a bottle of orange juice, which he gulped thirstily, licking his lips and then wiping them with the back of his hand when he’d finished.
“Thank you,” he said, unfathomable pain in his eyes.
“Tell me about it?”
“Lean your bike against the wall, and let’s sit down on the kerb, and I’ll tell you!” he said, with a quiet authority, far beyond his age, that bewildered me. I put it down to what I had assumed to be a tough life – maybe he had younger siblings, and he was obliged to care for them.
“I almost died three times, you know…” he said, and I twisted round to look at him. “Yes, I did, too. The first time, I fell out of my cot. The second time, I was run over by a car. The third time, the neighbours’ pit-bulls mauled me so badly the parents decided to switch off the life-support system, after I’d spent a week in hospital.”
I noticed his quaint use of the word “the” with ‘parents’ – but I didn’t comment. This child would give Charles Dickens a run for his money any day, so precocious and eloquent was he. Maybe he was a child actor – or one of those gifted children who could spin tales so believably that adults fell for them every time. “So, I said, half perturbed, half amused, “why is it you want to die a fourth time?”
“Third!” he exclaimed. I let that flow.
“It might not be that difficult for you to understand…” he said, his eyes delving deep into my soul. “As a writer, you must have heard of re-incarnation.”
“How do you know what…?”
“Listen, I don’t have time to explain. I just know things. This time, I am finding it extremely difficult to walk towards the Light” (the way he said it gave the word an upper case initial). “I cannot seem to find the right Path.” He sighed. An adult sigh, not the sigh of a child who is exasperated by too many do-not-do-this rules.
“So, what do you want from me?”
“Nothing, really. Nothing and everything. I want you to go to this address (and here he dug his tiny hand deep into the pocket of his jeans and drew out a crumpled sheet of paper, smoothing it on his thigh) and give this to the parents so they can share it with the neighbours. Only then will I be free. I cannot go myself. Don’t ask questions. I chose you because…well… you know what the date is. Please.”
Indeed I had been trying not to remember that it was the first anniversary of my miscarriage, and that is why I had been pedalling my bicycle hell for leather. I wanted to get the sorrow out of my system in any way I could. Drinking myself into a stupor every night had only served to make my husband leave me for someone who had since borne him a child. Yes, she was that quick, and successful, whereas I had lost both my husband and my unborn child. Do you blame me for being bitter?
I took the paper from his hand. Ah, yes, the address was only a couple of streets away. The surname was familiar, because the wife had a nationwide chain of boutiques… and hadn’t they been in the papers a couple of years ago in connection with…some kind of litigation, I think. I really couldn’t remember. I’d go – and if they called me crazy, I’d agree with them that I was.
I made to stand up, and someone grabbed my forearm to help me.
“Exercise whacked you out then?” sniggered my friend.
“No, I was just…” but when I looked around me, the boy was nowhere to be seen. I folded the paper, put it in my t-shirt pocket, and continued, “…checking out something. See you around.”
I mounted my bike, and pedalled off in the general direction of the address on the paper.
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