As kids, my brother and I used to play by the canal. Down
from where the fairground now lights the sky, there once stood factories and
warehouses; imposing brick-facades with black wrought-iron cranes left to rust.
To get inside the open grounds, we used bits of wood to prise the barbed wire
wide enough to squeeze through where an iron fence had fallen. From there,
access to this one factory had been gnawed away at a boarded up window by
something – we never knew what – and we could force our little bodies through
it, into gloom. All summer we did this, bringing with us comics, playing cards,
cups and bottles of Coke; pillows,
that day's lunch and BB guns. We would climb the rotted rafters and perch
ourselves on the top floor near the window; too high for anyone to see that we
had removed the bottom couple of boards to allow in a little light. Too high
for anyone to hear us scream when the creak
of the floorboards turned to cracks
and they snapped, cascading to the floor, along with my brother. Lying down there
in the darkness and silence, he made his final breath. It was hours and dark
before anyone walked by and heard my cries for help.
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