Free All the Rage by A. L Kennedy

sees his older body, naked and washed. The boy studies his wish to be solid, short-bearded, complete, and to have impressive arms with one tattoo – a little flag with writing underneath it, which he cannot read, but realises is important. His parts which are meant to be secret remain as he knows them –
a little boy’s mickey, always
– and then fade –
goodbye mickey
. Somehow, he spills away.
    It seems a proper punishment that when his parts are gone they haunt him more than ever. They sting.
    And the boy then sees himself opened like a book while hands dig out the truth of him, work wrist-deep, and find a rifle and a chanter, the shine of a plough, forgetfulness twice-distilled, broom flowers and roses, a lobster upended and balanced on its claws, a woman’s hair dragged from its scalp and thick as jute, a righteous and clever tawse, a burning rivet and a burning brand and a burning cross and a burning word, a collar the colour of blood, a whale bone carved with a ship and on the ship a man who travels, who will scour the world, burn it, bleed it, thieve it out and suffer as he steps, heavy and mad as horses, and held in his hand is a heart, a sleeping heart, a hunted heart, a slave heart, a heart like a hole through to nowhere that he lifts above his head.
    He waves to the boy and the boy waves back.
    This waving troubles the boy – it shivers him and makes him rock.
    â€˜Hold still.’
    He is seasick as he rises up into the ward, turns conscious, hears the tiny panting of the pressure cuff as it inflates. His arm is throbbing and troubles him.
    â€˜I said hold still. You can do that, can’t you?’ The nurse, another nurse, whispering. ‘You’re a big boy. Can’t you do what you’re told?’
    This will be a predictable element of his recovery. Every three hours, night and day, someone will come to measure the condition of his blood, put the chill of a thermometer under his tongue.
    â€˜Don’t bite it.’
    For the boy this will be wearying and unheroic.
    Tomorrow afternoon his mother will arrive and sit next to his bed with a new copy of
The Beano
and
The Dandy
and, in a paper bag, the
Oor Wullie
annual he was not allowed for Christmas, because it is full of rough talk and ways in which nobody decent should behave. His father will not visit, but will sit in the parked car outside and listen to football reports on the radio – this will be because the smell of hospitals makes him sick. He will send his best. If he knew about the
Oor Wullie
annual then he would not.
    The boy will take his comics and his mother’s kiss on his forehead and on the one of his cheeks that is nearest to her. He will think he doesn’t want to read, because he suspects reading might be difficult, but he won’t say that, for fear of being rude. He will not know what to do when he sees that she is very sad about him, and so he will pretend that his head hurts more than it does and she will nod a lot and put a bottle of Lucozade wrapped in crinkling yellow stuff on the bedside cabinet which is his while he is here and then she will stand up and he will suddenly regret that she is leaving.
    Once he is alone he will still have the scent of her against his skin. And he will catch the only true hint he’ll ever get from his future – that there will be times when that exact perfume strikes him, makes him open like a book and ask to be hurt by strangers until he cannot think. This doesn’t unsettle him, is merely strange. He assumes it is the first of many insights and, sitting up in bed – little boy, little mickey – he is happy. The crack to his skull has left him brilliant with wishes, unsteadied by apparently too many opening paths towards glories. He has been thoroughly punished in advance and this means that his powers will be remarkable.

All the Rage
    MARK HAD NEVER thought he’d consider throwing himself under a train. Turned out he was