Free My Brother's Shadow by Tom Avery

his eyes flashing. I eyed the boy.
    â€œShall we?” I asked.
    The boy eyed me, glinting gray piercing.
    â€œOK.” I grinned, pushing away from the tarmac, heading left.
    We picked up speed quickly, no matter how I squeezed the brakes. The boy giggled and I gasped. It was scary. It was exciting. It was wild.
    Parked cars flashed past, green, blue, white, white, red, yellow, blue, green, red, red, red, red.
    My helmet slipped backwards. I reached up to reposition it. It felt flimsy compared to the power of our descent.
    The bottom of the hill rushed up to meet us: a crossing, some shops, traffic lights.
    Traffic lights on green.
    Traffic lights turning amber.
    I squeezed both brakes. They squealed. I slowed, a little, but not enough.
    The boy was no longer laughing; he tried to place his odd-shod feet on the ground, tried to stop. Brakes squealed.
    Traffic lights turned red.
    We careered forwards.
    I see it coming. I think I see it coming. From the right, red, blood red, filled my vision.
    I heard it. A third set of brakes squealed. A horn blasted. The boy shouted.
    I feel it. Air driven from my lungs. Pain beyond feeling.
    Then nothing.
    Nothing.
    Darkness.



GOODBYES
    Darkness for a long time. Dark and cold. I heard voices.
    â€œBroken,” they’d say.
    â€œLost blood.”
    â€œToo much damage.”
    Tears I heard too, muffled, as if from behind a thick curtain.
    â€œKaia.”
    â€œMy Kaia.”
    â€œPlease wake up.”
    But mostly it was dark, dark and cold.
    Then it was light. Not the light of the waking world. A light all around, coming from everywhere, and I wasn’t there, but I was there. Andthere was Moses and he was there. No cap on this time, eyes alight with a secret smile.
    â€œWell, that was stupid, wasn’t it, Tiny?” he said.
    I laugh, but I don’t laugh because I’m not there, not really.
    Now, looking back, I know that I should have been wondering if I was dead. But I wasn’t thinking that at all. I wasn’t thinking at all.
    â€œYou know what I need to say, don’t you?” the angel Moses said. And I
did
know.
    â€œWell, goodbye, then,” he says.
    â€œGoodbye,” I say inside.
    Then it’s dark again.
    I woke up today. Warmth first, then light, real light this time.
    Have you ever woken up and just felt so hungry that you’re not sure you’ll even make it to the kitchen before you collapse and are forced to eat your own arm? No, perhaps not that hungry. Anyway, as hungry as you’ve ever been, Iwas hungrier. I felt like someone had removed my stomach. I just had an empty space where it should be.
    There was no food around when I awoke and no people either. I was in a white room, white walls, white window frames, white ceiling, white sheets on my bed, firmly tucking me in. The door was blue, though, and the floor speckled blue linoleum. And one wall was covered in a multicolored array of cards, some shop-bought, most hand-drawn, which I assumed must have belonged to the person who slept here before me. I certainly didn’t have that many friends.
    To my right was a machine, which gently bleeped away; to my left a metal stand with a bag hanging from it. Both of these had tubes or wires connecting them to my body, one up my nose, one into my wrist, several stuck to my chest.
    My body, my body, the crash came flooding back to me: red, blood, blood, red. My body didn’t feel too bad. My right arm was set in a cast. I couldfeel bandages wrapped around my chest. My face felt tight, almost rigid. But apart from that, I felt all right.
    I knew it must be a hospital room, I’d seen enough on TV. Even though my hunger was crippling I didn’t call for a nurse, not right away, at least. I stared out the window.
    I could only see sky, blue, blue sky, washed in a few places with a wisp of white cloud. High above, a lone gray gull squawked and carried on its way, down to the river, then out to sea. I could have