Free Black Chalk by Albert Alla Page A

of her dangling watch, I saw I had ten minutes to stave it off. A lot could happen in ten minutes – yes, the doctor would come and check on me. The television was showing an old American crime series, the dusty cars of my childhood shiny new on the screen, an old man inspecting a dead body, his face wrinkled in concentration. There was no doctor in sight; I decided to feign sleep and closed my eyes, letting my head sink into the pillow, hoping that my mother would leave. There was the sound of a car driving off, police sirens blared through, men shouted, a minute of theme music drew the show to its end. I turned my head away from my mother and caught my breath, as if my nose were a little blocked, and the earphone tugged at my ear before falling off onto my pillow. I couldn’t make out voices anymore but I could still hear music.
    I recognised the beat-raising tempo, the uplifting violins, the repetition and build-up. The news was on, and my heart was beating hard.
    I heard her voice: ‘Nate.’ At first it was quiet, but then it was more insistent: ‘Nate!’ She knew I could hear her. ‘They had the same special yesterday. Don’t worry, it’s done tastefully. I know it’s not nice, but you need to watch it.’
    I opened my eyes.
    â€˜Here, put this on.’ She handed me the earphone. ‘I didn’t like it the first time either. Don’t worry, it’ll be alright.’
    It was the note of hope in her voice which made me take the earphone. As if I could hear all her care and love in that note. She too feared for me, just like I did – of course, she was right, I decided; of course, she knew best. And it’s that same hope I ponder over now, as far from understanding it today as I was then. How I wish that my mother would have asked for my story outright instead of forcing me to watch it on television! I can only presume that the days she watched me with my eyes half open, staring at the ceiling, were to her a proof of my distance. Or that the hospital psychiatrist told her I wouldn’t open up to him, and that she assumed I’d behave the same way with her. But perhaps she was right to do as she did; perhaps I would have backed away had she extended an ear, in just the same way I yearned for the hand she wasn’t willing to share.
    All I know for certain is that I was caught in my desire for time and more time. I wanted to eat, draw, and close my eyes. The days to pass and the hospital to fade away. I wanted to stay in bed and go to school. Shut my eyes and hit my brother’s leg-cutter over his head. I wanted time to stretch and protect me. I wanted the pendulum to swing into ash.
    Instead, I got a newsreader’s voice in my ear. Around me, the old ladies were fast asleep, the old man was looking out of the window, and two nurses were talking to each other. I could see no way out.
    And it started.
    A sandy-blonde woman announced the start of an in-depth segment on the Hornsbury School Shooting. The words jumped off her tongue and rolled off the screen. Hornsbury School Shooting. I knew that the words ought to have some meaning, that they should trigger something: ideas, emotions, sounds and smells. But perhaps because not enough time had lapsed, or perhaps because the name of my school already carried so much meaning for me, I dismissed the construction as preposterous. I wanted to scoff at the newsreader, to scorn her lazy journalism.
    The newsreader ignored me and a man appeared on the screen, a suit standing in front of my school, right between the bus stop and the bike racks. His creamy skin and pastel tie obscured the red-brick façade, the doors I’d entered hundreds of times, the steps on which I’d eaten two years of lunches. He finished his introduction and a clip took over with its own voice-over. It panned across a horde of police cars, some with their lights still flashing, television crews dragging black cables across the