The bus is late. I check my watch and shake my hand above my head. My fingers snap against themselves, the sound of a fisherman thrashing his catch against the splintery wood of a rolling jetty. Thwap, Thwap. The man in the black raincoat stares at me and steps away. One, two, three strides aside. Good. Better. I don’t bother reading his face. It doesn’t matter what the strangers think.
Satisfied, I lower my hand and stare through the traffic. My eyes lock onto the lamppost opposite me. A diagonal line, invisible to most, starts at the tip of my sneaker and runs across the grotty footpath, into the gutter, out again, across the bustling road and ends only when it touches the concrete plinth that has usurped my attention for the last fifteen-point-three-four seconds. At a solid estimation I assert that the lamp is placed at sixteen-point-two degrees outside the realm of a perfectly straight line from foot to stump. Sixteen. Same age as me. I feel good about that but diagonals are not my favourite thing and I feel like the whole world is on a lean. I shake my hand, the right one. Thwap, thwap, and take a precise step to the left. A straight line appears before me, cutting the world into two perfect halves. It feels good. It feels better. I close my eyes and everything is yellow in the infinite space of my mind. Wow. It’s a good day. Yellow days are hard to come by and I’m frightened that if I open my eyes the yellow will turn black. I ponder the idea of keeping them shut but if I don’t make it home Mum will be sad and I hate when I make her eyes rain, when I give her a black day. Black days are the worst. You wouldn’t wish a black day on the loudest, bark-iest dog. I’ll tell you that much for free.
Mum told me to bring a raincoat this morning. She said it would rain. She said I’d get wet. But raincoats on Thursdays aren’t part of the business. Yellow jumper, brown corduroys, army satchel, that’s the order of business on Thursdays, rain or shine.
Not that you’d call this proper rain. It’s mild precipitation at the most. Drizzle is what Mum would call it but I hate that word. It’s messy, disorganised. Just seeing its black letters float about in my utopian yellow space makes me shake my hands. Both at the same time. Thwap, thwap. That’s how much I hate that word. Drizzle, drizzle. The letters are screaming at me.
‘Shut up!’ I say. I won’t let those nasty scratchings ruin my yellow day. I toss the letters around my brain and make new words, better words. Dire, lied, idle, deli, Zizel. The letters turn green. Good. Better. You don’t ever want to play me in a game of scrabble, I know all the words. All the words in the world. But I like numbers better. Numbers never lie or make you have a black day. Numbers are the foundation of the universe you know. Kind of like bees; the day they stop marching is the day the world will collapse in on itself. This rain though, this wet mist, it’s messing with my numbers; it’s messing with my yellow day. I can’t see the numerical values through the fog and worse than that, the digits are sucking up the colour of the street. Headlights, brake lights, fluoro vests and flashy billboards. The formulas are getting confused and so am I.
It’s no wonder though. My music has stopped. Radiohead. It’s the only thing I listen to. Helps me stay calm. I have 161 songs on shuffle. Takes me exactly 644 minutes to listen to the whole loop. I’m ecstatic when I come to the end of a sound-circuit. Pressing that shuffle button on my iPod and starting it all over again feels like opening a packet of chips. Everything is crisp and fresh, inside and out. Boy, today really is a yellow day.
Fake Plastic Trees is my favourite song. Reminds me of my mum. All her plants are plastic. She used to have real ones but the soil frightens me. The numbers can’t march on soil. Don’t know why. I screamed for four hours when I first came across the stuff. Three years old I was. Mum said that was the day she discovered just how special I am.
‘It wears her out, it wears her out, it wears her out.’ That’s what Thom Yorke sings in my ear. He’s singing about me and Mum again. ‘She lives with a broken man, a cracked polystyrene man, who just crumbles and burns.’ That Thom Yorke, he gets us, me and my mum. Yes siree, he gets us alright.
Things are turning a bit orange in this world beneath my eyelids. I shake my hand till the sun comes out. Thwap, thwap. Good, better, then I open my eyes to the assault of the world. Blurry numbers run up and down the workings of life. The buildings towering around me run thick with threes. Their windows pulse in fives and the rain drip-drops against the glass in numbers of one, two and four. I focus on the safety of the lamppost. If this keeps up I’ll have to close my eyes and stand here till Mum comes to find me.
The bus arrives and it’s seven minutes late. A jumble of soggy bodies huddles at the edge of the road. A waterfall of ones and twos splash the swarming mass as the bus rolls to a stop at the curb. Some jump. Some make a noise like one of my screaming fits. I don’t know if they’re angry. I can’t read the faces under the hoods and brollies and raincoats. It doesn’t matter anyway. They don’t matter to me and as long as no one touches me, I’ll be fine. I give them space to do-si-do and only move forward when the last person mounts the step.
There’s a lady driving the bus. Her pants pulled high on her waist cut a deep channel through the middle of her body, her top half bulging over her lower half like a loaf of Granddad’s bread.
‘Sometime this century, doll,’ she says. ‘You in or out?’ She bares her teeth at me and I try to read her face. Angry or happy? Kind or mean? I don’t know so I say nothing and shuffle past her, squeezing myself against the metal rail, desperate to keep our personal zones from colliding. I can feel the air around our bodies graze each other as I swoosh by. Sparks of eight and nine burst into my periphery and fall silently to the ground where they melt away like lost snowflakes.
Black-raincoat-man is sitting in my seat. The disabled one, by the rear exit. It’s the only single seat on the bus. The one seat that everyone knows is mine. I stare at the side of his face and it tells me nothing. I use all the power in my brain to will him to move, but he doesn’t even turn his head. The threes and fours dribbling down the outside of the window stop in their tracks and start to shake.
‘Can’t move till you’re seated, doll,’ the bus driver yells down the row.
I hear her words but they don’t make sense in my ears. Thom Yorke is singing, ‘everything, everything, everything in its right place,’ and I’m willing black-raincoat-man to understand. ‘In its right place, in its right place.’ Thom Yorke is singing to the world but no one else can hear.
The shadow of black-raincoat-man creeps across the floor and up over the ceiling, its long deathly fingers hunt me out and claw for my soul. Thom Yorke tells me ‘there are two colours in my head, there are two colours in my head’ but he’s wrong. All the colours have been muddled together and my thoughts can’t penetrate the sludge of this internal world.
All the faces are looking at me now, eyes black and staring. The numbers shudder and spark as the bus driver stamps down the aisle; her footsteps shake the floor, disturbing the numerals and the beating of my heart. I crouch like a lion preparing for attack. Black ink drips from my eyes and soils my happy yellow jumper. The bus driver claws at her jaw with her beefy hands and reveals a set of sharpened-to-a-point teeth. She stomps toward my cowering figure, her gnashing fangs desperate to hunt out my flesh and gnaw on my bones.
I kick her hard in the belt buckle when the bus-driver-lady tries to touch me. She stumbles back a few feet and lands on the floor with a thud. Black-raincoat-man looms over me like a giant bat and all I can do is cover my ears and scream. The tenor that escapes my throat jolts the numbers back into action and sets my heart back into beat. A little dot of yellow is born in the blackness of my mind and grows larger with every pitched breath I take.
Black-raincoat-man scrunches my jumper beneath his fist and pulls. He drags me along the row, down the steps and releases me in a screaming heap on the footpath. It’s black in my world but the yellow dot of hope is keeping me safe. I might be dead so I don’t open my eyes. I huddle myself into the shape of a small package and scream until my tonsils chafe my throat and my voice box gives in.
Thom has fallen silent and a chill skulks up over my feet, legs, torso and penetrates my bloodstream, turning each of my bones blue with cold. I open one eye. Just a crack. The night has broken and I’m all alone.
‘Y’all right son?’ A pair of solid black shoes are talking to me. I stare at them and freeze. If I don’t move the numbers will chew me up and I’ll become invisible just like them. Concrete sevens march up onto my knees, over my thighs, up my chest and circle back down over my head, tickling as they go. The shoes disappear momentarily but soon come back as four.
Shoe number one, with its heavy sole and steel-toe cap, prods my left foot. The sevens scatter and reveal my hiding image to the world. A baritone growl escapes my lips and I squeeze my eyes closed and watch as the yellow bubble in my black world floats about the space behind my eyes.
‘He’s on drugs,’ says shoe number one. ‘Gotta be.’
‘Let’s take him in before he hurts anyone else,’ says shoe number three.
I’m hoisted up by my armpits and I let myself be dragged. To where? It doesn't matter. All that matters is catching the yellow balloon in my head.
‘Kee-ryst,’ says shoe number one. ‘He’s heavier than a sack of bloody potatoes.’
Slow breathing is best for filling balloons in your head so I concentrate on sucking large quantities of air into my lungs. It’s warm now, much easier to consume and the yellow balloon is growing with every gasp of air.
The black fades to grey then brown then blue and I’m ready to open my eyes. It’s quiet in this space. Half white, half blue. Concrete and steel. I’m lying on a plastic-sheeted cot printed with the words ‘Department of Corrections’. My shoes, watch, iPod, gone. There are no windows apart from the two-inch plastic covered hole inserted in the steel door. The walls are scratched up with graffiti and the toilet is rusted and smells like a doghouse but I’m safe and things are looking up.
The world outside the room is draped in fluorescent light. The thick plastic makes everything look small and big at the same time. Two men in fancy blue clothes, adorned with badges and crests, stare at each other from their swivel chairs behind the counter. Their lips move fast. They bare their teeth at each other. One throws his head back. The other shakes it from side to side. I’ve seen this interaction before and conclude that these men are happy. These policemen. I stare at them and bare my teeth, reciprocating their joy. They don’t see me but I know I’m safe and Mum will be happy that I’m not dead. I will her to come and find me. Find me Mum, come and find me. Please.
I don’t recognise her at first. Her hair has gone all flat against her head. She looks blue under the lights and the flickering bulbs cast strange shadows across her eyes and down her cheeks, cutting in deep hollows where usually there are none. They all turn to look at me at the same time but I’m ready for them with my rendition of a happy grin. Teeth bared—both rows—eyebrows perched in a high arch. Mum slaps her hands to her mouth and we stare at each other through the plastic. A few numbers come out from hiding and shake themselves off. Elevens and twelves march across the desk that separates Mum from the policemen. The numbers only take a few strides before Mum slams her fists into the middle of them. They scatter away like caught beetles disturbing a family picnic.
The policemen are slow to follow Mum to my plastic window. They lag behind her, shuffling through papers on the desks and flitting about the space they govern. Mum puts both hands on the window and blinks twice, slow and long. It’s one of our special codes we use when I don’t feel like talking. Sometimes I’ll go weeks without muttering a single word. I blink back, two long slow blinks, and seeing as she can’t touch me through the plastic, as a special treat for finding me I put both my hands on the window matching hers with mine. It’s as good as a hug and a kiss.
Mum and I touch fingers when the door slides into the wall. She reaches into her bag and gives me her iPod. I know it’s hers because it’s pink. It’s all set up to go with my music and I stuff the earbuds deep in my ear. ‘Let’s get you home,’ she says. I press play and am instantly soothed by Thom’s voice. He’s got our backs, my man Thom.
I follow Mum across the room. She’s walking really fast. She stops at the door and turns to face the policemen. Well, if there’s one face I can read in this world, it’s my mum’s. She’s got her angry eyes on and I can tell she’s shouting because her mouth opens really wide and really fast. She punches her finger in their direction and I can see the air split in two. It ripples out across the world and topples all the numbers over. She spins on her heel and trots out the door. I follow and stand beside her at the top of the concrete stairs. The door creaks to a close behind us and I watch the rain plummet to the earth like a minuscule meteor shower. Single droplets pool on the edge of the concrete overhang, and when they fall, they bounce off the tarseal and explode into a thousand pieces.
Mum puts her raincoat on, then fishes around in her bag before pulling out a rolled-up yellow thing. I’m happy for a moment. Yellow. But then I see it’s a raincoat.
‘Put this on,’ she says, ‘it’s a long walk to the car.’
I take the yellow bundle and feel sick. Raincoats on Thursdays aren’t part of the business. Yellow jumper, brown corduroys, army satchel, that’s the order of business on Thursdays, rain or shine. I shake out the jacket and drape it over my face. Everything is yellow before my eyes. It feels good. It feels better. I peek out from beneath my yellow coat and Mum is on her knees, right in a puddle. I can’t see her face, it’s buried deep in her hands. Her shoulders are shaking and I know what she’s doing, she’s trying to blow up the yellow balloon.
I hate it when I give Mum a black day. Black days are the worst. You wouldn’t wish a black day on the loudest, bark-iest dog so I shake out the yellow raincoat and dip my arms into the sleeve holes one at a time. It doesn’t feel so bad and besides, yellow and plastic are two of my favourite things so I zip it closed, all the way to the top. I crouch down next to my mum and wait for her shoulders to stop shaking. I can tell by her red eyes that I’ve given her a very black day indeed so I hold up the palm of my hand, a rare offering. Her lips turn upwards, just a little bit. A smile. She presses her hand against mine. It’s cold and wet. It feels like the sound of two rocks rubbing against each other and it gives me the shivers.
‘Come on,’ Mum says. She wipes off her cheeks and reaches for the handrail to pull herself up. ‘Let’s make a run for it.’
I follow Mum down the steps double-time but stop at the bottom. I like the way the rain hits my yellow raincoat and trickles off again and I stand there for a moment and watch this yellow armour deflect the rain bombs that gave me and Mum such a black day. Mum’s in the car already. The lights are on and she’s watching me. My feet don’t want to move, they’re putting roots down into the concrete but Mum’s red eyes remind me of her dark day and I feel sick. I pull my feet off the ground, one at a time and walk toward the car.
‘Rain down, rain down,’ sings Thom Yorke. Although my face doesn’t move, I feel like I’m smiling.