XVII
“Question thirty-four,” said The Young Cripple.
The two children had almost reached the end of the experiment, pausing now for the last question. Their stare was intense, like a predator latched on its wounded prey, or an infant, on the scent of its mother’s nipple. Little could undo their concentration, not even the shouting and cheering coming from the other side of the camp, as, under The Big Top, the audience grew restless, waiting for the show to get underway. Not even the sound of the dying woman could rattle the children, as she fought the urge to choke, gargling on loose teeth and thick, black phlegm.
“If you were to die this evening,” said The Young Cripple, “what would you regret not having said, to the one person who matters the most?”
The Young Boy thought for some time. He thought not of words, but of pictures. He thought of his mother at first, from as early as he could remember, right up to a time that he wished he could forget. He thought of her fitting him into his pyjamas and tucking him in at night. He thought of her watching over his bed through a crack in the door while he pretended to sleep. He thought about her too, nursing his dying sister, and he remembered how he had wished it was he, cradled in her arms and being kissed a thousand times, apologized to, and grieved for so passionately, before she had even died. The Young Boy, though, couldn’t think of a word to describe what he felt.
So he thought of his father instead. He thought too, from as early as he could remember, up to the present, where love and kindness had become precarious events, suppressed in the child’s subconscious that kept him, like a bruised and battered housewife, justifying his father’s culture of callous cruelty, and though desperate to do so, unable and unwilling to escape. He thought of him stocking the fridge, repairing a puncture in his tire and being on the sideline for the only goal he had ever kicked. He thought of him too, dismembering his sister and burying her in the corner of the yard where she used to build sand castles.
He thought of the look in his father’s eyes, where his love had been dressed in fret and worry when his mother gave out that last horrible, flatulent breath. It was the look of a hapless scientist, in the midst of a ruinous discovery; as if in that second he had come to accept why this had occurred, and more so, knew with absolute certainty, what would happen next. And he thought of the look in his father’s eyes as he threw the last mound of dirt on his mother’s grave, the one that had been evicted of all emotion, where love had been robed in neglect, abuse, and torture. It was the look of a man that had come to accept what he would have to do, and who he would have to become, to keep his son alive.
And the whole while, as he thought of these things, he clung onto the silver paddles, receiving light shocks and heavy shocks too, as The Young Cripple moved the small dial as she had been taught. And the shocks, be they ticklish or grave, did little to stir the placid focus in The Young Boy’s mind as he thought the best and very worst of the person he believed mattered the most. And it was when The Young Cripple kissed his cheek that he immediately thought of someone else.
“I love you,” he said.
The Young Cripple blushed.
“I...I…Uh,” she said, stuttering.
“Is what I would say,” continued The Young Boy. “I love you. And it’s ok. Whatever happened, or is going to happen, I will always love you.”
The Young Boy laid down the silver paddles, now oblivious to the constant shocks. His mind felt clear and light, but too, it felt overcome with a sense of worth and purpose, and when he looked at The Young Cripple, he felt as if he were staring into the afternoon sun - as if she were his north. He hadn’t felt this kind of direction and belonging, not since glancing upon that look in his father’s eyes.
He didn’t wait for the girl to put down the experiment. Instead, he leaned forward and as quick as a death adder’s strike, he kissed her once, on her lips. And for the next seven minutes, they looked at one another, without blinking or turning away. The Young Boy cast himself into the sea of the Young Cripple’s eyes, drifting in her attentive current, swarming around her rising and falling iris. And she too, unto his, which as grey as they were, reminded The Young Cripple of the clouds, which made her think of herself as a bird, escaping the bastille of her crooked and useless legs. She found herself deep in his gaze, riding the jet stream along the centre of his attention, towards the peace and quiet of the endless space, in the black of his iris.
For seven minutes - which could have been seven years, or seven lives – they held this gaze. Neither one blinked. Neither one laughed or smirked, or even trembled for that matter. Their gaze was as wide and sure, and as warm and steadfast too, as the sun upon the Earth, or as a new mother upon her feeding child.
For seven minutes, nothing and no one else existed.