Above the Vaulted Sky - Page 32

Chapter Five

            But I don’t move. I ball my fists and set off down the path with the gravel crunching beneath my feet. I need to concentrate on why I’m doing this in the first place.

I make up my mind as soon as I see him on the other side of the door. When you’re alive, you can’t see how a person is feeling. You can walk down the street and pass a suicide victim, a guilty cheat and a victim of abuse without ever knowing. Some people just know how to hide it.

            Now, I can’t forget the sight of the lonely man with his books. A flickering outline of blackness standing out against a backdrop of warmth. I don’t know how I can see. I can’t read thoughts, I just get a feeling, and I think I see it in colour. I remember Benjamin, and when I picture him, I feel him before I recall his old pockmarked face. He feels like smoky old whiskey, deep orange, sitting at the side of the cupboard, watching the world go by.

            I wonder how I look to other people. Inside I recognize the desperation, the feeling that I should be somewhere else. Finding Penny, understanding why I’ve stayed here.

            I’m walking through the grass again, ignoring the wetness soaking my trousers. Some things you can’t leave. I could go in search of my girlfriend. I could make the selfish decision. But here is someone who needs a person. He might be irritable, and jump to conclusions about the slightest thing against him, but the thought of those marks around his neck, imagining him remembering his final seconds on the earth, dangling from the ceiling, with the burn of rope squeezing the life from his body, is too much for me to bear.

            I stop. I don’t know why I choose the spot I do, but it feels right. I stand between four haystacks, like the points of a compass. It helps to imagine it like that. My directions might be off completely, but regardless, I stand with the points of a compass and it steadies me. It helps me recognize the direction I have to take.

            I know where I want to go. A place where I wish I could take Yates, and show him something he’d love.

            But that’s not an option. I have to bring the wonder to him. It’ll just take a moment of stealth, choosing the right moment and though it pains the memory of my law-abiding life, today I’ll become a thief.