The ditch

There are only the sounds of night, the revolutions of a wheel slowing and the ineluctable matter of the stars.

What no-one has ever thought to ask me is this: Why? Though I couldn’t tell them if they did. In all honesty I am unsure myself as to why.

There is water in my ear. There is a growl from the road to Southport. Lorry. The slighter percussion of minicabs heading out. If I’m still here in four hours I’ll hear them coming back.

I think my leg is broken.

Right, think. Left past the clocktower and then it was down the slight hill towards the park, knees bent, arms wide, and then a wide sweep through it past motionless giant toys. The skeletons of toys. At this time of night merely the idea of toys, sorely lacking life. So much easier now there are the long stretches of tarmac, like arms hugging the park. Time was this was out of bounds to me, my wheels would get bogged down and I’d come to a halt, bogged down, immobile under the moon, the worst fate of all, immobility.

And now I think I have broken my leg.

Yes it was a wide and joyful circuit of the park and then out onto Southport Road to dart beneath the bright lights of the petrol station and frighten the man behind the counter. Strange pinch faced man, haunted by night and loneliness. Dispenser of fags and sweets. Someone should write a story about him. And then left, back up Aughton Street and then what? What came next?

I could tell them why I started. How when my knees went and the weight began to pile on I panicked, and took the step that has come to define me. I could tell them that. I can’t lift weights any more, I can’t run marathons any more, I can’t play football any more. My joints are shot. My hair is grey.

Maybe I haven’t broken it, it doesn’t hurt that much. I’ll try to move, but first I need to know.

A car. A car full of young men. Shouting. Shouting and music. There was a car, and now there is this water and mud. There was a car and I knew it was there from the music, the incessant muffled thud of bass getting louder and louder and as to why I continue, I don’t know, a number of reasons. Often when I’m out the town is mine and mine alone. Each paving slab laid purely as a tribute to me, each kerb designed with me in mind. The council have a committee who meet every second Thursday in a chamber in the depths of their offices, with tan carpets and whiteboards and flipcharts and sandwiches (egg mayonnaise, or tuna mayonnaise) to calibrate the streets for me, for when I skate, for reasons I don’t rightly know.

A ditch, I’m in a ditch, that’s it. Mud plus water plus cold plus awkward shape for lying in equals ditch. I’m in a ditch because for some reason each and every night I skate all over the town, from the northern woods to the wasteland estates of the west. Your guess is as good as mine.

Yes, it is broken.

There will be sirens eventually, I hope.

But for the time being there is only night, and the ineluctable matter of the stars.