I want to live

He followed me home, Mum. Can I keep him? 

O finds the starman's record in the discount store, hugs it close, and proudly takes it home. 

He kneels on the carpet before the small, grey mechanical box, gently lifts the hinged lid, leans in and reverently makes his offering; and - thumb inside - feels the click and whirr, and watches the disc begin to spin. 

O meets David and hand in hand they stride like fallen angels across the ragged, purple steppes; heads together, they smile wild, conspiratorial smiles. And O meets David whenever he likes. And they go wherever they like, and stay for as long as they like; though Time, he knows, is waiting in the wings […]

Sometimes O sees himself spellbound in the plush plum seats of a hushed music hall theatre. He marvels at the movies he’s seen ten times or more; with blood in his mouth and sand in his eyes, he follows the gun-smoke clatter of hooves down endless grey canyons, where the wiry, lonely runner fists on hips makes a last stand before a hanging judge and jury of toughs and toffs, bows out in loose blue remembered shorts borrowed from Billy, who lands on his feet and flourishes ‘for my next trick’, or sailors fighting in the dancehall. 

And a tiny animated artiste mounts, rears up, looms large and stunning in white Japanese embroidered silk pulled tight astride a huge metal war-horse, and the boom boom boom of the guns and the tribal drums beat, beat in his temples, and from the white suit river boat, witness the sleek tease of a glistening brown thigh through the swish of green spears; the horror, the horror, and the cheap seats thrill of the silver-nets and diamond sparkles of sky-plumed high-kicking dancers; and thus spoke Zarathustra […]

Over the years, the doorway to David's world changed shape and size, but still the spinning disc opened the stargate, the rainbow bridge to David’s white room; it was heaven [...]

Time passed slowly, and it seemed David would always offer a hand to hold, to help him with the pain. O loved David. And one day David was gone [...]

On the bus one dark November day, O hears David’s voice once more unmistakably on the line. Somewhere between stations, the crackling becomes clearer, and he is calling from distances: ‘I want to live; I want to live; I want to live’. 

And he doesn't know which way is up, and the needle spins madly, and the lonely girl at the front of the bus turns to see his brown eyes fill with tears. And O sees David’s lovely head, silver on a soft white pillow. He cries real tears. He knows his games are done. She leans down, she holds his hand so gently, so tightly; and he is gone […]

Tell the others he has gone. Tell the others. Take his body down gently. Take him in your arms, take his body down gently […]