Gabriel's Horn Read online

because he is poor and uneducated?”

  “I’m here for Harrison.”

  “The boy or Harry,” he used the nickname vindictively, it was what his family called him. I can see his little daughter tugging on my sleeve and begging me to bring her Daddy home.

  I felt as if I was going to implode under the pressure.

  “Choose. Time is ticking…”

  I took a step towards the major but the butt of a rifle collided into the nape of my neck.

  I fell to the floor and craned my neck to the see the boy having the life strangled out of him. His face was going purple, and his eyes were turning from terror into an acceptive glassy stare.

  An impossible choice, I can’t do this. I am weak. The click – click – click of the fan taunted me with the passing of each critical second.

  “STOP, I’LL TAKE THE BOY!” I shouted with my voice cracking as I crumbled under the pressure. The devil smiled and dropped the limp body which spasmed as the lad came to.

  “A very wise choice. Now let us eat.”

  The Major raised the silver dome from the dish and there lay the severed head of Harrison Turlock. The same dark brown eyes that his daughter had now stared down at me. I looked away from disgust and the shame as if the dead man was judging me.

  Bosco simply laughed.

  “Oh god…” I flinched as the head was thrown to my feet.

  Bent over I dry retched as the Major put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Was that not worth the long wait? Are you going to eat your meal?” he exclaimed.

  I simply shook my head in disbelief.

  “Good. Stay hungry, Ben-jah-mon.”

  ESTRELLA

  I used to laugh at the Hispanics behind the fence, and they smiled back.

  I was just a child but the bitter irony hasn’t been softened by the fact. Now we all sit behind the wall looking at the far off city lights.

  The wall has been moving faster these days. Not that mattered, I was on the wrong side and that was all that mattered. My Pa worked the mines and when we came back his eyebrows and the corners of his faces stained with about seven different types of dirt, I used to think he looked like a character from one of my comic, normally confident and out-going he’d go quiet and stare at the wall whenever we approached it. Perhaps deep inside he knew it was coming closer. That’s why he told me off for laughing at those behind the wall, he knew we’d be joining them. But no, why wouldn’t he tell us, and save his family from that fate. Perhaps he knew on a primal level but could never find the words to express his innate fear of that ever approaching wave of chain link fence that would eventually swallow us all. I could see it easily and plainly, a talent common in children. “The big wall was behind that house yesterday,” I’d tell my mother, who would give a crooked smile and tell me what a big imagination I had.

  The days inside the bounds of the fence seem so distant now, as it were a dream. Passing through the membrane was like being born again. I must have been about 8 years old, it was a sweltering hot night. The chain link scrapped alongside our timbers, knocking roof tiles off which woke up my Pa but it was too late and we were squeezed out like the beads of sweat of a night fever.

  The first morning on the wrong side we awoke to the same smiling Hispanics whose grins towards me were especially wide. But what does race matter now? We all sleep in the same gutters and crowd around the same stinking garbage fire.

  It’s not all bad, today was alright, I caught a nice plump rat. You ever tried to go to sleep hungry? It’s not an easy thing, especially with all the moaning and groaning that crawl out from the half-built shanties. Disease is rampant over the wall, but with a nice meal in my stomach, I can get to sleep and dream of hot water and microwave meals.

  Basic necessities were always in low stock, clean water, food, etc. But there was another resources that was consistently of low quantity, ideas, I don’t think I’ve heard an original thought in years. I’m guilty of this as well. Men are simple creatures when we’re brought down into the caveman realm. Eat, fuck, sleep and how to get back over the wall. No one’s done it though, gone back over, once you’re here-- you’re here. There are no heroes, there’s no Superman or Batman of the slums.

  More people are flooding in every day. Each new group looks slightly better than the last. But soon we all look the same, I can’t remember the last time I saw my family, I don’t think I’d recognise them if I did. Not that I’d want to either, it would just be a remind of easier days.

  And now I smile as I hear laughter coming from behind the wall. I don’t smile at much else, but it’s a pleasure seeing the same faces not in the shit with you. The wall’s small progress was comforting in a way even though it was the cause of my imprisonment. Slowly inch by inch, we were approaching the city lights.

  The far off lights were the only sort of hope that we had. Watching them glitter in night warmed my heart more than burning polystyrene in a dumpster ever could. They never moved, unlike everything else here. Everything squirmed, wiggled, moaned till it died, the maggots, pathetic diseased animals and most of all we humans. I never slept in the same place twice and rarely recognised another person. I have made friends in the past but all we could relate to each other was our mutual suffering.

  But we’re getting closer, and that’s what really matters.

  Finally this night I can lay my eyes on the lights and they are attached to a great tower that stretches to the sky. Some sort of construction is happening at the base of the tower. And we’re getting closer and closer now. It seems the fence is converging on this tower, like a tightening noose. We can walk the full way around in half a day. I made several laps in the proceeding days and find that my lap time becomes shorter by a half hour every day.

  Not even the builders are safe from the wall, soon they started sifting into our ranking. I spotted one by his bright orange west and asked what his job was.

  “Demolitions. Say do you know how I can around this fence?”

  I smiled and walked back to my hovel.

  The Hispanics are singing loudly tonight, I only know enough Spanish to beg for food, water or cigarettes but I can tell the song is a happy one.

  “Adiós mi estrella, adiós mi amor...”

  I drift off into sleep. I had a strange dream, through the night; I could see the tower rise. Its lights grew closer and closer to the stars. When I awoke my muscles felt the same stiffness I have endured for years but this morning it had flared up. It was a sweltering hot day, and I was disorientated. I wandered around for several minutes lost until I figure out that I’ve lost my bearings-- the fence was gone. I make several full turns and climbed up onto a hill to search for it. I felt an intense loneliness but then I spotted that the great tower. No fence was restricted us from it now. I begin to run towards the base of the tower and notice several others have the same idea. Soon the entire waking crowd began sprinting towards the tower.

  I spot men up on a balcony drinking champagne and laughing, but no one takes the time to smile now. The entire base of the tower has been mined away, the workman wasn’t lying it really is being demolished. I have to stop this. One last lonely construction worker is at the centre of the base, next to a single steel beam holding the tower up. He swung once at it with his sledgehammer. A painful thud erupted from the struggling metal.

  “Stop! Stop!” the crowd shouted at him in a dozen languages, but he couldn’t hear over his ear protection. We were almost upon him as he swung again and an enormous boom seemed to silence everything. The steel beam was dislodged. I looked up and waited for the structure to come crashing down on us. Instead, miraculously it floated fifty feet off the ground. We cheer and hugged each other and simply enjoyed still being alive. And though I felt I had never truly had a family nor loved another person, in those short moments I felt like I belonged and I had a purpose. But soon these tears of joy became tears of despair as the tower floated up like a boat that had lost its mooring, that steel beam. As it gained speed we
could hear the festivities going on inside.

  We threw bricks as if to shoo it away but we all secretly wished that the bricks would weigh her down and bring her back to earth. There was nothing we could do, the great vessel was leaving and we had been left behind.

  I found the last workman and asked him why he cut the great tower loose.

  “It’s my job mister. Do you know where the nearest bus stop is?”

  I ignored him, lied down and watching the lights rise into the night sky, waiting to die

  Eventually, I dreamed I was flying, a great big cape on my back. I was free. I flew up to the escaping tower and blew out her flames and watched her rocket down through the night sky towards the earth.

  And then all was dark, there was nothing at all, no sights, smells, or sounds. I knew at once, though it was impossible, that I wasn’t dreaming anymore.

  A short tempered stereotype

  What am I doing with my life? I questioned, as the dishwasher spurt scalding water up my naked back.

  My name is Chester and I have been a dwarf entertainer for 6 years… It was supposed to be a stepping stone but like so many before me I’d been lured in by the easy money. The financial security came with a price, however; dignity. It was something I was especially short of.

  Fuck, I did it again. In my line of work, I'm around so many height puns every day (and every one of those insensitive dicks