The Boy Who Lived Underground
Monday, August 28, 2006
The Boy Who Lived Underground
Burn it down
Till the embers smoke on the ground
And start new
When your heart is an empty room
With walls of the deepest blue...
He has lost track of time,the broken clock on the bricked wall has been stuck at the same time for a long time.6.48pm,was when it all started back then,when he was having dinner with his parents,and the bright light shone in through the livingroom window,forcing them to evacuate into the basement.The windows shattered into a billion pieces of shards,surging through the air like bullets from the distant war.It front line pushed ever closer to their home then,though nobody expected it to come that soon.His father pulled opened the trap door on the floor of the garage,and pushed the whole family in just in time to see the doors blasted opened by balls of flaming death.
They've been staying below,living on rations for what seemed like eternity now.His sister Wendy's dead,breathing in too much dust causing an asthma attack a couple of weeks ago.His father carried her out into the lawns late at night afterwards,but no one followed.We dont know what he did with her,he wouldnt talk about it.But silently at night,whenever somebody brings the question up,he would cuddle in the corner alone and mumbled things to himself as he buried his long and dirty nails into his forehead,asking himself what has he done,what has he done?
The only light came in through the murky basement window mounted a metre or two above our heads.They couldnt see what was outside,what happened after that loud blast from the horizon so long ago.The world's a shade of green and yellow,the colour of the stain on that little window,measuring about half a metre square.The fresh air sipped in through the holes along the edges of the rotten wood,and it smelled like spring with mingled taste of gunpowder and blood.That raw smell of it,attacking our nostrils like the chemical gas spilled over the neighbouring countries in the morning's newspaper.
Home's face: how it ages when you're away
Spring blooms and you find the love that's true
But you don't know what now to do
Cause the chase is all you know
And she stopped running months ago...
The boy remembers still,vividly,how the outside looks like.He remembers the lazy Saturday afternoons when Wendy and himself pulled at each others' hair,or rolled around in the front lawn with their dog Charlie.Where was Charlie?He hoped dearly that he survived the blast too,taking refuge in one of the many holes he dug over the years in the backyard.These thoughts come only at night,when the window no longer provided a blurry imagination of the outside world,and on the mouldy mattress,he wonders if the war is over,and that he can play on the lawn with Wendy again,and Charlie hopping around around us so carelessly,dancing to the endless rhythem of life.He chewed on the hardened bread,and the water tasted salty all of a sudden.They were running out of food,and mother didnt know what to do then.She just cried all day for no reason at all,while his father remained in the corner,with depressions on his forehead now clearly visible.
The box was finally emptied,with the last of the sardines finished by his father,leaving only the bottled water on the shelves as well as Charlie's dog food in the corner of it all.In times like these,the boy thought,is when things get really hard.Through the window he sniffs,that is what he does when everything turns so bleak.He asked his father numerous times,when they can open that damn hatch door up above so that they can go out and live their normal lives again.Usually,his father would scorn and ask him to go back to sleep,or do something useful with the window.But there was one night,when his father erupted into a string of vulgarities,and broke a bottle full of rusty nails,and threatened to cut his throat with those if the boy wouldnt stop asking hopeless and useless questions.He never asked them again,not when the nails are still strewned on the floor like that,and the depression on his father's forehead still growing deeper and deeper.
They had a stack of magazines under the shelves,and the boy found it one day while searching for more of Charlie's food.They were old National Geographic magazines,and flipping through the pages the boy was suddenly reminded of the beauty of the world,how much couldve been saved if something out there has done something,if everybody didnt have to stop waiting for the world to change,for the war to begin.He ran his fingers over the waterfalls and the mountains,the tigers in the plains of Africa.He wonders if they survived the war as well,like Charlie mightve did in one of his holes just a distance away.He made up his mind then,that the grass is and will be greener on the other side.At least,outside the window.
And all you see
Is where else you could be
When you're at home
Out on the street
Are so many possibilities
To not be alone...
So out of the window,he fled one day.Breaking the glass with his elbow,and the blood soaked through his long sleeved shirt.But he didnt care,he thought.He wanted the taste of freedom once more.His parents yelled after him,but he didnt care,for the temptation of a greener land was way too tempting,and he was too desperate to be rational about it.
It was night,and the streetlamps no longer worked proper.It was dark everywhere,with the sky dimly lid in the distance with orange flames,licking at the night sky like devilish tongues.He tripped over something,and he looked down to find his old three-wheeled bike,on its side by the front lawn.On the streets were papers and furnitures,everywhere with burned cars and all around,dead bodies of people.His neighbour Francis and his mother Ruth,shot in the back of the head and laid there on the street,gathering waves of flies.The boy covered his nose,and went down the street further,until at the very end of what was left of his estate,he saw a hill of burning clothings,burning softly into the night.
The flames and smoke climbed out of every window
And disappeared with everything that you held dear
And you shed not a single tear for the things that you didn't need
'Cause you knew you were finally free...
But they werent clothings,he later realised.But they were bodies of people,everybody who were ever caught,laid on top of one another,turning into ashes and the smell of burning flesh.The smoke circled and swirled into the night sky,and for a moment then,the boy watched it in disbelief.The grass wasnt greener on the other side,just bloodier.He thought.So much death,so much memories...lost in the flames and the wind.
He crawled back in through the window then,and his father dragged him in with an angry force.He was worried for him,he thought the boy.His mother cried somemore,but no longer with sadness,just glad that her son has returned.But the boy changed,for he knew that in this place underground,here is the only free world he is ever going to live in,the only refuge he is going to enjoy himself endlessly,despite the four walls,with old paints falling off with the hours.
'Cause all you see
Is where else you could be when you're at home
Out on the street
Are so many possibilities to not be alone...
Everything,through the days of solitude in that confined space under his house's garage,he created an illusion,and mirage of the outside world,the possibility that it might be better than what he was going through underground,with that window acting like a seal to the outside world,the supposed freedom.But once he got there,he realised,that it wasnt as good as he had predicted,no grass to speak of even if they really were indeed,greener on the other side.They were stained by blood then,with memories of the people he ever knew,running away with death as they were consumed by the raging flames.He was safe in that underground room,and from that very day on he helped his father board up the small window in the wall.The air outside no longer smelled like fresh spring,but a constant wave of blood and ash,probably the ones from the bodies down the street.He resented the outside world,what was thought to be so much more beautiful than where he was.And right then,before the boarded window,he smiled for the first time in such a long time,and closed his eyes for the very last time...
And all you see
Is where else you could be when you're at home
There on the street
Are so many possibilities to not be alone...
Burn it down
Till the embers smoke on the ground
And start new
When your heart is an empty room
With walls of the deepest blue...
He has lost track of time,the broken clock on the bricked wall has been stuck at the same time for a long time.6.48pm,was when it all started back then,when he was having dinner with his parents,and the bright light shone in through the livingroom window,forcing them to evacuate into the basement.The windows shattered into a billion pieces of shards,surging through the air like bullets from the distant war.It front line pushed ever closer to their home then,though nobody expected it to come that soon.His father pulled opened the trap door on the floor of the garage,and pushed the whole family in just in time to see the doors blasted opened by balls of flaming death.
They've been staying below,living on rations for what seemed like eternity now.His sister Wendy's dead,breathing in too much dust causing an asthma attack a couple of weeks ago.His father carried her out into the lawns late at night afterwards,but no one followed.We dont know what he did with her,he wouldnt talk about it.But silently at night,whenever somebody brings the question up,he would cuddle in the corner alone and mumbled things to himself as he buried his long and dirty nails into his forehead,asking himself what has he done,what has he done?
The only light came in through the murky basement window mounted a metre or two above our heads.They couldnt see what was outside,what happened after that loud blast from the horizon so long ago.The world's a shade of green and yellow,the colour of the stain on that little window,measuring about half a metre square.The fresh air sipped in through the holes along the edges of the rotten wood,and it smelled like spring with mingled taste of gunpowder and blood.That raw smell of it,attacking our nostrils like the chemical gas spilled over the neighbouring countries in the morning's newspaper.
Home's face: how it ages when you're away
Spring blooms and you find the love that's true
But you don't know what now to do
Cause the chase is all you know
And she stopped running months ago...
The boy remembers still,vividly,how the outside looks like.He remembers the lazy Saturday afternoons when Wendy and himself pulled at each others' hair,or rolled around in the front lawn with their dog Charlie.Where was Charlie?He hoped dearly that he survived the blast too,taking refuge in one of the many holes he dug over the years in the backyard.These thoughts come only at night,when the window no longer provided a blurry imagination of the outside world,and on the mouldy mattress,he wonders if the war is over,and that he can play on the lawn with Wendy again,and Charlie hopping around around us so carelessly,dancing to the endless rhythem of life.He chewed on the hardened bread,and the water tasted salty all of a sudden.They were running out of food,and mother didnt know what to do then.She just cried all day for no reason at all,while his father remained in the corner,with depressions on his forehead now clearly visible.
The box was finally emptied,with the last of the sardines finished by his father,leaving only the bottled water on the shelves as well as Charlie's dog food in the corner of it all.In times like these,the boy thought,is when things get really hard.Through the window he sniffs,that is what he does when everything turns so bleak.He asked his father numerous times,when they can open that damn hatch door up above so that they can go out and live their normal lives again.Usually,his father would scorn and ask him to go back to sleep,or do something useful with the window.But there was one night,when his father erupted into a string of vulgarities,and broke a bottle full of rusty nails,and threatened to cut his throat with those if the boy wouldnt stop asking hopeless and useless questions.He never asked them again,not when the nails are still strewned on the floor like that,and the depression on his father's forehead still growing deeper and deeper.
They had a stack of magazines under the shelves,and the boy found it one day while searching for more of Charlie's food.They were old National Geographic magazines,and flipping through the pages the boy was suddenly reminded of the beauty of the world,how much couldve been saved if something out there has done something,if everybody didnt have to stop waiting for the world to change,for the war to begin.He ran his fingers over the waterfalls and the mountains,the tigers in the plains of Africa.He wonders if they survived the war as well,like Charlie mightve did in one of his holes just a distance away.He made up his mind then,that the grass is and will be greener on the other side.At least,outside the window.
And all you see
Is where else you could be
When you're at home
Out on the street
Are so many possibilities
To not be alone...
So out of the window,he fled one day.Breaking the glass with his elbow,and the blood soaked through his long sleeved shirt.But he didnt care,he thought.He wanted the taste of freedom once more.His parents yelled after him,but he didnt care,for the temptation of a greener land was way too tempting,and he was too desperate to be rational about it.
It was night,and the streetlamps no longer worked proper.It was dark everywhere,with the sky dimly lid in the distance with orange flames,licking at the night sky like devilish tongues.He tripped over something,and he looked down to find his old three-wheeled bike,on its side by the front lawn.On the streets were papers and furnitures,everywhere with burned cars and all around,dead bodies of people.His neighbour Francis and his mother Ruth,shot in the back of the head and laid there on the street,gathering waves of flies.The boy covered his nose,and went down the street further,until at the very end of what was left of his estate,he saw a hill of burning clothings,burning softly into the night.
The flames and smoke climbed out of every window
And disappeared with everything that you held dear
And you shed not a single tear for the things that you didn't need
'Cause you knew you were finally free...
But they werent clothings,he later realised.But they were bodies of people,everybody who were ever caught,laid on top of one another,turning into ashes and the smell of burning flesh.The smoke circled and swirled into the night sky,and for a moment then,the boy watched it in disbelief.The grass wasnt greener on the other side,just bloodier.He thought.So much death,so much memories...lost in the flames and the wind.
He crawled back in through the window then,and his father dragged him in with an angry force.He was worried for him,he thought the boy.His mother cried somemore,but no longer with sadness,just glad that her son has returned.But the boy changed,for he knew that in this place underground,here is the only free world he is ever going to live in,the only refuge he is going to enjoy himself endlessly,despite the four walls,with old paints falling off with the hours.
'Cause all you see
Is where else you could be when you're at home
Out on the street
Are so many possibilities to not be alone...
Everything,through the days of solitude in that confined space under his house's garage,he created an illusion,and mirage of the outside world,the possibility that it might be better than what he was going through underground,with that window acting like a seal to the outside world,the supposed freedom.But once he got there,he realised,that it wasnt as good as he had predicted,no grass to speak of even if they really were indeed,greener on the other side.They were stained by blood then,with memories of the people he ever knew,running away with death as they were consumed by the raging flames.He was safe in that underground room,and from that very day on he helped his father board up the small window in the wall.The air outside no longer smelled like fresh spring,but a constant wave of blood and ash,probably the ones from the bodies down the street.He resented the outside world,what was thought to be so much more beautiful than where he was.And right then,before the boarded window,he smiled for the first time in such a long time,and closed his eyes for the very last time...
And all you see
Is where else you could be when you're at home
There on the street
Are so many possibilities to not be alone...
This entry was posted
on Monday, August 28, 2006 at 11:20 AM.
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