Why?

Christopher concentrated on breathing. He could hear the gentle rhythm of his breath, and could feel it travelling along his tongue and out through his lips to appear as white puffs of air. He licked his lips and stared through the cracked white window, condensation creeping into the small circle that Lucian had cleared for him. But Lucian had gone outside, to join the snow fight. Every person in class 6 was out there, every one in the school: except the teachers and, of course, Christopher.

The air was stale. It always was. Had been since the day that he had gone to the coast, to the seaside. He always compared it to the freedom smelling, tasting, feeling air that he had revelled in that day. The wind hadn't cared, and Christopher had felt like a normal boy.

He blinked furiously, the bell clanging shrilly to the right of his head. He would have clapped his hands to his ears, if he were able to. Instead he had to blink continuously, hoping his ears would clear so he could hear again.

He heard soft footfalls in the corridor. It was the teacher, returning from break. He knew it was her; she always wore sandals -even in the snow- and the soles made a distinct sound on the cheap vinyl. It was a soft muted slapping sound.

Class started again, the students frostbitten and cold and wet and smelling of the outside. Lucian was writing furiously next to him, as if he would never be able to immortalise whichever thought he was processing. The fountain pen made an odd scratching sound as it passed over the rough paper.

He would have swivelled his head round if he could. He had been expecting that particular person for a while now. There would have been no point however, because he knew who it was just from the sounds emanating from the back of the classroom. The door had been thrown open with little effort, slamming it into the wall behind, knocking down several displays. The hobnailed boots marched themselves down an aisle between the desks.

Then there was the silence. No one struck as much fear into his or her hearts as James and his gang. Even their teacher was silent, the quiet unnerving. He could do anything. Christopher knew it would happen. He only ever headed for him. He hoped it wouldn't be like the last time, though at least only his pride and dignity had been shot to pieces. Somehow, though, he knew it would be worse, much worse.

As expected, the noise made by the boots cut through the still air and suddenly stopped right behind him. He could see, out of the corner of his eye, his teacher phoning for help; James' goons were blocking the door. Evidently the teacher thought something bad was going to be initiated in front of Class 6.

Christopher tried to calm himself, as his chair was roughly forced round. But it was no use, he was helpless and he couldn't do anything to stop what was happening. He could feel the fear of the class, could feel the fear of James and the fear for himself. You could have cut the air with a knife. He was falling, smashing his head on the floor, his blood vessels throbbing. His cells were working overtime to repair the damage. His arm was twisted, bent, broken behind him, James' knee in the small of his back.

He felt a steel reinforced boot connect on a direct course to his face. He could feel the cartilage of his nose splintering and being forced further into his head. His sense of smell faltered.

His eyes were swelling, the tissue stretched and bruised, his eyes closing as the blood vessels burst. He could taste blood in his mouth, was it from his head or had he bitten his lip? He couldn't tell; he just felt numb. His hearing the only thing he had left. But his ears were starting to ring, not with sound but with an echo of the pressure and pain in his head. He felt his head loll as the black swept over him and then he felt nothing.

He didn't hear the screams ripping the air, or the sirens. But the question in everyone's hearts, including the paramedics and policemen was 'why anyone would want to hurt such a boy. Why anyone would purposefully beat up a helpless boy, especially one who couldn't defend himself? Why was an 11-year-old, disabled stroke victim, who couldn't move or speak, subjected to this cruelty?’

The darkness was dissipating, slowly. Not that he could see anything. The roaring sound had started again in his ears, sounding like the din of an aeroplane rather than the audible sounds of a hospital.

The grating, jagged edge of pain was returning, harsher than he could remember it ever being in his life. It burned him inside out, subjecting his body to rushes of intense heat and cold as his nervous system collapsed.

He was aware that any normal person would be gritting their teeth, clenching and unclenching their fists, perhaps even be biting their tongue hard enough to draw blood. He would be frowning, perhaps scowling in pain, brow furrowed and lines drawn out on his face making him haggard and rough around the edges.

But he knew he wasn’t doing any of these things. He couldn’t even remember how it felt to do those things, how to control his body to achieve those ends and he thought that he’d never get the chance, though he pushed that notion out of the way so as not to depress himself further.

He laughed inside the privacy and comfort of his mind, noting that perhaps these were the thoughts of a being much older than his little eleven years, 1 month and so many days. Maybe, unbeknown to everyone outside his world, constricted to the confines of his mind and senses, the accident had strengthened his mind and at the same time weakened his body. Maybe it had made him look like a scrawny boy of eleven years with wasted muscles yet inside given him the mind of a pessimistic 40 year old.

Christopher did indeed feel he had lived long enough. And, if the increased level of adrenaline flowing through his veins, to try to counteract the effect of the pulses of pain his nerves were sending, was anything to go by then his body was effectively shutting down as he thought.

Except . . . he could feel some strange sensation along the region of his hairline, near his temple. He could feel his blood vessels throbbing, hammering against the thin wall of his temple, but he could also feel something else clenching.

He realised with a sudden clarity that he had been clenching his jaw and grating his molars against each other unconsciously. Ready to try anything, Christopher gingerly opened brittle eyelids, dragging them across his dried pupils, scratching and pulling at bruised and tender skin around.

Parched lips opened. A bloody tongue flicked out apprehensively to lick and soothe. His neck ached. He moved his head slowly, unused to the extra weight that seemed to come with the use of long forgotten muscles. He heard a click and simultaneously felt it.

Slowly it dawned on him. Although his eyes were open, dry as they were, no images reached his brain; nothing needed to be identified by his brain because there was nothing there. He waved a hand tentatively, where he thought his eyes might be, but his pupils remained unseeing. Christopher wasn’t sure what was worse; use of the five senses but no movement or speech, or use of about three senses and movement but no seeing or sense of smell. If anything, he felt more alone, now that he had nothing pretty to look at, to wonder and marvel at and no smells to go with that image.

An eternity later, he heard footsteps and tensed. He didn’t know any of the patterns of footfalls and knew it wasn’t anyone he knew that might have hurt him but now that he couldn’t see, he had to use everything else he had. He swallowed convulsively and called out in a croaked and broken whisper, “I-Is anyone th-there?”

The footfalls came closer to where he was. He had long since decided on ‘here’ being a hospital. The person approached before he had a chance to call out again. A hand smoothed his hair down and spoke in a soft croon. He began to feel sleepy and before he knew it he was letting go of everything. The pain vanished, his senses were all there but dulled and his mind was set free to roam. Yet he wasn’t aware of anything but the rejuvenating rest that he fell into.

Christopher didn’t know if he would ever wake up again, but at that moment in time he thanked whichever deity had eased his pain; for he was sure the gods had something to do with it.

Aeons later, in a small white crisp room, an electronic device beeped once. It was attached by wire to a small underweight child lying in the stiff bedclothes, his tired pain-wracked face now restful, with his pupils roving about underneath the thin skin of his eyelids. Many people rushed in, fearing the worst. Yet they had been spared. The boy opened his eyes and two older anxious human beings rushed forward to wrap their arms around the frail boy, tears coming easily. The boy hugged them back, the concept the only thing his arms could remember doing.

She smiled, watching the scene unfold before her, glad to have aided in giving such an important boy his life back. She only wished that he hadn’t had to live through so much pain. Destiny was not to be deterred however, she was a grouchy old deity and not to be persuaded otherwise. This boy would be up to great things she was sure, and she would guide him personally.

--Fin