am i human yet?

So for some reason my brain has done a mental today and I’ve decided to post the short story, written by me about 7 years ago, that inspired my debut novel. Which hasn’t actually ‘debuted’ yet so I’ll call it my first novel. Or possibly my only novel, as I’ve not finished the second.

The story was inspired by a photograph, so I thought I’d show you that too:

It’s of me, aged 5, at the circus. Which sounds lovely, but I hated the circus. Hated it. It terrified me. One word people: clowns. WTF?! Those bastards are the epitome of evil. Anyway, despite knowing that he may as well be taking me for a tour of the 9th circle of hell, my dad took me regardless. He did that sort of thing. After the show was over a young man came out into the audience with a lion cub slung over his shoulder, asking who’d like to hold it. My dad thought this was a great idea and took a photograph to memorialise my terror. As you can see it’s very faded and a bit scratched and very old. I’ve always been fascinated by the look on my face, which seems frozen somewhere halfway between fear and excitement. I remember only two things: the weight and warmth of the enormous creature which was half smothering me, and feeling terribly sad for it. I don’t know why.

Anways, here’s my odd little story. I’m not asking for lots of people to like it (actually yes I am, that’s exactly what I’m asking for, love me, love me!). I just thought I’d like to share something which is very close to me and my bitter twisted old heart, and from which I would one day like to make enough money to buy a Venti rather than just a Grande latte at Starbucks. It’s an old piece, and pretty rough and ready, but it’s what started me out on what I (laughingly) call my writing career. I do hope you like it and am of course more than happy to hear anything anyone’s got to say about it. As long as it’s, you know, this is a masterpiece, a work of immeasurable genius, that sort of thing. I’m going to hide under my desk now and gnaw my knuckles. Someone call me out when it’s over.

Oh, and for those who only ‘know’ me from Twitter, it does not involve the use of any of the following the words: jizz, bukkake, bollocks, arse. I know that’s what you’re expecting, and I just wanted to give you a chance to escape and go look at some porn instead, yeah?

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Lion Fur

I’m not sure she really wanted her photograph taken with me that first time we met.  I mean, it wasn’t her hand which shot up in answer to Jay’s call.  It was the tall man with the brown eyes next to her, he was the one waving. Her father, as I came to know later.  I could taste the dampness in the air as I was heaved forward.  The man gestured at Jay, who carried me carefully through the gawping audience, though how he heard the boy’s thin cry among the din and clatter of people leaving the circus is a mystery.  The booming shoes and grunts of people struggling with steaming winter coats, the sudden shouts of laughter, all splintering the air, elbowing the boy’s calls aside.The scent of autumn rain and decaying leaves drifted in from outside the tent to mix with the hot stink of human bodies and cigarette smoke which clung to the back of my throat. I licked my lips, over and over.

Now, even though I was only a cub back then I was still heavy.  I could feel the boy’s muscles tremble against mine with the effort, so I tried to stay still, though his sharp shoulder bruised my ribs and I found it difficult to breathe.

My knuckles throbbed where the claws had been cut out.

She was trembling and her small hands were surprisingly strong for such a little naked clawless thing.  They twisted in my fur, but not hard enough to hurt.  You can’t see her hands in the picture, but I can still feel the way they held on to me.  Tightly.  Her warm breath tickled the hairs in my ears and as I flicked first one and then the other she giggled, very quietly.  She put her face into my neck, blew hot breaths into my fur and whispered to me.

‘Run away with me’.

I think that’s what she said.  It was a long time ago.

I must have been crushing her knees, though I tried hard to be still.  She’d stopped shaking now, and gripped my fur as if I was in danger of falling and only she could save me from slipping over the edge of a cliff.  Through her thick coat, through my thicker one, I could feel the quick beating of her heart, the hot pulse of a small living thing.

A couple of mouthfuls for me, no more.

Her father began waving his hands through the air at her.  He seemed to like using his hands.  His voice was loud and he’d drawn his dark eyebrows together.  They hung over his face like the threat of a landslide.  The girl took her face out of my fur quickly.  You can see her wide eyes, her mouth pulled open in the picture.  That must be what animals look like when they’re being hunted.  Her hands are hidden in my fur, burrowing for the warmth and comfort that’s in it.  Her father went quiet at last, hiding behind his camera, telling her what to do, where to look, to please smooth down her cloud of hair.  She was quiet, and did as he asked.  I strained to find a comfortable position, the boy’s hands bony and gripping underneath my shoulders as he tried to keep my full weight off the girl’s skinny lap.  My tail curled uncomfortably between the cold seats.

She brought the photograph to me but I didn’t see her.  Two days later it was, as we were preparing for the next move, with the clanging of falling metal, sudden shouts, the air heavy with dusty rain and the hot sweet smell of used straw.  The boy strolled across to my cage laughing to himself, his pointed nose in the air, mud-streaked jeans hanging from his scrawny frame, all angles and bones.  Not particularly tempting.  Not much to get stuck between your teeth on that one.

‘Jericho, look.  Photo of you and me and a little girl.  She came with her mum to drop it off and say hello.  God knows why.’

He waved it through the bars in front of my nose and its breeze stirred my whiskers.

‘Told her she couldn’t come in where the animals is kept.  Said I’d show you, though.’

He chuckled to himself.  Squinted again at the small square of glossy paper.

‘Could have got a bit more of my face in though.’

He sighed and grasped the corner of the photograph between his teeth, as if testing its worth.  Then wandered off, whistling through his teeth,  through the clouds of rising dust and flying slivers of straw.

The photo lived taped to the side of my box for a while.  It became curled and faded.  Like me.  I got a bigger cage when I grew so much I could wear the small one like a locket round my neck.  The picture got lost one day while I was being transferred.  I still enjoy remembering the ruckus I caused when I discovered I wasn’t going back to my old cage, even though it bent my spine almost double.  Could have done a proper mauling job on the bastards, even clawless, but my knuckles were too stiff that day from the cold and I couldn’t move quickly enough.  So I got my new home.  And I could still get gasps out of the little ones when I was in the ring, even though I wasn’t allowed near them any more.

She’s too old to go to the circus now most likely.  I hope she doesn’t have that hunted look anymore, that her hands had found something more dependable to hold on to than lion fur.  Because lion fur, however warm and soft, comes with teeth.  Teeth whose only purpose is to rip.  And tear.  And kill.

Tags:   Advice for Strays · Writing5 Comments