2 Stories

Freewheelin’

When I was told to check my wheelbarrow into the nightclub cloakroom, I felt my cheeks flush with rage. I wasn’t used to being without my barrow—I was so addicted to the feel of the cold steel tray and the rattle it made as it rolled along the concrete.

Dancing alone on the vinyl dance floor I performed the twist to a Nordic techno mix. I felt hostile eyes on me and I pined for the security of my wheelbarrow. I decided I had to relax, have a smoke in the beer garden, see if I could survive another hour by myself.

Outside I sat beside a girl named Christy who was dressed from head to toe in white Lycra. She had stacked black plimsolls and rainbow-tinted coffin nails. We started talking and I couldn’t help but wax lyrical about my wheelbarrow. 

“The wheel’s a bit scuffed now,” I said, “and the handles are flaking too but basically it’s a smooth ride.” 

“Uh-huh,” she said, looking away and striking up a conversation with some meathead to her right.

At the end of the night, I collected my wheelbarrow and I didn’t care who stared—it was just me and my old friend again.  Gripping it firmly, flipping it around and standing it on its head energised me like a B12 shot.

I soon attracted a drug-fuelled crowd, clapping and cheering as I balanced it on my nose and gave it a spin. Christy approached me—her eyelids twitching, chewing her tongue like a dog chomping on a rubber ball.

“Hey, it’s you, wheelbarrow boy,” she said, slurring her words. 

“Hi,” I said, “wanna ride?” 

She climbed in, sat cross-legged and pointed into the distance. 

“Your place, cowboy!” 

Inside my bedsit she beckoned me to the sofa bed with an index finger and a sly smile. I gave a sidelong glance to my wheelbarrow that was propped up by the television. 

“Leave your little toy alone,” she said. “Come and show me a good time.” 

I was terrified and instinctively wrapped an arm around my barrow, bringing it close to my chest, spooning it while standing. Luckily Christy’s eyes glazed over and she passed out. 

Three hours later she woke, groggy and pale. It took her a minute to realise she was lying in a pool of her own vomit, was curled up in the barrow again and that I had put her there. 

She climbed out and rifled through her purse to make sure I hadn’t stolen anything. 

“Your mother really did a number on you,” she said, applying a wet wipe to her cheek. “Seek help.” 

Later that afternoon, I gave my barrow a good scrub, oiled the wheel, cleaned the mud flaps, really dug deep into the crevices—spending quality time. 

I thought back to how it all began. I was seven, Christmas, mum sloshed on port and flirting with uncle Leo because dad hadn’t spoken to her in a month—instead busying himself with DIY projects around the house, building and destroying.

With tremendous excitement I opened a giant present under the tree, but I was dismayed to discover dad had bought me a child’s size (but still pretty hefty) garden wheelbarrow and a pair of plyers.

“Think of the potential,” he said.

I saw none.

But when I noticed my mum whisper something into uncle Leo’s ear with moist lips, I improvised. I scooped up my baby cousin from her baby walker, plonked her in the barrow and raced around the Christmas tree as the baby howled with delight. The mood lifted—my parents smiled, even exchanged a few words. It was at that moment I forged a heartfelt connection with my barrow and every other wheelbarrow I ever owned.

But I now realised the barrow was doing me more harm than good. The truth was things had been fraying at the edges for some time now. Going out for drinks at my local, hunting for girls in Soho, or catching a late-night horror flick—all with my wheelbarrow in tow—was starting to wear thin with my friends. It was no longer an endearing quirk.

So, going to the club alone and meeting Christy wasn’t just a fun night out for me, it was a final attempt to incorporate the wheelbarrow seamlessly into my life. 

Now I knew it had to go. 

I took a stroll around the neighbourhood, leaving my wheelbarrow at home, upturned, wheel in the air, forlorn. Kids rushed out of their front doors and swarmed around me like I was a celebrity, confused as to why I wasn’t with my trusty barrow. When I told them that was in the past, they were horrified. A boy with yellow teeth caged by titanium braces, chewed on a gobstopper and said, “We have no reason to go outside now, you know that right?” 

The kids dispersed and I scoured the sky for a nearby star to lead me somewhere new, somewhere out of this mess but what I really needed was a cold beer and the kindness of a beautiful woman. 

That night I dumped the wheelbarrow on the curb by a tree and it was taken in minutes.

I wondered whether the new owner would merge the barrow into the rhythm of their life like I had. And I hoped my wheelbarrow wasn’t wasted on some construction worker heaving sand and cement around a desolate building site. I wanted to believe my barrow could inspire profound insights and conquer expansive dreamworlds.

In fact, I hoped to see it in the neighbourhood again sometime, living a new auspicious life, flourishing like never before.

Strange Games

It was rumoured I had never been born—that I had appeared on earth a fully formed man, moulded into skin and bone. Some said I materialised in an orb of light like a messenger from the future and some said I emerged from the animal spirits, a beast in my own right. It was a weird and superstitious village where I lived—everyone had their own bizarre outlook on life.

Me? My memory is as weak as a soft rain—I know my name is Adam, not much else. I let the others fill in the gaps.

I did know I felt more comfortable around children, and people said it was because I had no childhood of my own, that I was struggling to find out what it was like, what it all meant.

The village kids would play games, strange games, and sometimes they would let me play too. In one game, a few of us would climb a giant pine tree deep in the woods where no one dared go except teenage lovers or small game hunters. The child who scaled the top branch first had to shout secrets about the kid who was stuck at the bottom.

I was always going to lose—I could barely make it beyond the first branch. I walked with my body bent over as if I wanted to crawl among the weeds, and my fingers were mangled into twisted shapes.

One day, leaning into the wind like a long jump skier, a boy named Tommy held onto two branches, balancing his feet against the crown of a tree.

He called out into the grey sky and crushed me with his lies.

He said, “All the stories about Adam are wrong, he did have a mum—a slave girl who gave birth to him in a junkyard. Seagulls picked at her skinny body while she died. Then a mad witch with crazy clown makeup snatched Adam, washed him in a bucket of blood and raised him in the forest in a wooden hut, eating snails, without a thing to his name.”

After Tommy’s rant, my friend Alana who couldn’t climb so high either, sat me down in a clearing beyond the trees and wiped my tears away with dirt-stained fingers.

She said, “Don’t listen to Tommy, he’s strong and has a big mouth but he tried to kill his mum with a hammer and it was him who burned down the art class last summer. Listen, I know who you really are, you’re like a broken superman, or a space alien pure and kind, or something like that—you’re special, okay? What you’re going to do is beat him up, beat him to a pulp.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” I said, “I could never hurt someone like that, it’s hateful.”

But when I next saw Tommy on his way back from school, wiping his nose on his uniform while sucking on a cola ice pop, an uncontrollable rage welled up inside of me. I only meant to hit him once but I lost control; I broke his nose and cheek bone with my elbow and I watched his face bubble with blood until I heard the noise of angry adults approach. I made my escape.

I fled to the forest and hid in an underbrush near a river that masked my tired breaths with its ferocious roar. The night came and went and as everyone in the village slept—no doubt dreaming of drowning me in troughs of rain water or burning me among the trees I couldn’t climb—I waited for the bus into the city.

Maybe leaving the village could help me remember who I was with a clear mind—remember if I was born from the heavens or the slop, from gods or beggars.

Or else I’d learn that forgetting wasn’t such a bad thing after all and that life is a short violent song no matter where you’re from.