SCRATCH Episode 1: Ashes in the wind

2

The boy was done weeping, he hoped. The last of the moisture now drying in to the sleeves of his sweater. He thought about asking his parents for a new one - a sweater that is - but he already knew the answer. The answer would be that they didn't have the money for it and he could have a new one when the new school year started after summer.

The sun was still pouring out a nice warmth, a relatively rare thing for the northwest but the summer was well in to its swing, vacation just around the corner and there seemed to be more sunny days than rainy days at the moment, Benji thought. The boy could sense it was getting to be evening though and wondered just how long he had been sat crying in to his sleeves. Time seemed to have gotten away from him, 'did I fall asleep?' he whispered. Benji thought he should probably head home.

The anger at the older boys who had called him 'stinky trailer trash with a skank hooker of a mom', was beginning to subside. He no longer felt the deep rage within him that made him want to smash those boys in the head with a heavy textbook and not stop until the polished parquet floor of the school hallway was stained red with their brains. He had gotten good at pushing those kinds of thoughts in to a box, a box deep within his head wrapped in thick chains and coated in padlocks. He only hoped that he could keep them there.

Despite the dysfunctionality of his family he was a good student and he knew he could do his mother proud by getting good grades and maybe even find a ticket out of the trailer park with them. But only if he could keep the box shut. That's how his school councillor had described it after an incident where Benji had pushed one of the older boys over in the hallway and gotten into a fight. 'Keep the box shut Benji, theres no good can come from being the one who starts fights and gets in to all sorts of trouble. Keep your head down, work hard and keep all those bad thoughts locked away in a box inside your head. If you ever feel like they're coming out, just picture the box. Put the bad thoughts in it and imagine yourself clicking the lid shut. Lock it away and never let it out'.

He had zoned out for a moment while the councillor spoke, staring in to the void. At last the image was clear, it was the box that he had been longing for even if he hadn't known it.

Benji had been following the boy that day from his class on the second floor. His first thought had been to tackle the boy from behind, force him over the rail and then watch him stream helplessly down two floors to the hard ground and to his death. He had thought better of it and spent a moment with his eyes screwed shut as he tried to force that will away. It had worked. Well, enough so that he'd waited until they were on the ground floor before he jumped the other boy.

That is what he did now. The boy in his threadbare muck-faded sweater sat in the dirt by the boulder, his eyes clamped shut and the image of a big old wooden chest in his head. The lid came down with an eerie creak and a huge iron lock clunked shut. One solitary tear rolled down his cheek.

Benji opened his eyes again and it was all ok. He had started to use that trick the moment the meeting with the councillor had ended and although it could sometimes take him a while to remember what he had to do - like it had today - eventually the lightbulb would flash in to life and he would close his eyes. The troubles would be gone. Locked up, never to be let out.