LITMIR.BIZ

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without moving and the sweat beaded on the back of his neck, giving him a chill sensation down his back. Slowly, inexorably, his heart began to settle and with spectrally thin fingers, shards of calm began to creep through him. Jared allowed himself to take deeper, calming breaths.

      He knew, without knowing exactly how, that his light had come. It came every night at the same time, at half past ten, and for a little over an hour it would remain. Spinning around, Jared scanned the enormous factory shrouded in mist and though the hazy layers he caught sight of the bobbing illumination. He couldn’t explain why it made him feel so safe, but it did. That tiny light, a speck three quarters of the way up the forbidding building, always washed away whatever sadness or fear that engulfed him, and filled him instead with hope. Perhaps it was the metaphor, perhaps it was that it returned every single night; whatever it was, Jared felt an enormous affinity.

      Within him there was resolution, and a giddy excitement welled. Tonight he would try and reach it. He pictured himself going through the hole in the wire fence that he and his friend had found, down the side alley to the factory. But this time, rather than just peeking in through the broken window surrounded by ivy, he’d go in.

      That excitement was a respite, a freedom from the sickening fear he’d experienced that night, and while he was afraid of the night, nothing could compare to the terror he felt for his own home. Looking around him the walls seemed to close in and the ceiling press towards him. Inexorably he seemed to be sucked towards the lounge room and the vicious anger of his father.

      Were he more mature, Jared would have forced his thoughts elsewhere, but he was a child, and the fear simply spiralled until he felt he’d scream. Calling out would bring a far darker terror upon him and instead he bit down on his tongue. Steeling his thoughts he looked down at the sleeping form of Sarah and then he moved forward.

      Pulling on his slippers and wrapping himself in his woollen dressing gown, Jared judged himself ready. On second appraisal he realized the slippers were wholly inadequate and dropping down he retrieved from under the bed the socks and shoes he’d been wearing earlier. It took only a moment to put them on, and pulling the sash around his waist tight and tying it into a bow he edged towards the bedroom door.

      The repeated episodes of malicious anger had taught him one thing; his father, consumed by alcohol, was always close to passing out when he lurched down the corridor to their bedroom. Jared slowly opened the bedroom door, almost certain that he’d see an unconscious form draped over the rickety couch.

      As it silently swung open he saw exactly what he expected. The small black and white television flickered , casting an eerie collection of shapes over the walls and ceiling, partially obscured by the bulk of his father’s form slouched backward over the shallow arm of the couch. His head was tilted back and his mouth was open; there could be no doubt that he was in a deep slumber.

      While he felt more safe, there remained a sense of excitement and expectation in Jared’s thoughts. So used to a pervading and oppressive doom, this was an emotion he’d not easily give up on. Beyond his fatigue there was a wellspring of energy that fuelled him now and gave confidence. He turned resolutely towards the front door and deftly unlocked it. This time there was a high pitched squeal as it opened and a gush of freezing air surged around him. There was only a momentary pang of anxiousness; the drone of the television and the heat of the oil burner would adequately mask Jared's actions.

      Feeling for the keys on the hook next to the door, Jared lifted them and then paused for a moment as the cool metal pressed against his fingers, thinking about what he was about to do. Light. Dropping down to his knees, he gently eased the hall cupboard open. By the dull light filtering through the front door Jared caught sight of the long aluminum torch and carefully lifted it over the clutter in front.

      Taking a deep breath Jared turned and stepped through the front door, closing it behind him. Outside, the night was perfectly still, and Jared stood on the front step, watching. There was no movement anywhere, even the distant sound of traffic was somehow a perfectly level drone that disturbed nothing. The fog hung in a heavy blanket a meter or so above the ground, like a solid threatening mass of spider’s web. It obscured everything beyond the narrow garden in a blurring shroud.

      The chill air caught in his lungs and for a moment Jared doubted his course of action; everything seemed suddenly so forbidding, so impossible, and he was so weak and pathetic. Looking up he searched for the beckoning light; its tiny but reassuring glow was barely perceptible through the thick blanket of fog. He stood immobile for long moments before a brief calm swept over him, and forcing all thoughts from his mind the first step was taken along the narrow bricked path of their overgrown sliver of a garden.

      Jared ignored the mounting fear and just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. He passed the rusted-open front gate of their house, the concrete footpath and then crossed the asphalt road. Standing still for a moment in front of the enormous bluestone building, he felt completely exposed and insignificant, but terror did not grip him. Within him there was a fatalistic resolve, and the icy fingers of anxiousness slid straight through.

      Hunching over and thrusting his hands deep within his dressing gown pockets to ward off the bitter cold, Jared paced carefully along the footpath. The background buzz of the city was strangely calming, as if he wasn’t the only person in this cold, hard place. While the street lights gave almost no illumination, in the distance, over the dark and jagged silhouette of the lines of houses there was a soft glow, suggesting busy activity.

      Taking a deep breath, Jared stopped at the corner of the factory and looked upward. Only the barest glint on the face of a brick suggested the presence of the dancing light he was pursuing. As he looked back along the street he realised that excluding the row of narrow terrace houses adjacent theirs, it would be very difficult to see the light at all, even on a perfectly clear night.

      It wasn’t difficult for him to slip through the narrow fence at the side of the factory. Down that long, imposingly narrow canyon that separated it from the brick warehouse next door, was a narrow alley less than half a metre in width. At the footpath on which he now stood there was a piece of mesh and two posts blocking access, but the movement of both buildings had meant the wire had separated and Jared pulled it aside easily.

      He knew another moment of anxiousness as he squeezed past the post and stood slowly upright. Jared and his closest (only) friend Tony had dared each other to come in here on a sunny Saturday morning, and even then the imposing walls had seemed to lean in on them. They’d only come in a few metres, up to the line of broken windows that could only be seen from within the canyon, before panicking and scampering back out. The wind whistling down the man-made crevice, howling around them and seeming to come from the maw of the building and through glass teeth, was too overpowering and menacing for their young imaginations.

      It was too dark to see anything now and Jared turned on the torch. Everything was perfectly still and the strong beam illuminated a thick swathe of mist around him. He pointed it to his right at the base of the grimy wall and there, some twenty metres distant, was the row of small windows. They seemed tiny to him now, although it was only just over a year since he and Tony had slunk in here.

      Coming up to the low run of openings, he could see they were all broken, angry shards of glass remaining in place. It occurred to him that someone must have come down here and kicked them all in because there was no sign of glass on the path in front of him. Judging from the precariously leaning wall of the adjacent building that just above his head height angled sharply over to touch the bluestone factory, it was probably another child. This was simply too narrow and confined a space for adults to traverse.

      At the windows now, Jared crouched down at the side of the first and tentatively dipped the torch to shine inside the room beyond. It was a small store room, unfurnished but for a long, low bench against the outer wall. There was little in terms of other objects within the space, just a broken stool and sporadic rubbish cast haphazardly around the room. Lifting the beam to inspect the inner wall, Jared couldn’t immediately see any way out. It was only as he then scanned the end walls that he saw a narrow door to his left.

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