EPISODE 1

A Leap Into The Unknown

 

The birds flew ahead, just skimming the tops of the skeleton baring horse chestnut trees, shifting in the chilled breeze and waving their last goodbyes to the autumn sun. ‘It won’t be long till they drop and cover his grave,’ I thought, anxious not to repeat the unknown escapade which buried him there. His life was far from good; a mischievous man who loved tripping you up with innuendoes. Autumn arrived early in honour of him. He’d done nothing to be ashamed of. I reflected upon a recent adventure, which I hoped to be able to tell him about, but now that he was gone, I’ll tell someone else and that might as well be you.

          Attracted as I was to the notion of flying, I watched the migrating birds being chased by the roof-top smoke. I could see my grandpa elevated for the first time, looking down upon this miserable earth.

          How, when and where was it gonna be my time to go? How would I know? I knew exactly how it would happen, but when? I wasn’t quite sure about that yet. I’d seen it all before on telly. Not our telly though—we were only allowed to watch the wrestling. I hate wrestling. I like sailing better. Sky diving is a bit like sailing, I suppose, and I was soon to find out about that!

          Well, since I’d just turned eleven, not quite a man, according to Mrs Bell, but just as brave as one, she reckoned—at least as brave as him. I always looked up to him and probably always will. According to Mrs Bell, ‘He never let you down. He loved you kids like he loved his beer.’ Even so, I might have let him down a couple of times. He would just smile at me and stride across the road, double step the stone to the upper city, leaving me squat on the curb counting on his return, and ready to catch the shiniest apple he'd pinched from Agatha’s fruit stall. He was sure to chuck it to me and I would have to scarper like my arse was on fire.

          Well, like I was saying, I knew exactly how I was gonna take off out of there, or rather here, except it looks a lot busier now. I just had one problem, you see—my little brother Sash, wanted to come along with us. I couldn’t leave him behind, mind you, not that he weren’t old enough to look after himself, but because I had promised him, you see.

          As for flying out of here? I had that all figured out—I just had to wait for the right time. Timing was everything, you see. I’d been a watching them birds for months, and when I say birds I mean real birds, not them fluffy kind you find holding up the bar, pretending they’re so important. No, birds on the wing, birds chirping and singing in code. I learnt that timing was the be all and the end all, if you get my drift. So, I made it my business to practise at the sand dunes, and every opportunity I got to skive off, I did, and I soon got the hang of it too—free falling I mean.

          Sash, on the other hand, had so much faith in his big brother, knowing just how good I was with mafs and all, he reckoned he could follow me with his eyes shut. Whenever I say jump, he jumps—for arguments sake, he’d jump into the abyss if I gave him the word.

          Anyway, there we were the two of us, ready to jump, only on this occasion we were meant to be holding hands but we forgot. I yelled, ‘Ready, get set,’ and on the ‘Go!’ we both jumped from the cliff and instead of landing on the ship’s deck, we landed on top of the crane—and this crane was a ruddy, great big one too! It was very much in service, unbeknown to us. Well, how in the hell did that happen? Beats me to this very day! But I might add, since my calculations were always spot on, there was no way we could’ve missed our target if it hadn’t have been for the rusty old crane.

          You might well be asking yourself how we managed to get down from the moving scaffold on the wing without breaking a leg—now let me tell you, we didn’t! We were lowered into the fardage, no questions asked, and shut inside for hours down below. Well, I’m tellin’ you, if it weren’t for me following my nose and all, we would’ve stayed put with no food or water for the rest of the trip to Africa. Of course, everyone knows that where there’s a rat there’s gotta be food, ain't there?

          So there we were, the two of us, Sash and myself, scratching our way through a sack of carrots, when it suddenly dawned on me what my grandpa had been trying to tell me for years… ‘The world’s your oyster, Barney, take what you can get and don’t ever be sorry.’ Of course, it had been staring me right in the face for years. ‘Take what you can get,’ he’d always say, God bless his soul, and that’s how we ended up spending the whole winter working on the Suez.

          Egypt is a great country, you know. All the skills needed to survive poverty are taught free of charge out on the street. On our first trip, me and my brother learnt to shine shoes till we could see our arses in them. We also learnt to pick pockets, make tea, light pipes, run errands to the bookies, and once or twice we were lucky to break even at the dogs. If you can’t spin a coin then you’re a dead man, which brings me back to my grandpa, bless his soul, I know he would’ve been very proud of us though.

​

Written by Georgina Zuvela

5/11/2016