She always had to run to school. Run fast. If she didn’t wake by 4 am, it meant that she got behind on her chores, of which there were many for a girl of thirteen, and then she had to run. She would get up and put on a pot of water for the tea and porridge. Then she would run a short bath for herself—this was her favourite part of the morning routine because the cold water woke her up – and then she would get her mother out of bed and into her wheelchair.

The girl would take her mother to the bathroom and help her to relieve herself, bathe, and dress. They would finally return to the kitchen where the huge pot was now boiling, making the window above the stove steam up, obscuring the brightening world outside.

On this morning, her mother sat quietly, drinking tea, while she dished out the thin porridge for them both. She watched the girl from behind the cup, while blowing the hot liquid.

‘I feel like you are disappearing,’ she said. ‘Sorry, Mama?’

‘You are getting too skinny. One day I won’t be able to see you with these old eyes.’

The girl looked over at her, trying to decide if her mother was joking or if she was in one of her moods. ‘I think I am just growing.’

‘No one in our family is tall. Your father is short, I am short. All of our friends laughed at us when we were young because we were short. I won’t tell you what they said to us.’

‘I know, Mama.’ ‘Know what?’

‘That we are all short. The children at school laugh at me because I am shorter than anyone else,’ the girl said, facing the pot of porridge.

‘Then why are you so skinny?’ ‘I am skinny and short.’

‘You must eat my porridge.’ ‘No, Mama.’

‘Yes, put it all into one bowl. I will have another cup of tea instead.’

‘Mama, I am not so hungry. But I will take extra food at school today if I can.’ ‘Are they feeding you like they promised you?’

‘Yes, Mama.’

‘I hope so. When we signed the documents, they promised they would feed you. Well, they promised many things that have not come true, and we must be careful how much they

take away without us knowing.’ By now her mother was shaking a finger, spilling her tea on the table.

‘Yes, Mama.’ ‘Remember…’

She interrupted. ‘Yes, Mama, I know, I am lucky to be at that school.’

‘Don’t forget. People like us don’t go to schools like that. And you could break the curse of our family if you succeed there.’

‘But people like us are exactly the same as any other people,’ she muttered. ‘What was that?’ her mother snapped.

The girl was quiet. She didn’t want to get into this conversation now. She looked at the clock on the wall. ‘Mama, please have porridge, if I take too long I will be late for school. Then I will have to run.’

‘Rather be late with a full tummy, than on time hungry,’ her mother sighed, and flicked her head back as if they had had this conversation a million times and this was a well-known saying between them. ‘Don’t run too fast, you might just disappear – there is so little flesh on those bones.’ Her mother seemed to find this funny and chuckled to herself. ‘That’s one way to escape this life.’ Her body shook in her seat as she laughed. The girl watched her silently. ‘Ag, you are too skinny. Maybe it is all the running.’

‘Mama, please eat.’

‘Okay, I will eat this morning.’ Her mother’s voice was clipped, matter-of-fact. ‘But I will be checking how much you put on your plate tonight. Ag, tonight – please buy bread on the way home.’

Her mother wheeled herself across the kitchen, opened a drawer, and took out a small linen pouch. It jangled with coins. She loudly counted out ten, letting the girl know how much it was, and held out her hand.

‘Okay, Mama.’ The girl took the coins.

They ate quietly, the mother slowly watching the porridge as it rose from the bowl to her mouth, squinting down at it.

‘Mama, I must go.’ ‘Wait.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I am not yet finished.’ ‘But Mama…’

‘You will wait for your elders to finish.’

The girl sat impatiently, thinking about how fast she would have to run. Her mother watched her.

‘One day you will be away from here. You will have your own life. But now, you are bound to me, my daughter. I did not choose to be this way. It was you that did this to me.

You. Remember that when you are running to school.’ A nasty snarl had started to smear her mother’s face. ‘You. And the curse that continues.’

‘I know, Mama.’ The girl looked into her empty bowl. She knew that her mother was just getting started. She looked up to the second hand of the clock ticking on and on, round and round. Her mother slowly lifted another spoon of porridge to her mouth. The girl wanted to scream and get out of the kitchen. Out of her house. Out of her life.

‘People like us have very few choices in life, we take what we can get. We have few chances to break out of this.’ She rolled her head around, motioning to the small kitchen. ‘You are that chance, and you must not forget your responsibility in the same way that your father did. He is a coward.’

‘I know, Mama.’

They sat in silence now. Her mother seemed to have said her piece. The girl was on the edge of her chair, desperately wanting to get up. The first bell was about to go at school.

‘Okay. I think I have had enough,’ her mother finally said. ‘Thank you, Mama, may I go now?’

‘Once you have washed the bowls. And roll me over to the stove, it feels cold this morning.’

The girl rinsed out the bowls and left them to dry, while her mother sat by the stove, staring into the distance, probably still having the conversation about the girl’s father – out there somewhere – in her head. Or she was talking to him, finding the words she would use if they ever met again. Sometimes at night, the girl would wake up to her mother screaming out profanities, and between each swear word was his name. Over and over again. The name that seemed to stick in her mind.

‘Go now,’ her mother said when the girl had kissed her on the head. ‘Go to school. Don’t be late. Run.’

And the girl did run. She had never been this late before. She ran as fast as she could down the road. Her body was light and her legs were long and strong. She ran so fast that everything around her blurred and then seemed to stop for a moment. The girl kept running, but the world continued its movements in slow motion; the cars, the other walkers, the hooting taxis. Suddenly, she felt her body change, twist into a different shape, like dust in a hurricane, as if a mighty wind was hitting her, shaking her flesh, and pushing her bones back. She didn’t stop running, but felt herself fade, disperse, and then return to herself as she slowed down at the gates. She made it to school with a minute to spare. She wasn’t even out of breath.

The day was long. At school, her mind moved into another routine, much like the mornings at home. Sit down, focus, listen, write, stand, move to the next class, sit. She rarely spoke to anyone. She didn’t know what to say. All the girls were so different to her. Some of the quiet girls would join her for break time, as she sat on a bench by the side of a huge field. She loved the space and the breeze and the sound of the leaves rustling above her. Sometimes she would look around and everyone was gone, and she hadn’t noticed. She thought of what her mother said. People like her don’t go to schools like this. And she wondered if she would ever choose this for her own daughter.

She slowly walked home, stopping into the tuck shop to get a loaf of bread. The lady behind the counter didn’t have any change, so the girl was given a few pieces of peanut brittle in exchange. She chewed this on the way home, making sure to finish it before her mother saw. She wasn’t sure how she would explain not having change but would tell her mother it had fallen to the bottom of her bag and hope that it would be forgotten.

She opened the kitchen door. Her mother was still by the stove. ‘Mama, are you okay?’

Her mother didn’t respond. She was still staring into the wall, her eyes and mind far away. The girl put the bread down on the kitchen table.

‘Would you like me to make tomato sandwiches again?’ she asked her mother. ‘They were very nice last night, with those big red tomatoes from the market.’ She didn’t want to continue the conversation from the morning, and seeing her mother sitting there brought her back to that same feeling of desperation and frustration.

Her mother didn’t respond again, and the girl looked at her. Her position and stare hadn’t changed. The girl walked across and took her hand. It was freezing cold. She got a fright and dropped it. It landed with a thud on the arm of the wheelchair.

‘Mama?’

Her mother continued to stare. The girl realised that the look was not far away, it was not there at all. Her mother had left her body. The shape of the word ‘Run’ still seemed to be stuck on her mouth, which lay partly open.

The girl dropped her head and knelt to the ground. She listened to her breathing, the only sound. She couldn’t remember how long she stayed that way, but when she arose, it was dark in the kitchen and outside the windows. Her knees hurt from staying still for so long.

Eventually, she lit the candle on the kitchen table. The flame shook in an unknown wind for a second, and then straightened itself and grew. The light cast shadows across the walls, and the girl didn’t dare look at her mother. She turned her head, and walked across the kitchen, unlatched the wheelchair, and pushed it into the bedroom. Still, with her head turned, she pulled her mother’s tiny frame into the bed, stiff and curled over itself in the sitting position, and covered it in a blanket. She rummaged in the bottom drawer for a blanket of her own and went back to the kitchen, closing the door behind her.

She cut herself some bread and tomatoes and made sandwiches. There seemed to be so much left of the loaf, so she wrapped it back into the brown paper bag and put it on the counter. She ate in silence, staring at the candle. Her thoughts flew around her life, flicking occasionally back to her mother in bed next door. She dared not think of what lay ahead. It was too frightening and exciting.

She woke up next to the stove, curled up in her blanket on the floor. The warmth of the stove was still there, even hours later. She turned it on, put the pot of water to boil, and just as she touched the door handle to the bedroom, she remembered. She quickly moved her hand away, and, instead, went into the bathroom and had a big bath. She covered herself in water and washed herself like she had never done before. Afterward, she lay back and stared at the ceiling, floating in the soapy water.

She got dressed, ate porridge, and stood at the kitchen door, looking at the road and the cars drifting past. She took a step forward and closed the door behind her. All by herself. She wasn’t late for school.

But she started to run. At first, her steps were short and painful, after the night on the kitchen floor, but soon she felt her muscles expand and her legs broaden into large, flying steps. She stared ahead and then, as with the previous morning, life around her stopped for a moment, and, once again, shifted into slow motion. In the periphery of her vision, she saw cars stretch into lines of bright colour, people were frozen in motion, smudged, as if they were figures in a painting and a giant paintbrush had swept across them. Her body started to change again. Slowly. As her arms and legs swung back and forth, as everything slowed down, the mighty wind hit her and she, too, felt like she was blurring into distortion.

Disintegrating. Being pushed back and becoming dust. Every particle of her being silently breaking apart, disappearing into the world around her.

– Michael Boyd