Running Man

by Michael Gerard Bauer

  Tom Leyton nodded and returned slowly to the cupboard at the end of the room. He closed the doors and remained with his back to Joseph.

  ‘Mr Leyton?’ It seemed strange to Joseph to say his name out loud. It was as if he was revealing a secret that was meant to remain hidden.

  The man turned around a fraction so that Joseph could just see the side of his face.

  ‘I like coming here … to see the silkworms … and you.’

  Another jerky movement of Tom Leyton’s head indicated that he had heard, but he stayed facing the old timber cupboard like a man waiting for a lift to arrive.

  ‘It’s getting late. I’d better go. School starts tomorrow,’ Joseph said finally.

  He looked for a response from the man but found none.

  ‘I’ve chosen the twelve to keep,’ he added as he stood up from the desk and moved to leave. As he passed Tom Leyton he lingered a moment.

  ‘Bye.’

  Joseph couldn’t understand the few words that were mumbled in reply. But he did know that his own name was one of them. It was enough.

  CHAPTER TEN

  On Monday morning, the final term of the school year lurched into motion and began its lumbering crawl through the intensifying heat of spring, towards the distant oasis of the Christmas holidays. Over the next few days Caroline started distributing the boxes of silkworms. Joseph offered to help by taking a box to St Jude’s Primary.

  On Wednesday afternoon, he hurried home from school, changed out of his uniform, and headed up to St Jude’s, where his old teacher Mrs Gardiner was expecting him. It had been a sultry day, and heavy purple clouds darkened like bruises in the afternoon sky. The temperature dropped noticeably as Joseph made his way along the gentle curves of Ashgrove Avenue, and the sharp metallic smell of rain tinged the air. All around him houses glowed white in the strange light. Soon the first heavy drops patted on the lid of the shoebox and Joseph began running to the nearest cover.

  By the time Joseph reached the bus shelter, the rain was already drilling down. Once under cover, he found himself enclosed on three sides by thin metal sheeting, and on the fourth side by a wall of water that gushed and splattered from the corrugated iron roof. Joseph slid quickly to the end of the bench, pulled up his feet, placed the cardboard box on his lap, and sat huddled in the corner away from the water that now ricocheted madly off the concrete and flowed in ever-growing rivulets beneath him.

  The rain was not merely falling, but seemed driven by some greater force, and the harsh drum roll it performed on the roof was building to an impossible crescendo. In spite of the hostility of the breaking storm, a strange calm descended upon Joseph. He was surrounded and protected by walls – walls of tin, of water, of sound. Inside, he was isolated from the chaos that raged about him.

  The downpour showed no signs of easing. He had to just sit it out. There was nothing else left for him to do, no further decision for him to make, no problem to solve. It was as if the outside world had ceased to exist. He was dry and safe. That was all that mattered.

  Joseph raised his hand to feel the cool dampness of the wall beside him, and was surprised to notice for the first time the faint veil of condensation formed by his breath. He breathed in strongly through his nose, turned to face the centre of the shed, and exhaled slowly. He smiled slightly at the billowing, misty air that rolled into the emptiness before him and quickly vanished. He inhaled again even more deeply, this time filling his chest to the edge of pain. Then, just as he was about to exhale and ease the burning in his lungs, it happened.

  The streaming wall of water exploded like fireworks into a thousand shooting droplets, and the Running Man burst, shuffling and fidgeting, into the heart of Joseph’s tiny world. He was only a metre away, rocking and shifting in constant movement, unaware that he was not alone. Silent terror, which had its roots deep within him, gripped Joseph and began to swell and grow. The Running Man was so close – so close – that if Joseph stretched forward he could have almost touched the damp, greasy wool of his tattered jumper.

  Suddenly Joseph became aware of the pressure within his chest and the hot air in his lungs burning to be released. But he was too afraid to breathe afraid that a stray molecule of air might drift recklessly towards the Running Man’s stooping form and catch on a fibre of his clothes, causing him to freeze his frantic movement and stand bolt upright like a madman sensing his next victim.

  Then, just as the lack of oxygen began to make Joseph’s head swim and the edges of his vision mottle and darken, the Running Man turned. At the same time Joseph exhaled, and his breath shuddered out uncontrollably through his clenched teeth.

  The contact they made lasted only a second, but later, when Joseph would try to recall the details of this moment, an image of the Running Man would be forever burnt into his memory. Not the long tangled strands of hair dripping with water or the patchy beard stubble or the sad hollows below the cheeks – but the Running Man’s eyes. They gazed wide, not with wonder or surprise, but rather with an unnamed sorrow. It was as if they had been so scalded by some fearful image of the past that the present world appeared now only as shadowy shapes moving behind a dark and heavy curtain.

  A memory flashed in Joseph’s mind of other eyes, and the droning of terrible words echoed in his head, ‘Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell’.

  If the Running Man had been surprised by Joseph’s presence he showed no sign of it. His eyes hesitated only briefly over Joseph as if he were merely another feature of the shed, and then they darted wildly like trapped animals suddenly aware of their cage. As he swung around sharply, a shower of water from his flailing hair hit Joseph’s cheek and speckled the lid of the cardboard box. In the impossible drumming of rain, the Running Man appeared to hear the droplets touch the cardboard, for he immediately jerked around and his eyes bounced from the box to Joseph and back like a manic pinball machine.

  It never occurred to Joseph to run. The streams of water that cascaded from the roof of the shed seemed as impenetrable as any iron bars, and besides, there was too much movement involved – getting his feet off the bench, standing up, making his legs run, and all the time knowing that a large bony hand would be descending far too quickly upon his neck. Fear sat like a cancer in Joseph’s stomach.

  Finally Joseph knew he had to speak. He had to place something, some word, some sound between them. He had to make this all seem normal somehow. When the Running Man’s eyes returned once again to the cardboard box cradled to Joseph’s chest, he heard himself saying, ‘They’re silkworms … inside.’

  No response. Then in desperation, ‘Here, look.’

  Joseph fumbled the lid off the box and the rich, green smell of mulberry leaves filled the air.

  The Running Man’s head steadied for a moment and his lips parted.

  There was just a fraction of a second before the Running Man spoke where Joseph realised he was about to. Finally the voiceless phantom of his childhood, the ogre with shuffling feet and haunted, hunted eyes was going to talk. And yet, if time could have been frozen at that point and Joseph had been given the rest of his life to try, he knew he would never have guessed the words he was about to hear. But there was no time to react. Immediately after speaking, the Running Man jerked away sharply, dissolved through the wall of water like a ghost in some cheap horror movie and was gone.

  Joseph closed his eyes and let his head slump to his chest. The world that he thought he knew had been turned upside down and it needed time to recover – needed time to right itself and go back to normal. Eventually as his heartbeat slowed and his fingers unclenched from the buckled shoebox, Joseph opened his eyes and stared into the void before him. He was alone again. Alone that is, except for two things that hung in the air like dread – the thick and musty smell of the Running Man’s clothes, and the unsettling familiarity of the words he had spoken.

  ‘All their lives in a box!’ he had said, ‘What generations …’

  ‘He knew the poem,’ Joseph repeated with th
e same expression of disbelief as the impassive face of Tom Leyton continued to confront him.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. He said the whole first line, “All their lives in a box! What generations …” Then he left.’

  Joseph struggled to convey his astonishment at what he had witnessed the previous afternoon. If the Running Man had sworn at him or breathed fire or even snatched the silkworms from him and eaten them as he watched, he could not have been more amazed. He had been prepared for savagery, but not for poetry.

  ‘How did he know that poem … or any poem? What …’ But the questions whirling in Joseph’s head were too large to squeeze into sentences.

  ‘Maybe he learnt the poem in school,’ Tom Leyton suggested. ‘I did. Keeping silkworms was popular then. That poem would have been an obvious choice. A lot of teachers would have used it.’

  ‘I guess so, but …’

  Tom Leyton’s explanation only added to Joseph’s bewilderment. The thought of the Running Man as a schoolboy like himself – sitting in a class, laughing with his friends, doing homework – it just didn’t seem possible. The Running Man had always been a shadowy figure fleeting through the edges of his world. Now with the lines from the poem he seemed to have escaped from the box that Joseph had put him in and crept alarmingly close.

  ‘Certainly a coincidence,’ Tom Leyton conceded. ‘Perhaps even a surprising one. Maybe there’s more to the Running Man than meets the eye.’

  ‘Like you said about the silkworms?’

  ‘Yes, like that. Perhaps you’ve lifted the lid and only seen a moth, or an egg, or a caterpillar. Or perhaps all you’ve really seen is a cocoon, with no clue to what might be hidden inside.’

  A change came over Tom Leyton. His voice and manner seemed distant, and yet to Joseph he felt closer than ever before.

  ‘Perhaps you’re only seeing … a part of the man … and it may not be what he is … or was … or could be. It may not even be what he wants to be. But sometimes … a man gets trapped and can’t move and he becomes frozen in the one pose forever … like an insect caught in amber … then that’s the only way people ever see him. And after a while … it’s the only way he can see himself … and it becomes impossible to break free.’

  Tom Leyton had spoken so earnestly that it seemed as if he knew the Running Man, but in the end Joseph wondered if Tom Leyton was speaking about the Running Man at all.

  ‘But what made him change? What do you think happened to him?’

  ‘There could be many reasons. Things happen in life … everyone picks up … baggage … that they have to carry along with them. But sometimes the baggage is too much, too terrible, and it overwhelms them – it becomes all they are, and their whole life is just working out how to carry it. And nobody sees them, nobody even knows that they’re there, under the baggage …’

  Tom Leyton’s voice trailed off and he sat silent and still beside his desk like a display in a museum.

  ‘I thought maybe he’d been sick or been in some kind of accident,’ Joseph offered.

  Tom Leyton stared blankly ahead, nodding vaguely at the suggestion, then murmured to himself, ‘Or perhaps the beast broke through.’

  ‘Beast?’

  A mix of surprise and confusion crossed Tom Leyton’s face as if Joseph had read his thoughts.

  ‘You said something about a beast.’

  ‘It was just a story I once read.’

  ‘What was it about?’

  ‘A father who was angry with his son and tried to teach him a lesson,’ he explained reluctantly.

  Joseph felt a wave of guilt and remorse wash over him, but his curiosity managed to struggle back to the surface. ‘And what about the beast?’

  ‘That’s part of the story.’

  ‘Can you tell it to me?’

  Tom Leyton began slowly. ‘It was set in ancient Japan. It was about a very rich and powerful man who had a foolish son. The son had a friend and the two of them were always laughing and playing silly jokes on people. The father said it was time for the son to grow up and take his responsibilities seriously, but the son wouldn’t listen. One day the son and his friend set off some firecrackers as a prank, but they caused a huge fire and some people almost lost their lives. The father was very angry. He hoped his son had learnt his lesson. But in a few days the son went back to his foolish ways.’

  Tom Leyton paused and looked up to see if the boy was still listening.

  ‘What did the father do then?’ Joseph asked, as if to dispel Tom Leyton’s doubts.

  ‘The father built a huge maze with walls twice the size of a man so they couldn’t be climbed over. The outer walls were massive and made of stone. There was only one entrance. Once inside there was no way out of the miles and miles of corridors. The inner walls, however, were made of the finest paper and painted with exquisite, delicate murals. The father had his son blindfolded and his hands and feet bound. He then had his servants carry him to the centre of the maze. He told his son that all he would need to survive could be found within the maze. Fresh food would be hidden somewhere each day. Finally the father said to his son that he would not be alone. Soon a great beast more ferocious than a tiger would be released into the maze. The father told his son that he would have to survive a month in the maze in order to learn the seriousness of life and the consequences of one’s actions. For his protection he would be given a sword. Then the father and servants left. The entrance was sealed shut. By the time the son had freed himself from the ropes and blindfold, he was alone.’

  ‘What happened? Did he survive the month?’

  ‘He roamed the maze in terror of the beast for days and weeks. Sometimes he heard it. Sometimes he saw a dim shape through the thin paper and fled in panic. Sometimes he would find his food eaten. And all the time behind those beautiful murals he would imagine the beast prowling, waiting to crash through.’

  Tom Leyton stopped and looked up at Joseph. ‘That’s what I meant about the Running Man. Perhaps the beast broke through for him.’

  A slight frown worked its way on to Joseph’s face.

  ‘We’re all like the son in the story – you, me, your Running Man, everyone. We wander through life and it all seems safe and pleasant like the paintings on the paper walls. But it’s only tissue, and behind it, waiting to burst through, are all the terrors we don’t want to think about. But they’re always there ready to strike and no prayer you can ever say will stop them.’

  The air was heavy with Tom Leyton’s sombre words. The spark of interest and curiosity that had been in Joseph’s eyes while he listened to the story was all but snuffed out.

  ‘I just meant,’ Tom Leyton mumbled almost apologetically, ‘maybe something bad happened to your Running Man to make him the way he is now.’

  ‘How did the story end? Did the son get out of the maze?’

  Tom Leyton took his time to respond. When he did, his voice was like that of a storyteller concluding a tale. ‘The son became more and more tired, hungry and desperate as the days passed. He was unable to sleep and he feared the beast was always about to strike. He decided to wait for the beast and kill it. Then one night as he was eating a meal he had found, he heard the beast approaching. It was in the next corridor on the other side of the wall. He stood perfectly still with the blade poised. A shadow grew larger and larger on the wall beside him. A blurred shape was forming. The son was shaking with fear, but he plunged the sword through the thin paper wall and felt it drive through the beast on the other side. When he withdrew the sword it dripped with blood. He shouted for joy and slashed the wall open in excitement, but when he looked at the shape in the moonlight, it wasn’t what he expected at all.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘It was the friend who had partnered him in his foolish games.’

  ‘His friend?’ Joseph asked incredulously.

  ‘Yes.’

  Joseph frowned and spoke slowly as if piecing a jigsaw puzzle together. ‘You mean … the father must have
put them both in the maze … the son and his friend … and told them the same story … about the beast.’

  ‘It would seem so.’

  ‘And there wasn’t any beast after all … only themselves …’

  Tom Leyton cocked his head and waited for the boy to continue.

  ‘What if the friend had used the sword first? He might’ve killed the son – thinking he was the beast.’

  A deeper crease formed on Joseph’s brow as he continued to wrestle with his thoughts. ‘And in a way … the son kind of was the beast, wasn’t he? … only he didn’t know it.’

  Tom Leyton stared at Joseph as if he were seeing him for the first time.

  The boy looked up and shifted uneasily under the hard scrutiny. ‘How could the father have done that? He must have known what was going to happen, otherwise why give him a sword?’ Joseph shook his head. ‘It’s worse than putting his son in with a real beast.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Tom Leyton said, ‘that was another lesson that the father wanted his son to learn about life.’

  ‘What lesson?’

  ‘That there is always something worse.’

  Another week passed before the first of the silkworms was ready to spin a cocoon. Joseph learnt from Tom Leyton the five stages of growth that the silkworms had already passed through and how to look for the tell-tale signs that heralded the next stage in the metamorphosis. Soon he became skilled in recognising the slight yellowish tinge on the tight skin, the whiteness of the head and the final discharge of messy liquid which indicated that the caterpillars were about to spin.

  One by one, as their time came, the fat grubs were placed into the partitioned box consisting of twelve small compartments where they would begin their three-day labour of weaving. In turn, each silkworm attached itself to the side of the carton and began constructing a fragile, tangled cradle of golden silk. Then, with relentless precision, the solid, oval form of the pupa took shape within the supporting threads. Inside that slowly thickening cocoon, the shadowy form of the silkworm could be seen, like a creature moving behind paper walls, driven by some inexorable desire towards an unknown revelation.