The Escape

by Gabriel Dedji

  Chapter 6

  The poet sits alone in his room thinking pensively.

  King Keys, The Perpetually Pensive Poet was tired. He sat alone at his desk shortly after another attempt on his life. It never stopped. They never succeeded. They never could. It wasn’t possible. He took a pen and held it in his fist. He stared at a piece of lined paper before being absorbed into another world. He wrote:

  ’Admittedly, sometimes I write in fear.

  It’s possible my life could be ended right here.

  Voices in my ear,

  Calling me to disappear.

  Celestial solitude,

  My thoughts travel interstellar.

  When will we realise that we are both the same,

  So he can stop fighting us in vain?’

  The poet paused. He analysed what he had just written, and he didn’t like it. He folded it and placed it in his pocket. His watch beeped at the time of 14:00. He gathered his things and left his room through the red door. Once he left the university, he looked up to the sky and flew, breaking the sound barrier as usual.

  King Keys, The Perpetually Pensive Poet landed in front of a tall building of great importance. He brushed himself off, walked in and spoke to the office workers at the desk. The iron-masked man obviously came here often. The people at their desk were unsurprised by Keys’ appearance, and they gave him a pass which had been made in advance for him. Keys didn’t need directions as he walked straight into the elevator and got off at the 4th floor. A broad, English man greeted him at the lift. He was dressed smartly in a designer, navy blue suit (labelled with a badge that said Mr Williams), a white shirt and an embroidered navy blue tie. The English man walked towards a meeting room and sat down with King Keys. Both men had mirroring neutral expressions. The English man took two glasses out from a cupboard under his desk and poured whiskey into both cups. The man did this meticulously as if he was a surgeon performing brain surgery. The English man offered Keys a genuine-looking smile and offered him one of the glasses.

  Keys’ glass was adorned with a light crystal-like powder on the rim of the glass which was almost invisible to see. The masked man analysed the glass carefully before he even thought about touching it.

  “Daniel, how many times have you tried to poison me already?”

  Keys sighed, pushing the glass to the side.

  Daniel, the English man, chuckled in reply and shrugged his shoulders. Keys held a stern expression, moulding the fixed appearance of his mask to convey his emotions. Out of nowhere, some documents flew onto the glass table. Keys kept gazing into Daniel’s soul. Daniel Williams wore his glasses, took the documents and read them thoroughly. He already knew exactly the contents of the document. He looked up at Keys once he was finished.

  “These kids are bad people. They are the criminals of tomorrow, and I don’t want any of them,” argued Daniel in response to the detailed document of the closing down of three youth clubs two months before and the reaction from the affected neighbourhood.

  Keys shook his head. He didn’t like politicians at all, because they never learnt. They were liars and thieves (unlike the kids who attended the youth clubs that he had closed). Daniel looked at Keys, searching for a reason to feel apologetic for his actions. Another separate piece of paper flew onto the table. It was a record of statistics detailing the rise of crime in the area that Daniel Williams was the mayor of. Most of the crimes were done by youngsters under the age of 23. Daniel offered King Keys a puzzled look. Keys laughed in reply. The mayor didn’t get it.

  “These youth clubs were places where these youngsters would go and have fun. These were places that working parents could leave their kids for the day knowing that their kids were safe. These kids were learning to use their talents. This was a place for: rappers, singers, poets, dancers and producers to show off their talents and sharpen their skills. You only started scratching the surface of what you could do with these youth clubs. You could have had vocational courses for children who had dropped out of school and any other child who wanted to apply. In this document, it says that you closed these youth clubs down because a few boys were caught at one of them with knives—Daniel tried to interrupt but Keys cut him off—but I wonder if you considered investing in metal detectors rather than finding ways to steal services from the community and masquerading your actions as caring for it?” asked King Keys.

  Daniel Williams’ window opened, untouched. The documents on the desk flew out the window and so did King Keys, The Perpetually Pensive Poet. There were no birds in the sky and no aeroplanes. The sky was an amazing place. There was no other place in the world where one could go to be so free. The sky was ever changing in its colour: shifting between light shades of blue that cried innocence and dismal shades of grey. The sky was a giver. It occasionally offered rays of sunshine and joy to the country, but more often than not it offered neutral shades painted with splodges of opaque clouds in the way of the sun and all its radiance. The nature of the sky was inspiring in the way it controlled the people living their lives underneath it unaware of the pathetic fallacy which was constantly induced by its shifting colours.

  King Keys soared through the sky leaving his own cloud behind him caused by breaking the sound barrier. The effect should have shattered his body, but for some reason, it never affected him. The sky was his playground. Now King Keys was in perfect solitude. At these moments when he flew alone, he felt at peace. He flew back to the ground. His overcoat was like a parachute that helped him to land gracefully.

  He found himself in the back roads near an academy in East London. The time was 14:10. Keys strolled into the school. A short, bearded man sat at a desk in the office. The man at the desk was quite pleased to see Keys. Upon first glance at Keys’ mask, he understood that Keys was the man scheduled to perform for the year 4’s, 5’s and 6’s at 14:15. The man printed Keys a badge to wear and handed it to him with directions to the assembly hall. Keys walked into the assembly hall to be greeted by an audience of 180 primary school children who were ready to see him play his melodica and do magic tricks. They all grinned like Cheshire cats, displaying their mouths which were missing teeth.

  The principal came to greet King Keys upon his arrival and did a quick introduction to present King Keys, The Perpetually Pensive Poet to the children. He unclipped his melodica from his back. The kids were amazed at the foreign object that Keys had in his hand. He connected his whistle to it and started to play. He started off with an original piece composed in the style of a neo-soul song. Where the song would have usually ended, Keys started improvising. His hands jumped around the keyboard of the melodica, and the sound was unlike any other. It was as if he didn’t run out of breath. The kids loved it. The improvisation ended on a key change which led into a song by Fela Kuti. The song was much livelier. It was obvious that the song was a favourite of Keys. He nodded his head and tapped his feet along to the music. His body was filled with rhythm and groove. It was now that Keys’ personality came to life. The man performing now for the kids was unlike the monotonous masked man who spoke to Remel earlier on. He ended the song on a perfect cadence. The kids applauded Keys for his excellent performance. He took a bow before calling a child from the audience to come to the front. A young girl invited herself forward. She was confident, and she didn’t let the audience of her peers put any fear in her. This was her moment. Her name was Helmeria. Keys handed Helmeria with a small piece of paper and a pen. He told her to write a number and a country on it. He turned around and told her to show the audience whilst he wasn’t looking. She did so.

  “Five and Tunisia!” shouted Keys jovially with his back to the audience.

  The kids were speechless. They all gasped and tapped each other in utter wonderment. They then erupted into applause. Keys bowed again before nodding at a man at the back of the assembly hall with a laptop connected to the hall speakers. A jazzy piano instrumental started playing. The double bass entered the track. The sound was magnificent as if Esperanza Spalding
herself was playing along with Thelonious Monk. Keys improvised over the whole piece. The kids were silenced. They had never seen anything like it. They were used to either listening to pop music on the radio or trap rap on the internet so something so authentically jazzy yet so different and fresh was bewildering to them. The piece was quick, and as it ended, the audience didn’t get tired of clapping.

  Another jazzy instrumental commenced just after the applause faded. This instrumental however was far different from the last. It started off with a drum solo. The drummer was obviously professional, because she/he played rapidly with multiple fills and time signature changes. The sound was beyond perplexing to the children. Underneath the mask, King Keys laughed at the puzzled faces of the children. A saxophone joined into the instrumental with ad-libs and lots of power. The combination of the saxophone and the drums was like the striking duo of Robert Bruner Jr. and Kamasi Washington. The drummer and the saxophonist settled on a 4/4 time signature and went into the head of their song. Keys joined them. The melodies played by the melodica and the saxophone were mostly a fifth apart, but they intertwined occasionally as they either played the same note or an octave apart. As the head progressed, the melody of the saxophone started to descend in contrast to the ascending melody of the melodica. The chorus started on a jovial note before transposing to the relative minor for two bars and then back into the original major key. After repeating the head, the drummer did a solo. The experience for the audience was only audible, but they could feel the music as if they were live at a concert. The drum solo was made mind-boggling by things like doing fills on the rims and using other percussions like djembes, woodblocks and triangles in the solo. The solo ended, and Keys had a solo on the melodica then returned to the head before the song ended. The kids loved this song the most. This time they didn’t only clap but they cheered and stood up in their seats. He had introduced them to something they had never heard before.

  Keys’ next song was an interactive one. He taught the audience three different basic rhythms. A different one was to be clapped by each year group at the same time. The kids kept time excellently, and they smiled at their newfound clapping abilities. Keys left the assembly hall and left the kids clapping. He went outside the school and a balafon flew at him (he had hidden it outside of the school in advance and brought it back in using his telekinesis). He rushed back into the assembly hall. He sat down on a chair in front of all the kids and played along on the balafon. The kids loved the sound, and they were beyond grateful for the opportunity to be a part of an orchestra of percussion. After five minutes of playing on the balafon, Keys brought out his melodica and started improvising before returning to the balafon. He signalled to the kids to stop clapping, and they did so synchronically. This time Keys clapped for the kids and told them what marvellous musicians they all were. Keys performed another magic trick.

  “Everyone think of a number. Add five to your number. Add six to your number. Subtract your number by three. Add ten to your number. Subtract your starting number. Your answer is eighteen,” Keys said to the audience whilst taking breaks between each sentence for working out.

  There were a few seconds of silence for some of the younger kids to finish working out. A gradual crescendo of chatter occurred. The kids all exclaimed the words ‘that was my number!’ and gasped in incredulity. There was another round of applause, but this time Keys did not bow. He had done nothing special. The trick was a simple game of arithmetic he had learnt to do at the age of nine. No telepathy had been involved. Keys got ready to play his final number. He nodded at the man at the back on the computer. The backing track was a keyboard instrumental. It sounded very Robert Glasper-esque. The kids sat and stared. They were unimpressed until Keys started playing a simple melody over the instrumental. It was then that the kids realised Keys was playing his own arrangement of their favourite pop song. The song lasted three minutes, and the audience gave Keys his last standing ovation. Keys bowed. The head teacher came up to thank Keys for his performance and ushered the children out of the assembly hall into the playground to meet their parents. Keys played whilst the children were going out. The leaving interlude had a celebratory feeling. He improvised in the key of C major.

  The principal summoned Keys to his office in the secondary building of the academy. When they arrived to the office, the principal handed Keys a stack of notes and coins worth £100 in total.

  “Here is your payment in cash and not a cheque like you asked. Nine notes and ten coins. Thank you for performing with us. It was truly an amazing performance,” the principal thanked Keys with a smile that showed he had obviously enjoyed the performance far more than the kids themselves.

  Keys thanked the principal for the payment, but his gaze quickly focussed on a paper on the wall that had been cut from the school magazine. It read ‘hip hop club closed after leader gets arrested’. The principal realised what Keys was looking at and sighed.

  “Those kids were doing well. I gave them and their rap music a chance, all 60 of them. I knew it was bad news, but as the principal, I have to listen to my academy. It’s a shame, isn’t it?” asked the principal rhetorically.

  Keys turned to the principal.

  “It is a shame. All 60 of those young children found a way to sharpen their talents, and the path was taken away from them. I think the problem about the club was the leader who got arrested as opposed to the children. Don’t you think?”

  The principal nodded in strong approval completely oblivious to the direction of the conversation.

  “I think you can revive this hip hop club. These kids need more chances and you can give them the opportunity to perform their raps and play the instrumentals they have produced to the rest of the school. With the mayors and local governments closing all of our youth clubs, we need schools to provide more extra-curricular activities. What you should do is invest in a new leader for these children. Someone with professional experience who knows how to produce, mix, master and rap. You need someone who you can trust with your equipment and someone who has a clean record. Next time you should do a better background check on your staff. If you need new equipment, raise money for it,” continued Keys whilst taking two one-pound coins from his payment. He took the nine ten pound notes from the stack that he was paid. He handed the principal ninety-two pounds.

  The principal understood that the money was for the school, and he accepted it with a straight face. Keys’ speech had challenged his way of running the school, but as a principal people didn’t usually come against his decisions apart from the parents of permanently excluded children.

  “But you only have £8 left,” muttered the principal.

  “You have the choice to build or destroy. Choose,” Keys replied.

  And he left.

  Chapter 7

  King Keys, The Perpetually Pensive Poet strolls around town.

  King Keys didn’t like walking. It wasn’t the physical aspect of walking that was the problem. The problem was that the noise of people’s thoughts poisoned his privacy. The ocean of people’s thoughts and troubles burdened him as he swam: it was not what he was used to. He could have constantly flown everywhere, but he chose not to alienate himself from the rest of human kind. Everyone had problems. Their thoughts screamed out stories of vices, betrayal, sadness and requirements. A lot of people however, also had positive thoughts composed of content, joy, exhilaration and friendship.

  One set of thoughts stood out to Keys. This did not usually happen. They were the thoughts of a stone cold killer. Keys looked up at a tall building and saw a sniper pointing at him from the balcony. The assassin had a scar on his face from his forehead to the bridge of his nose, and he held a machine gun in his hands with a silencer at the end. Keys laughed. The sniper aimed at him like a thief ready to bear the fruits of his heist. The assassin was used to stealing lives. His finger was ready to pull the trigger. Keys put a fist symbol to the air. The gun flew out of the sniper’s hands and into a plastic supermarket bag t
hat was rolling on the streets like tumbleweed. The plastic bag and the gun then flew onto the front door of the nearest police office. The stone cold killer, without the gun, flew elusively away from the ghost that had just taken his weapon. The assassin didn’t wear any gloves so the fingerprints were still on the weapon, but Keys wasn’t happy or proud of what he had just done. The police inspectors would analyse the weapon, but it would disappear from police custody, and the police would never find the kleptomaniac of lives. He was one of them.

  Chapter 8

  The time is 18:00. King Keys, The Perpetually Pensive Poet is leading a youth offender’s session.

  King Keys walked into a shabby ground level building in search of where he was supposed to be. There were no staff at a reception, and there were only teenagers talking in a lounge area. Keys walked through another door whilst the people in the lounge area stared at the masked man with puzzled expressions. When he walked through the second door, he heard loud shouting full of vituperative language. Keys slid into the room and closed the door behind him. It was a large room set out like a class, and people stood and sat in the corners of the room with their phones in hand. Most of the kids were recording the dispute. The argument was between a boy and a girl who was about a year or two younger than him. The girl was named Coreen Akinyemi. She had beautiful chocolate skin and eyes that were a light hazel colour. The boy was Rasharn White.

  “I beg you, please stop talking, because if I call my brother on, you you’ll be acting different. Fix up!”

  Coreen shouted.

  “Your brother? The one who I smacked up? Funny,” Rasharn laughed.

  The Akinyemi family were extremely close. They always stood by each other, and they would never let a single member be disdained. Coreen’s blood boiled with venomous anger. She started screaming. Rasharn’s words mustered her fury. She held her Swiss army knife discretely in her jacket pocket.