KOLA, PARROT AND SKUNK
ISBN 978-91-47-15032-8
© 2023 Coombs Andy, Scho Sarah och Liber AB
REDAKTION Maria Jones
FORMGIVARE Lotta Rennéus
ILLUSTRATION OCH OMSLAG Sarah Scho
PROJEKTLEDARE Emilie Szakàl
Första upplagan
1
REPRO Repro 8 AB, Stockholm
TRYCK People Printing, Kina 2023
KOPIERINGSFÖRBUD
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Into the Lower
Kola runs down.
Scrambling down. Sliding down. Always down.
Her heart smashes and thuds in her chest. Her breathing tears and pushes. Pain shocks up to her knees, up to her buttocks, into her back. She ducks the sound of a crash – falling, flaming timber. Temporary fireflies, sparks thrown up by the falling lintel, shower her face, tiny pinpricks of heat.
Down. Always down.
Around her, shadows flicker, moving tableau of arms raised, fists falling, feet kicking. People scream, voices yelling in exuberance, in horror, in fear. The shapes of City Watch run. Arcs of electricity zapping and fizzing. People moving, people frantic, people everywhere. She skids to a stop, back pressed against a brick wall. Her head whips from side to side. Where is safe? What is safe?
Down. Always down. Ladder. Stairs. Pipe to slide down.
Smoke billows and fires crack. She knows the streets well. Streets walked on with her family, her parents and sister. Streets so familiar and yet now, in completely different light – the light of fire, the light of rage, the light of indignation – the streets are so different. Buildings loom over her, made menacing by the billowing smoke, the shapes and shadows of people, people holding stones, people with raised arms, beaten with open mouths wide and red with anger and fear. And the dark figures of the City Watch, the arms raised with electric sticks throwing pain. So Kola runs. Always down. Away from everything she knows, into the unknown, into anything else.
And the air changes. The air becomes rank with the smells of sweating people, firelight, and underneath, the faint underlying ozone of something. Sweat? Fear? Blood?
Scenes, like the afterglow imprint of staring too long into the sun, fix into her mind. They will stay with her forever. She knows this. A boy, curled up, his hands wrapped over his head for protection, three of the City Watch standing above him, laughing evenly, clubbing again and again. The boy’s foot twitches and stops.
A woman holding a child. The child’s eyes wide open and staring. The woman looking down at the top of the child’s head as if by fixing the child with her gaze, she can stop what is happening around them. And Kola runs. Down.
Her breathing is too fast. She knows she must stop and breathe. Her body will break if she doesn’t. Is this her life now?
Rain has started to fall. The cold-water mixes with the ashes and mud underfoot, making it harder to move. But Kola knows, if she is to survive this night, she must keep going. She must reach the Lower, away from the reach of the Watch, away from the reach of those who hunt her. Away from her parents.
She grips hold of the edges of a ladder and slides down. Her ankle gives at the bottom. She falls back into mud. A boy, maybe her age, stands above her. He looks at her, surprised. And for a moment there is a recognition between them. Not the recognition of people who have met but the recognition of two minds desperately seeking refuge. Recognition built on shared purpose. As if acknowledging this, the boy starts to stoop, to reach out a hand in help.
And at that moment his body goes rigid, and where his cheek should be is a hole. The boy drops, his body falling onto hers. She pushes the boy to one side. He is heavy. She pulls herself up, breath coming in wet rasps. She wipes her hand across her face realizing there is something more than water there. Her hand pulls away red. A small sound escapes her mouth, a sound she has heard before but not coming from any human. It sounds like one of the stray cats that sometimes patrol the streets of the Middle. Her mind wants to laugh. She has become a cat girl.
She continues. The boy left behind. His body now a still reminder of water falling, and the chaos around her.
The air is different down here – thicker, as though made from something other than gas. Something sweet, something sour, something wrong. The noises of the clashing people are further behind her now. She has come down lower than she has ever been. The buildings are different. Not even really buildings; shells of buildings. Some blackened, some merely rubble, and some that show a strange sense of life. The acrid smoke fills her nostrils. She has twisted her ankle and now her run has slowed to a hobble. Was this far enough? Was she far enough away?
Her mind doesn’t know, and her body doesn’t care. She gets to her knees, then places her palms splayed in front of her. Her head soon follows, the forehead resting in the dirt and grime. Then slowly, as a tree felled by breeze, she topples to one side.
Her arms bend in, her hands cover her eyes, her knees pull up, her toes curl in. She opens her eyes one last time, to see everything that is happening, to witness the chaotic horror that she has caused.
And Kola slips into unconsciousness, not knowing if she would ever be able to bear the guilt of what she has done.
