SNOWMAN

His glasses were steaming up. John held the dumbbells level, his arms straight out from his body like Christ on the cross. The agony was familiar and in a strange way enjoyable. His shoulder muscles bulged and burned and soon he began to tremble form the strain. A few more seconds, he kept telling himself, a few more seconds only. Soon another minute had elapsed. Sweat began to bead on his forehead and his teeth ground together. Then all at once - bang! He dropped the dumbbells onto the floor of his cell-sized room, knowing how it annoyed the other tenants in the building.


He allowed himself to fall onto the bed. He was exhausted. He had already done 125 crunches and 75 consecutive press-ups before picking up the weights. John knew that in order to build more muscle he should rest more; actually do less exercise so that his body had time to repair. He could not afford the high protein diet he knew he should be on. The kind of diet that would stop his body breaking down existing muscle in order to feed new growth. But exercise was a compulsive thing with John. It had become a compulsion. It stopped him drinking and it kept him sane. It made him feel he was accomplishing something. He got the same feeling every time he shaved his head or got a new tattoo.


His body temperature began to drop. Lying on his back he felt the sweat on the trunk of his body turn cold, the sweat on his forehead now icy. His breath was visible in the cold air of his room. But he stayed on the bed a little longer, his muscles unwilling to move. Through the window he saw the snow falling against the blank of sky. Snowflakes always appeared so uniform, spiralling down, turning on the air. On into the distance they went effortlessly into the oneness of white. But as a child he had held them on his burning palm and studied them closely. His mother had told him, 'each one is unique', and he had been unable to stop searching, to see for himself if it was really true. That these snowflakes were all entirely different - there was something horrific in that. She had found him hours later, soaked through and blue and shivering.


The thought passed with a shudder. John slipped on a T-shirt, then another, then a knitted woollen jumper, the kind worn by fishermen. He kept his shorts in place but slid a pair of tight jeans over them. Two pairs of socks because his trainers were slowly falling apart. He would have to brave the elements to get to this appointment, but he didn't mind. He felt positive about the whole thing, and he fought off the suspicion that he was sure to feel cynical about it later. But he had to try, to keep on trying - that was a certainty at least if he could be sure about nothing else. He had to keep on, because the alternative . . .


John stared out at the snow once more. It had been a surprise, the snow falling this late in winter, falling this heavily and all at once. Usually it only settled on the hills, the city itself being too close to the sea. But he was glad of it. It had given him a thrill and hinted that things didn't always necessarily turn out as expected. The routine of life could be changed, disrupted. Schools and roads could be closed. Chaos could be unleashed. He enjoyed the cleanliness of snow as well. How it made everything look clean and pure.


He unhooked his army jacket from the back of the door and swung it onto his shoulders. He heard a rattle from one of the pockets. John extracted the bottle of sleeping pills and considered it again. It had been over two years now since he'd had to take them, but he'd kept them all the same. He thought of the doctor who'd prescribed him the sleeping pills, back in the North Island. He'd been a huge man, this doctor, obviously from Kenya or some such place; how striking the blackness of his skin had been and how thrilling the bass of his voice. The doctor had always sounded calm and kind, even when John had been in cantankerous moods and had contested his decisions. Like keeping him on Prozac when it was obviously having no effect, and then even upping the prescriptions to unusually high doses. John had been anxious about his liver at the time. Blood tests revealed that his enzyme count was off the charts. The drinking was doing it, of course. It never did help anything - John realised that. But he'd tried to explain it to the doctor; how drinking was the only thing he'd found that could burn away the film of worry that would cling at the walls of his stomach. He'd tried very hard to go tee-total, but inevitably he'd end up on a binge again, usually after about two months at the most. Drinking was his only relief from the constant, unreasonable and nightmarish persecution that wouldn't even allow him to walk down the main street of town without feeling terrified. He would jump at every innocent noise.


Drinking allowed him a rare and magical calm. The doctor had warned him though, that if he kept on drinking the damage to his liver would become irreparable. 'The cold hard facts', that's how the doctor had put it. But John had done some research of his own, at the library and on the net. Most other doctors were saying how Prozac was absorbed through the liver and therefore should never be prescribed to alcoholics and problem drinkers. He'd brought this up at his appointments, but the doctor had only smiled, and told him not to worry, and that the Prozac had nothing to do with it. He'd written John an additional prescription for anti-anxiety medication and vitamin B. He'd told him again he should stop drinking.


And in the end John had been forced to concede that the doctor was the one with the certificates on the wall. Obviously he had John's best interests at heart, given the hypocratic oath and as a trained health professional - he obviously knew what he was talking about.


Now it was over two years on. John was in the South island. He hadn't been on Prozac or any other medication since then, and his liver was back to normal. It had slowly repaired itself, as livers could, and he felt a lot less green around the gills. And more than that; a clarity had returned to his thinking and a lightness and less of a dullness to everything. Despite his continued binging on alcohol. He still drank on occasion; of course he did, he likely always would. When it inevitably all got too much for him - having to concede to being the person that he was. Cold hard facts are not so easily escaped and the truth is a difficult thing to face. Everyone needed distractions, superficial comforts. He needed distraction from a truth that was glaring and unbearable.


He imagined the African doctor, back in the North Island. He imagined what he might be doing now. He imagined the smile and the bass voice and the slick suit with its shiny fabric. He tried to imagine what the man would look like naked. Probably he had a very powerful and beautiful body. A huge cock. Then he remembered the wedding band on the doctor's finger.


He remembered the doctor's car then, the silver Merc in the car-park and its flawless immaculate bonnet shining in the sun. He remembered the sudden surge of hatred he had felt, and the great temptation once as he had passed the car on his way home from one of the appointments. A strong temptation to stab at the good fortune of others and destroy the precious trophies of their status and success. To spoil the machine's perfection by scratching the paintwork with the Stanley-knife he'd happened to be carrying round with him in his pocket back then. The cold hard facts, he chuckled to himself, imagining now what the doctor's face might look like if he had ever found his car vandalised in such a way. And then he smiled emptily, no longer convincing himself. He had always realised that feeling sorry for himself was useless and no doubt dangerous. Taking the pain out on others didn't help either; it wasn't good, even if those others happened to be unfeeling bastards profiting off your misfortune. Or a pack of sadistic cunts who might even be so fucked-up as to find your misery amusing. It wasn't good, and John had always felt himself to be good in his heart of hearts, despite his being . . . Despite his having done many things he felt ashamed of.


Like getting caught up in the whole neo-Nazi thing with Chisnell. Perhaps he was destined to become a fascist, or so he had thought back then. Certainly he had always felt drawn to it. It seemed to promise strength, an inner pride, a feeling of belonging, a purpose, all the things he felt he had always lacked. It required the kind of twisted-up hatred that he knew he could so easily develop, if only he allowed it an inch, a toe-hold within. All the energy of his frustrated sexuality needed to be channelled somewhere, discharged somehow. It was trapped inside him like a compressed spring he realised, waiting to be released. If he were to let it go . . . It was the kind of destructive force that demanded some kind of expression. It could either be directed inwardly, upon himself, or he could project it outwardly onto others. Jews, niggers, Packies, Asians, Maori, everyone; even queers. How much easier it would be to hate them instead of himself.


But no. He had decided he would not allow himself to give in to hatred, so long as he had a conscious choice. When a person stepped into something like fascism it swallowed them up from the inside out. It swamped their sanity, possessed them with something terrifying and archetypal. They became automatons, marching to the mesmerising beat of a group-drum, having a pack-mentality between them, the puppets of some very real and abject evil. He knew he could never willingly become that. Though admittedly, he had to concede, those uniforms could be very sexy . . .


He threw the bottle of pills in the bin. He knew that he had to find some kind of lasting practical solution to his problem; some kind of hope or redemption or at least some meaning behind his experience. He had to trust that people were mostly good and would help him if only he asked to be helped. So he began the walk into town. If he left it any longer he would miss his appointment. His appointment with this new doctor.

* * *

Actually it wasn't the first time John had seen doctor DeSilva. He'd had to sign up with a doctor (he'd had to have his psyche records sent down when he moved) and she was the cheapest. So she was it, his new medical authority. But even her appointments cost him ten bucks a time, which was a lot considering he was on a student allowance now of one hundred and eighty-nine dollars a week, and his room at the boarding house was ninety-five, and they were still taking off ten dollars a week for the optician's appointment and prescription glasses.


He'd tried to get around the whole prescription glasses thing. This was back up North, when he was flatting with Chisnell and the others. He needed glasses - there was no getting around that much - banging into things and missing the edge of the mug when he made himself a coffee. And worst of all he was no longer able to read his library books. It was driving him mad, being holed up in his room with nothing to do. So he'd reluctantly left the flat and walked into town. He'd bought some cheap non-prescription glasses at the service station then hurried back. And the glasses had worked - they'd allowed him to read his books at least. But they weren't the precise magnification he needed and after a while his got saw and he'd started getting major headaches. So he'd thrown the cheap pair away in the end and he'd had to go and ask WINZ nicely and get himself sorted out by a proper optician.

The town had seemed even more scary to him then. On account of his not being able to focus properly on what was in front of him. The shapes of people passing on the street and the colours of their clothes were all he could make out. And it seemed to him like they were whispering and giggling and laughing at him. And when he got to the optician's and they'd given him the right specs, he tried them on in the mirror and he saw at last what it was that everyone had found so amusing. Chisnell had come into his room when he was asleep and drawn a big dick on each of John's cheeks. Pointing at his mouth and spurting out come. And he'd written across his forehead, 'I love cock'.


“I'm sorry,” the woman had said, biting down on her lip. “I wasn't sure whether to tell you or not, I thought maybe . . . I don't know. I thought perhaps it wasn't my business.” She was obviously waiting to laugh and it seemed to him as though she'd deliberately not told him and had expected him to see the funny side. But John was livid, and flushing bright red with embarrassment. So now she had to repress her laughter and try to refocus the formality of her customer service. She started calling him Sir. She brought him a bowl of water and some cotton wool swabs and obsequiously offered to wash it off his face for him. John had felt even more humiliated by this. And the way he was reacting was making him appear more ridiculous, and this in turn made him more angry. He washed the pen off his face as quickly as he could, took his new glasses and stormed out.


It wasn't until he got home that he realised Chisnell had written on the back of his jacket as well. 'Hi, I'm a cock-sucking faggot', it said, in large letters made with an indelible marker. The jacket was made of a closely woven material that had really soaked up the ink. He tried very hard to scrub it out but by that stage it was like the ink had become part of the fabric itself. He'd tried to burn it out with bleach next, but he ruined the jacket completely - not that it wasn't ruined already anyway.


He'd burnt it eventually, out in the back garden. Dropped it into the fire, trying not to cry. He knew the incident meant something, and that Chisnell would instinctively realise he'd touched a nerve. And John knew Chisnell too well - they'd been mates since school. This was the kind of weakness that must be hounded and hounded until it was discovered, mate or no mate.


And yet what was there to discover? He had done nothing at that point. He had hated that part of himself and still did - he was unable to stomach it. Yet at the same time he could not deny its reality or power. Certainly it seemed to him that he would rather be dead than give in to it or try to come to terms with it. He would rather be dead than face the indignity, the potential for insufferable passivity and weakness that others would rightly despise him for and for which he now hated himself. That was one reason he'd moved to the South, where the bracing, colder climate seemed more in agreement with his European make-up. Far away where he knew no-one. But he realised now: he would never be able to escape who he really was - there was the horror. The cold hard fact.


Doctor DeSilva eventually called him in from the waiting room and told him to take a seat. The seat was a wide and puffy armchair, and he gradually relaxed and sank into it while she sat at her desk and looked over his records. This gave him a chance to re-familiarise himself with her office. There were bookshelves on either side filled with thick medical volumes and small china ornaments. Potted plants were doted about and there were paintings on the walls - one of which was an original - along with the certificates of her education. There was also a cosy portrait of her and her family on the desk, dog included.


Between the doctor's desk and the armchair John was sitting in, there was a coffee table, making a further division between them. On the coffee table was the usual box of tissues, convenient for patients prone to tearfulness, and coasters advertising the antidepressant Reciprol. It was then that he realised that the same brand name appeared on the doctor's coffee-mug, and also on the calendar on her desk. He turned the brand name over in his mind.


“Sounds a lot like 'reciprocal',” he mumbled to himself.


Doctor DeSilva stopped her perusal of his file and fixed him with her dark eyes.


“I'm sorry?” she said.


John sniffed. He hadn't meant to speak aloud and in fact he'd been so caught up in his thoughts that he'd forgotten she was there for a moment. He shifted aw

kwardly in the armchair and said:


“Oh,nothing. I was just thinking aloud.” But she kept staring as though she was expecting him to explain himself, so he continued: “Reciprol, I mean.” He indicated one of the coasters. “I was thinking how much it sounds like the word 'reciprocal'.”

She kept staring, and eventually smiled and gave an almost imperceptible nod. She kept waiting, as if to say, 'are you quite done now? Will there be any more interruptions?' Then she said aloud:


“I'll be with you in just a moment. Thank you for your patience.” And she continued to study his file in silence.


Her accent made it sound as though she had said 'dankyou' and 'batience'. If it wasn't for that, he thought, she could have made even more money on the side, making similar polite responses and having them recorded to be used on automated customer-service phone lines. 'Blease continue to hold. You are dee next customer on dee queue. We abreciate your batience'. He thought of Apu from the Simpsons and then felt guilty for connecting her with a stereotype.


He wondered then what sort of background she had. Perhaps she had originated from some isolated rural community, somewhere on the Indian subcontinent, where the community's survival meant unceasing labour. Or maybe she had been lucky enough to be born into a family that at least had a start on the ladder. Perhaps she had watched her father work himself into an early grave, running a small business in one of the cities in order to pay for his children's education. Perhaps she had walked to school every day passed beggars in the street, starving cripples, or prostitutes and toothless crones she didn't want to end up like. Crowds of children less fortunate than herself. Perhaps it had become morally imperative to her that she apply herself without let-up to her studies - having an opportunity, and knowing that millions of others would never be so lucky - and then to her career.

Or maybe it was just a general fear of poverty and ending up on the bottom of the food chain that motivated her. Because she was obviously intelligent. Obviously she would have worked out how things were in the world; with those who found themselves in the lower orders being made powerless and being maintained in their powerless condition, so that those on top could continue to screw them over and grow fat. Perhaps she had had to fight tooth and nail to attain to her privileged status in life, and had now become hardened. Perhaps she went home to her family at the end of the day and told them all about her 'clients' - without actually naming names and violating any ethical boundaries - and perhaps they all had a good laugh at how screwed up and ridiculous and unappreciative and weak and pitiable and gullible Westerners really were. And suddenly he thought again of the African doctor.


And then just as suddenly he spoke aloud again - again not really meaning to:


“You know,” he said. “As in, 'reciprocal commercial benefits'.”

There was a frosty silence. Doctor DeSilva fixed him with her eyes once more. A small notch appeared at the bridge of her nose. She studied his face and John became deeply uncomfortable. He smiled weakly and looked away, pretending to admire the original painting on the wall. He heard her draw in a breath and then watched her straighten in her chair and close his file. Their eyes met again and she said:


“It has been a long time since I saw you last, John. Things have been going okay? You have not been taking any medication still?”


“No medication, no,” said John. “Things have been going okay, yeah.”


She contemplated this, and then asked:


“So what is it I can help you with today?”


There was a pause as John wondered: what could she help him with, exactly? What could she change? But he gathered his thoughts; collected in his mind what it was he wanted to say and tried to formulate it into words. He spoke slowly:

“Well,” he said. “I wondered if you could give me a certificate of absence. I've been at university, you see. But lately . . .”


Silence again. Then doctor DeSilva enquired:


“You have found university harder than you expected?”


He saw then that she had made an assumption about him, and he was immediately offended.


“Actually I was accepted for honours,” he told her. He stared at her defiantly.

But she did not become apologetic. Rather, she seemed more than a little surprised and perhaps impressed. Clearly she had underestimated his intelligence. Why? Because his file said he was a nut-job. But now it was as though a barrier had come down between them. She suddenly seemed friendlier and sympathetic, less aloof. Why? Had he suddenly become more valuable as a person? Now that he had revealed himself to be an honours student? It made him angry.


“But this is wonderful,” she said. “You really have made an improvement, I see. Tell me, if you are capable of doing so well at tertiary level study, why have you not considered further education before?”


“I guess no-one believed in me,” he said petulantly, sardonically. “So I never believed in myself.”


“But now you are doing well,” she stated bluntly. Eventually she added: “What is the problem?”


Vhat is dee broblem?


“I can't concentrate,” he told her. “I've lost my enthusiasm. I can't focus, I only want to sleep all the time, only I can't, and I feel . . .”


She stared at him, waiting for him to finish. She blinked - her eyes were wide with expectation. He looked at her. What's the point? he thought.


“You feel depressed?” she asked.


“I feel hopeless,” he said, lunging forward with the weight of the word. “Literally without hope.”


“You are displaying any other symptoms?”


Zimp-tumz


He sighed.


“Loss of appetite,” he said, “tearfulness, disrupted sleep pattern . . . early waking . . . insomnia . . . some intrusive thoughts, maybe.”


This last statement seemed to really get her interest.


“What kind of thoughts,” she asked, leaning forward over her desk slightly, exposing her cleavage.


“I don't know,” he said. “I guess I just feel . . . I'm an anomaly. I don't belong anywhere. I'll be thirty soon, and I don't think I'm ever going to be able to fit-in in life. I don't do well with people, and realistically I don't think I'm ever going to. I don't believe I'll ever be able to achieve happiness and I don't believe I've ever been happy . . .” He could have kept going, but he stopped there, feeling like a whining adolescent. He decided that if she began to start trading platitudes about positive thinking he would simply walk out. But of course, she did not believe in the effectiveness of such things either - not for people like him:


“I wonder if it might be best,” she said at last, “if we put you back on some medication.”


He knew this was coming. The answer to all life's problems.


“Now I realise from looking at your file,” she continued, “that there was some concern among the doctors the last time you were hospitalised that the high dosage of Prozac might perhaps have contributed to the psychosis you experienced back then.”


John nodded. He felt wearier than ever. It was an effort to hold the anger he felt; he was exhausted.


“That's right,” he said.


“But I am worried about these thoughts you are having. Perhaps we should start you on a low dosage of antidepressants, just to keep these feelings of hopelessness in check. There is a very effective new drug on the market I have been recommending, and I think it could be helpful in your case. Have you heard of Reciprol before, I wonder - before today, I mean?”


“Look,” he said aggressively. “I don't want to go back on meds. I don't believe they've ever done me any good, and I don't believe they can. They can't change the person I am - they can only make me more numb as that person. And I don't want to be made numb. I just want to be happy for once. Even just content. Have you got a pill that does that?” He saw that she was about to start telling him about Reciprol again, so he shouted: “I don't want any meds, okay?!”


She began immediately to reassure him then, and he began to cry. Only he wouldn't let himself. He removed his glasses and dabbed at his eyes with one of the tissues from the coffee table. He kept on staring at the painting on the wall. He folded his arms and settled back in the chair. It was an abstract painting: what looked like two poles with thin lines or wires stretched out between them, like guitar strings, maybe. Opposing colour made it seem as though the strings were actually vibrating. As though they had been plucked by some invisible hand. As though the tension meant they were about to snap.


Doctor DeSilva continued to reassure him. There was practiced concern in her voice.


“Very well then,” she said at last. “I will write you a medical certificate.” She wrote it out and walked across from behind her desk to hand it to him. As she did so, she chewed thoughtfully at the end of her pen. And he thought then what a good looking woman she was. With those big dark eyes and long lashes, glossy black hair. Hard, orb-like breasts which were hardly squashed by her close-fitting blouse, and wide curving hips which the formal suit-skirt wrapped tightly. He would have liked to have held those hips, he realised. She was indeed a beautiful woman and her husband was a lucky man. Did he appreciate her - the husband? Or did he take her for granted, or maybe even screw other women? Was she really happy, or was the family photograph just the done thing; pure conformity or even deliberate propaganda?


“Maybe counselling is the answer,” she said. “Have you ever been in counselling before?”


He then remembered the councillor he'd seen up North. An old hippy, with a thick beard and a hunk of quartz hanging from his neck. Hemp shirt from Trade Aid. 'I'm at the end of my tether', John had confessed to the guy, 'I'm starting to feel like no-one can help me and that no-one even cares'. But the councillor had said nothing. He'd just kept staring at John with a simpering smile on his face. He didn't say anything.


So John had shifted awkwardly about on his chair. After he'd read all the posters on the walls - always use a condom, David Holmes saying it was okay to be mental, YOUR RIGHTS and your mental health service provider - John had requested to go outside for a smoke.


“Sure,” the guy had said, with a disturbing and sudden gush of empathy and understanding. “If you feel that's what you need e-hoa. Sure, sure . . .”


And so they had sat out back in the sun on one of the wooden picnic tables. The councillor had kept staring at him, with his head cocked to one side and the same stupid smile. John guessed he was waiting for him to speak. Probably the guy was trained to ignore the social awkwardness of the situation and just be an attentive listener. But how could John be sure? When everything he said went unacknowledged. The guy kept staring and listening; but he could have been some acid-head who'd fried his brain in the seventies for all John knew. Maybe some friend from way-back-when had felt sorry for him and got him the job. Probably he did this with all his patients, John had thought. Maybe he just sat there grinning, in a world all of his own, while the 'clients' chewed at their fingernails and looked about nervously and wondered what the hell they were supposed to do or say.

John looked up into doctor Travis_UKDeSilva's eyes.


“I was sent for counselling up North for a while,” he said. “I didn't find it that helpful, to be honest.”


Doctor DeSilva considered this. Finally she told him:

“Every councillor is different. Perhaps this would be the best way to go, I think. If not medication.”


John sniffed.


“Well I did wonder,” he said. “I was thinking maybe if there was a councillor who was trained in dealing with issues of sexuality . . . you know? I think that's really the root of my problem.”


Doctor DeSilva nodded.


“I have a friend,” she said, searching for a card in the drawer of her desk. “She is very good and I recommend her to many of my patients. Perhaps I will give her a call now and arrange an appointment for you.”


“Is she trained in counselling people with issues about their sexuality?” John asked hopefully.


“No,” said doctor DeSilva. “But she is a personal friend of mine and I know she has counselled many people with similar problems.”


Broblems.


Doctor DeSilva found the card and made the call. John looked at the painting again while she spoke to her friend.


“Great news, John,” said the doctor eventually, putting the receiver down. “She has had a cancellation and can see you tomorrow at three-o'clock.” She wrote down the address for him and explained about the form he would have to collect from WINZ in order to afford the counsellor's fees. She wished him well and closed his file with palpable relief. She smiled beneficently, following him out into the waiting room again and handing his records back to the receptionist.

“Good luck,” she told him again. Then she turned, the warmth dissolving from her face, and called her next patient: a haggard looking teenage girl whose feverish eyes darted about the room. John watched as doctor DeSilva walked with the girl back into her office and closed the door. He wondered if the girl would emerge with a prescription for Reciprol. Then he noticed that the receptionist was looking up at him enquiringly. He smiled vaguely, thinking again of the sleeping pills he had thrown in the bin.

* * *

His socks were soaked through and cold by now, but John enjoyed walking through the whiteness - the crunch of the compacted snow and the way that sounds seemed closed-down and banished. Everything was thickly covered, and he found he could lose himself in the consistency; everywhere glaring white. It irritated him though, that the cars had begun to turn the snow on the roads into grey or brown slush. It was not evident everywhere for the snow had continued to fall heavily. But once he had noticed it in places he found he could no longer be convinced, confident in the snow's illusion of unity, its integrity.


On his way home he passed the liquor store, knowing he had enough money to buy a small flask of gin. But he also knew that it would not end there. The alcohol would melt away all the tension, but then he would have to continue drinking more and more, until his inhibitions were dissolved, his fragile sense of humanity, his self-control. All the frustration, the poisoned bitterness could be brought to the boil without warning, set off by the most innocent remark or the subtlest of disturbing thoughts. A few more days, he told himself, a few more days only. And soon another sober month would have passed, another month in which he did not get himself into any kind of trouble, did not end up waking in a police cell or in the bed of a stranger; vulnerable, bleary-eyed, apologetic, unsatisfied still.


Instead he trudged on. Passing a large garden, the lawn of which he could look down onto from the street. A Maori man played in the snow there with his son. Both of them were unaware that John was watching. They threw snowballs at each other and tumbled about, dressed in expensive puffa-jackets, ski-pants, hiking boots. The child shrieked with excitement and the man was unable to contain an obvious joy, a deep satisfaction unfurling with his bass laughter. They had built a snowman, employing the traditional carrot for a nose and stones pressed in for eyes. It grinned with goofy, coloured bread-tie teeth, a disturbing caricature. They had even wrapped a scarf around its neck and set a flowerpot on top for a fez. Then the wife appeared at the kitchen door, offering coffee and milo in steaming mugs. She was cute in a pink woollen hat, with blonde plaits hanging either side of her pristine face. And he was a giant against her, scooping her up like a trophy won at the rugby, kissing her mouth when the kid wasn't looking and whispering some promise for later. The whole scene was smug and sickening and hurtful. He wanted to be happy for others but found it so hard.


John remembered how he had never been good at rugby at school. He had tried desperately to make the team. Turning up to every practice, pushing himself to extremes but still lacking something essential. The coach had promised at the beginning of the season that everyone who showed up for practice faithfully and put in the effort would play at least one game for the school squad. But by the end of the season John's name had still not been called. He had known all along, from the way the coach could no longer look him in the eye. So why had he kept on hoping until the last game of the term? Why had he bothered, wasted all that time and effort, kept on taking the knocks from guys whom nature decreed would always be bigger and stronger and better than him? How had he withstood that disappointment?


He had not, he realised, remembering then how his mother had found him crying in his room; how she had held him in the way he had always needed to be held by her but which now became intolerable, her maternal sympathy suddenly something revolting to him, making him rage, making him push her away, making him curse his absent father and run from the suffocating house, take up smoking, hang around with the wrong crowd, wag school and let the biology text-book which his mother had struggled to afford fall suddenly from his fingers, into the bonfire they had made near the old abandoned railway.


When the family went inside, John threw his legs over the edge of the wall and slid down into the garden. He had destroyed the head completely before they even noticed him there. His punches ended in showers of powdery snow. The fez plopped anti-climactically near his feet, but the carrot snapped into two pieces which remained joined, and span off like a helicopter. The stone eyes clattered against the concrete wall of the nearby double garage, and he saw the family through the ranch-slider, three surprised faces uncomprehending. Then the mother half rising from the couch, alarmed. The father furious and the child on the verge of tears. John couldn't help giggling. He felt stupid, immature, down-right mean. But he was enjoying it none-the-less. The rush of adrenaline and the emancipating feeling of schadenfreude that came from smashing up their happy-family Kodak moment. He heard the ranch-slider door roaring open, the father shouting obscenities at him across the lawn. But John was caught up in it now, laughing hysterically; he foolishly risked one last devastating round-house kick, which all but levelled what remained of the snowman. And then he was off. Running for the high wall and jumping. Trying frantically to pull himself over. Not quick enough.


He felt the giant's hand wrap around his ankle - the mighty tug. Then there was a small eternity of turning in the cold air, falling through a world of white. Then bang! He was in the flowerbed, still laughing uncontrollably. The prescription glasses were lost in the snow. He heard them crunch under the man's heavy boot; felt the same boot move his entire body as it landed in his ribs, his legs, his head. Silver and blue stars burst across his vision. He was punch-drunk then, detached, and from some distant place he listened to the sound of his own insane laughter. There was the man's shouting, then the woman's voice also, pleading for her husband to stop. And then there was a deafening hiss, and finally he distinguished nothing. Even the cold figure who observed it all from such seeming great distance was engulfed, melting finally under a thick, unifying blanket of black.

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