Speak up and be heard

In the later reports I heard, the word had got around the neighbourhood and the suburb and carried up the valley to the farms on the hillside very quickly (well, my word had, as the volume was very intense as I staggered along in terror), that a terrible murder had occurred and the killer was grief-stricken. Screaming that the victim was dead and fore-telling expectations of revenge by senior members of the family of the deceased. Of course it was simply that everyone had heard me screaming ‘I’ve killed him’ and ‘Dad’s going to kill me’, every local and even the pensioners via their electronic assistance, which, in those days were not very effective and mainly changed voices into noises comprising of rattles and high pitched whines. I always recall speaking to anyone wearing the early hearing aids, watching them  constantly fumbling for them and looking at you with suspicion, until they reached an understanding of what you were trying to say as their device translated the voice into the various chirps and squeaks their hearing had adjusted to listening.

Old Mr Campbell on the corner nearest the park must have heard it all, from the moment the stilt first connected with my younger brothers head, to the full aftermath once I arrived home. Until I reached the back gate and, even when inside the yard my voice did not fade off like a ‘doppler’ effect of a passing siren. I gather from all that I certainly proved I had a good set of lungs. And I needed them, as I struggled carrying my blood-soaked brother along the back road to our house, trailing behind me the other children terrified by what they had seen and not wanting to be the first home with the report of what had occurred. Mr Campbell had come to his door and I had looked across as we ran past to see his head bobbing around trying to see exactly what was going on. I remember him wearing a pale shirt and thinking, apart from the blood my brother was paler than that. He was dead.

It was around then that one of the other children had suddenly realised they could distance themselves from any blame (as most children do very early in life) and ran past me to get ahead and call out very loudly (but not quite as loudly as my screams) to anyone near my house who would hear “Greg’s killed Rhys”… I think even then it registered on my young persona. No matter what goes before…You are on your own in this world.

(Continued tomorrow)