Roman Roaming

Roman quietly put on his shoes. He pulled the door behind him, and the accusations could still be heard.  He zipped up the thin, cheap jacket to defend himself from the frost. At the bottom of the street, the shouting was just a distant sound. By the time he’d walked twenty steps around the corner, he couldn’t decide if he could still hear it or if his ears were replaying sounds.

His shoes and jacket didn’t match his green and white dinosaur-print pyjamas. The wind blew right through the pyjamas – he should have put on trousers. ‘Should have’… the same phrase he’d heard all night. ‘We should have never got married… You should have known better than to get pregnant… You should have kept your hands to yourself.’

He shivered, cold and fear working together. The night didn’t scare him. The streets were empty except for taxis and the odd late-night worker, and he felt much safer here than at home. 

He’d go to the den – the place in the park where he hung out with his pals during the day.  It sheltered them when the weather spoiled their play. The cold was jabbing his skin like a thousand needles, but the darkness was reassuring. The silence comforting, even when he heard the footsteps behind him. A stick broke somewhere, cracking the quiet and making him jump.

Tomorrow, when his parents realised he was gone, they’d either turn to each other for comfort or argue over who was to blame. You could never tell. He’d never know.