Stephen Kelman - Man on Fire

The players went through the motions, made lethargic by the world’s inattention. Their paltry tactical chatter echoed eerily around the bowl of the stadium. The bowler threw the ball. The batsman hit it back to him and stayed where he was. Everybody had decided to embrace self-loathing in the arc of the clean white light.

The diehards’ drums tapped out a fading heartbeat. They raised their foam fingers in stubborn salute to the men slowly dying down on the pitch below.

I was dying more slowly than I’d bargained for. Bibhuti was still untouched by my bat and my time was running out. You weren’t with me then, to encourage me to forbearance and to console me with the memories of other spectacles I’d witnessed. I was on my own with my pain.

It was happening. A pain I hadn’t felt before. A slowing down and a growing sense of burden, a breath now aware of its own importance. The world was closing in on me. I was being hunted. Anger itched through my veins, scratched my eyes like the branches of every tree I’d never climbed. The hurt pinned me to the plastic seat, I couldn’t get away from it. I was going to die and it wasn’t ten years away, it was close enough to be now. Close enough that I could see myself crying out and falling.

Something needless had to be done while I could still feel it.

I climbed over Bibhuti and onto the steps. The whisky swilled around my belly and made me clumsy as I started walking. The fans on the terrace below opened their arms to welcome me. When I wobbled, big soft hands came out to break my fall. I was righted and an expectation rippled through them that I might join in their dance. I swatted them away. My eyes were on the pitch and the travesty unfolding there, of men too lazy and content to run when death was chasing them.

There was a deafening blast from the speakers. Another four and the ball was good. The batsman scratched himself and waited to be adored.

I felt a rush of cold air and turned to see the door to the corporate box slide shut. Jolly Boy was scurrying down to join me. We found in each other’s eyes confirmation of our wildness, and we took the steps two at a time. We streamed down the terraces to pitchside. I took off my shirt as I made level ground.

The cheerleaders halted their practice to clear a path for us. They were all very beautiful and they scowled piously as I trampled through their sacred ground. The man with the clipboard lifted his walkie-talkie to his mouth, poised to call a posse.

‘You cannot be here,’ he said.

‘I’m with Bibhuti,’ I said. ‘I’m gonna be a record breaker.’

Bibhuti came to face me down. There was panic in his eyes. He tried to hand me my shirt. I wouldn’t take it. There was petulant music in me and it wouldn’t be doused. I tap-danced around the cheerleaders and inched to the boundary line. I bent to take off my shoes and socks. I rolled up my trousers to make shorts. My pale shins glowed like milk bottles in the night. I tickled my toes on the pristine grass.

The deep purple of Ellen’s nail polish made a pleasing contrast against the green. I remembered the night before, painting my toenails in a drunken moment of abandonment. It had been harder than I’d predicted and I’d gone over the lines. There was no shame in it. Trendspotting, the colour was called. I felt a sharp pang of love for Ellen, she who’d briefly stolen me from loneliness.

‘I’m gonna be a record breaker,’ I told the cameraman in passing.

He tilted his head in a gesture of understanding and carried on with his work.

I jumped on to the outfield and tested the spring in the turf. Reckless blood chimed in my ears, drowning out Bibhuti’s protests against my sudden lunacy.

‘We’re running out of time,’ I told him by way of explanation.

The night fell like hair over my bare skin. To be close to naked under floodlights was to be dancing bashfully with my younger self.

Jolly Boy drifted to my side. He looked up at me, his eyes fearful with questions.

‘Are you coming?’ I asked him.

He shook his head.

A wicket fell with a crack and the speakers erupted. The cricketers were awoken and in the mess of high-fiving I grabbed my chance and ran. I picked out an advertising board on the far side of the pitch and sprinted for it. I tore through the outfield, the hot air chasing me down.

Within moments I was out of breath and everything hurt and I slowed to a trot.

I heard footfall gaining on me and Jolly Boy was at my shoulder. His face was split by a mad grin. Behind us Bibhuti was quicksanded at the boundary line. Clipboard tripped over a pompom and went flying.

We skimmed the wicket, worming between the startled fielders. They stepped graciously out of our way.

Ourselves as giants flashed up on the big screen and we stopped to take it in. The spectacle of it left us breathless and broken free of time. I used the image on the screen to locate the camera and waved to it. I did a little jig for the cable subscribers. I was brave and unreachable, I’d crossed over like the ping-pong monks to a place of serenity. A place where no one could touch me.

‘Uncle, over there.’ Jolly Boy pointed at the trio of security guards who were running for us. I felt all my holes clamp shut.

One of the batsmen sauntered over and asked what I was doing.

‘It’s all a waste of time,’ I told him tenderly. ‘No one’s even watching.’

‘You are a waste of time,’ he said, and he kicked my legs from under me. I fell to the ground. He spat on the grass near my feet. He smirked at my painted toenails. Security arrived in a murderous clatter of limbs and I curled myself into a ball and waited for the sky to shatter.

I watched my replay while Bibhuti bartered for my freedom. I looked quite persuasive blown up out of all proportion.

‘We look very good,’ Jolly Boy said.

‘We do. You’re famous now.’

Bibhuti traded my life for his access all areas pass. He made a grim ceremony of handing it over. His eyes when they turned on me were desolate. My heart flooded with regret.

‘This is very unfortunate,’ he pouted. ‘I had hoped perhaps to stage our record attempt here but that is not possible now. I am very disappointed.’

I told him I was sorry. But I hadn’t even picked up a bat yet, he wouldn’t let me do what I’d come here for. I didn’t have for ever.

‘All in good time. We must prepare in the right way to ensure success.’

My frustration spilled out in a feeble croon. ‘You don’t get it. There is no time.’

I made a quick estimate of the effect a confession might have on him and the agreement we’d made. Whether it would be the fire that would hurry us on to our shared destiny, or the foam that would suffocate the plans we’d made. He had to believe I was strong enough to break him. He had to share responsibility for the condition of my soul when I gave it to the darkness for inspection.

I told him I had cancer. The word tasted like toffee in my mouth, thick and childish.

Bibhuti stroked his moustache for a minute or two. Then he promised to cure me. There was no doubt in his mind that he could.

The bellyaches came a couple of months after I first saw Bibhuti on TV. They started to bother me and they didn’t go away. Movements were getting harder and my energy was gone. I knew what it was before I was told. I’d been feeling like the end of something was coming for years but it had been coming so slowly that I could call it my imagination if I wanted to. The scans made it all real. They gave me a reason to be feeling the way I’d been feeling that wasn’t just grumbling at life’s failing to live up to expectations. My expectations didn’t come into it. It was a real thing, a disease. It was something I’d done to myself.