A short story called "The Slope"

The Slope

He was sitting on his bike looking down at the steep slope that led to the road’s end, and behind it, at the dense brooding forest. His sister was on her bike next to him. The bitumen looked hard and menacing. The slope looked scary. He was frightened – he didn’t want to go down.

“Come on James, you can just use your brakes, it’ll be fine," his sister said.

“But what if I’m going too fast?”

“You won’t. If you put your brakes on enough you’ll go down really slowly.”

He was still scared. But if he could do it it would be really brave. He looked down at the slope: it was sinister, menacing. He looked down at his hands where they were gripping the brakes on both sides: the brakes looked small, inadequate. But he had brakes. He could go down really slowly with brakes like Miranda said. It would be fine.

He was going to do it.

“I’m doing it,” he said, looking at his sister with a serious, manly expression.

“Good luck,” she said, smiling.

This was it.

He released the brakes from both hands simultaneously; he started rolling, inching forward towards the drop; he was going slowly, he was calm; he tipped forward onto the slope; now he was going down, going straight down, the bike was gaining momentum, faster faster he was hurtling down, straight down the slope, he was going too fast going, too fast, this was bad, he needed to stop it; he grabbed the right brake as hard as he could. In an instant the bike’s front wheel stopped dead, the bike jerked upward and he was bucked off it; he was flying through the air, flying towards the hard, rough bitumen, about to be hurt, about to have his skin ripped off; he reached out his hands to brace himself for the terrible impact… He hit the bitumen in an unceremonious instant, hands first then knees.

He was dumbfounded.

What happened?

He was lying on the ground, right at the bottom of the slope. He looked around. To his right he saw his bike – his new, blue bike, his main birthday present – lying, with its handlebar twisted, on the ground. He was angry at it. Why did it have to do that to him?

All of a sudden, the pain of his wounds began to register. It hurt, it hurt so much. Tears were welling in his eyes. He shouldn’t have listened to Miranda, he shouldn’t have listened. The brakes didn’t work; the brakes had flipped him off the bike. He shouldn’t have listened to her. It hurt. His knees and hands were stinging so much. Now Miranda, that liar, that evil liar, was running down the slope towards him, saying, with a sympathetic tone in her voice, the words, “Are you alright?” No he wasn’t alright, he wasn’t alright at all; it hurt. It hurt and she was wrong, he shouldn’t have listened to her; she was wrong. Tears were streaming down his face and he was moaning. It hurt, it hurt so much. He looked down at his right knee and saw an ugly red wound. It stung on his right elbow. He tried to pull around his elbow so he could see it with his eyes; all he could see was its edge, but there he could see the edge of an ugly graze. Aww it hurt, it hurt so much. The palms of his hands, they were stinging the worst of all. As he turned his hands around so that the palms were facing him, he theorised that despite how much they stung, they probably didn’t have a wound on them because the skin never came off the hands. But he was wrong. There it was, a hideous sight: his palms, usually pinkish and soft, had morphed into a black and green mess of lumpy, loose skin.  

He screamed. He screamed loud enough for the whole street to hear. It hurt even more now; it was excruciating. His hands were broken, his hands were broken. With his hands held out in front of him, away from his face, he stood up and ran. He ran past his sister, he ran up the street, screaming and wailing at the top of his lungs. His hands were broken, he had to get home, his hands were broken. He shouldn’t have listened to Miranda, she was wrong. He had been right: he should never have gone down the slope. Now his hands were broken. And what if they couldn’t be repaired? His hands were black, why were they black? Black was bad, they were really bad. He needed to get home. Home, he was running towards it. He was turning left now, only one hundred metres to go till home. Home had mummy, he needed to get back to mummy. He was still screaming as he ran; faster faster faster. Houses were going past in a blur on either side of him, the bloodthirsty bitumen was a blur beneath his feet. He was approaching the driveway now, its façade familiar and comforting. He was almost home now, he had almost arrived. He would be in mummy’s arms soon. Mummy would know what to do, he would be safe with mummy. He ran down the driveway, still screaming, the tears still streaming down his face. He saw his dad, wearing a blue shirt and gardening gloves, pruning the bushes with secateurs up ahead. He ran up the driveway towards him and his dad turned towards him, secateurs in hand, a concerned look on his face. 

“James, what’s wrong?”

There was no time to properly reply. “I’m hurt,” he moaned as he ran on, past daddy, towards the brown brick structure with the blue door, that familiar place, where he would at last be ok. He kicked open the screen door with his foot and ran into the house screaming “Mummy!” He ran through the living room, towards the kitchen, panicked, frenzied.

And there she was.