BEFORE I DIE, I PRAY TO BE BORN | ✓

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WEDNESDAY
06.11.1996
DORIAN

               I hate driving. There's nothing quite as overwhelming as being in charge of a 1.3-ton metal contraption with a hundred different rules to keep track of whilst staying aware of traffic. Counting from this morning, I think I've sweat enough to fill a small swimming pool.

Now that we're out of Cambridgeshire, the rest of the way is a stretch of inactive motorway and my hyperactive nervous system finally relaxes. Enough anyway, for me to shift my attention from the road and glance at Isaiah.

The food I got him from the petrol station before we changed onto the A11 motorway out of Cambridge sits untouched on his lap. The panini has gone cold whilst the sun flooding the car has dried the salad and melted the chocolate. (I bought several options thinking it would have the highest chance of him eating but the strategy proved unsuccessful).

Leaning against the window, Isaiah stares at the plains that now encapsulate us with no sense of nostalgia.

Silence is heavy around him. He hasn't said a word since we left Oxford. I haven't dared to turn on the radio.

I move my hands down on the steering wheel, then back to their original position. 'You really should eat something.'

He doesn't hear me.

It's something between sick humour and cruelty that the first time I enter Lower Halsett, it's from the south with an Isaiah who can't stand to look at me.

Though I lived not ten minutes from the river, Isaiah never let me cross it — he was more adamant about it than my parents. Even as a child, he refused to tell me his address or phone number. I still spent several nights dreaming about the first time I'd cross the truss bridge.

Now, instead of crossing literal or figurative bridges, I drive in from the opposite end. I wait for him to demand I turn around but all he does is stare vacantly at the ENTERING HALSETT sign as we pass it. With it in the rearview mirror, I glance at Isaiah again and I understand this is the first introduction between us.

We might have grown up in the same town but Halsett is segregated as though by a totalitarian regime and by denying me his half, he denied me parts of himself too. How could our worlds ever fit together when he never let me step into his? He came into mine, picked up the appropriate accent and subjects for discussion, but never let me reciprocate. The river, our classless utopia, was as far as I was allowed.

This advent doesn't have enough ceremony. Isaiah is either too zoned out to recognise it or he wants to pretend like it's no big deal, as if he didn't make me promise I'd never try to visit him. Nonetheless, a smile tugs my mouth at the thought of my parents: they'd hate it if they knew I was here.

When we were still in school, I played with the idea of going to Cambridge instead of Oxford just to spite them but Isaiah insisted it wasn't far enough — 'you squint and you'd see Halsett at the horizon.' It's no matter, this is the best of possible rebellions.

'We can stay here.' Isaiah's voice is so hoarse I almost don't understand his speech until he indicates to a building that comes into sight along with a petrol station.

The name on the roadsigns is partially covered by graffiti tags so I'm left to guess whether it's called Moonlight Motel or Moorland Motel (though I doubt it's the latter considering we don't have moors anywhere near here). The town is still far enough to be hidden behind the drying leaves clinging to the aspens and poplar along the road and when I turn the engine off, we're encapsulated by silence.