I\u2019m on a mission but he\u2019s battling too\u2014weighed down with shopping and a caterwauling toddler. As I help lift the buggy down from the bus, my kaleidoscope of memories starts with a whiff. Stale sweetness. Sour milk. Her nappy wafts a potent mix. She\u2019s the same weight as Macey, red moons for cheeks, her lips crumbed in orange, moustached by Wotsits. Now her squawking\u2019s subsided, she mewls like a kitten, and I\u2019m catapulted back to being a silly-grinned dad. Picnics with Macey. Trips to the park, her teddy bear coat so soft in my palms.<\/p>\n
Higher, I push her higher, and she soars on the swing. High, towards the clouds until a growl bursts my bubble, and the bus-dad snarls, “What are you doing?”<\/p>\n
And I\u2019m crashed, back to earth but still holding on. I lower her gently so there\u2019s no hard bump down,\u00a0just a swoosh of closing doors as the bus roars away.<\/p>\n
“S\u2019sorry, mate,” I stutter, “old habits die hard.”<\/p>\n
But I don\u2019t tell him how hard it is, how I can\u2019t let go.<\/p>\n
“Stay lucky,” I shout as they\u2019re lost to the crowd.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m wretched on the pavement; the next bus is late.<\/p>\n
Perhaps it\u2019s my time, and this meeting wasn\u2019t chance. Time now to stop the carousel, another chance to quit? But I\u2019m shredded to raw seeing that girl with her dad, and the monster inside me is screaming for help. He knows the best medicine to treat an old wound, to blot out the ending of the story I starred in, the story I wrote, about a dad who chose heroin over the best thing he ever had.<\/p>\n
Take the bus to the dealer, or walk the other way?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m still hesitating.<\/p>\n
The bus is still late.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Perhaps it\u2019s my time, and this meeting wasn\u2019t chance. Time now to stop the carousel, another chance to quit? But I\u2019m shredded to raw seeing that girl with her dad, and the monster inside me is screaming for help. He knows the best medicine to treat an old wound.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":20851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[3677],"class_list":["post-20362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","tag-kateaxeford","writer-kate-axeford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20362"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20850,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20362\/revisions\/20850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}