Life started bad, and soon got worse
The only time his Mama would be pleased with him was when he would do the washing. All the washing, and not just his own. He learnt to use the washing machine very young. Maybe only 6 or 7.
Stripping sheets was easy if disgusting. His Mama was a slob, but she was all he knew. Putting them back on was harder, but he loved the sweet smell of freshness. Climbing through them to straighten the edges filled his little body with joy.
Ironing was awkward, but he never burnt anything but himself after the first time Mama made him regret not being more careful with her clothes.
He wanted to go to school, but when he did, the time away had only made it harder. He gave up fighting and stayed home, cleaning, cooking, hanging out the washing.
It was hanging out the washing that became his favourite part of the week. In their apartment, high up on the fourth floor, most would hang their washing from a concertina clothesline. The ones you could roll out with a handle, others even had long washing lines between windows, or if they were posh, on balconies.
The boy and his mama had the cheapest kind. You would push it out one bar at a time, fitting the washing on as you went. Pegging it down and hoping nothing fell. It was a long way down to run to the bottom and pick up the now dirty clothes. His Mama would want to know where he was going and scold him if it was her bra he had let fall on a car below.
But still he loved it. He loved looking out over the rooftops, down across the city. He imagined running on the roofs, jumping between them. Swooping like a bird between the sheets, that flapped in the breeze. Meeting other kids on the wing, circling the cathedral, the music, the busy streets of downtown.
These were more exciting feelings than the drudge of daytime TV that played loudly behind him in the lounge of his prison.
Jealousy got the better of him. Those t-shirts and dresses waving at him, a couple of feet from the window, looked so free. He would not have the pegs on, so he would be even freer. He climbed out.
It bent forward and then quickly snapped under his weight.
He wasn’t scared, though. Falling was freedom. He was weightless and alive. Yes, in a second, he would be dead, but that was another time. Right now, he was living the life he had always wanted, and this would last until the end, this would last forever.