Divided Kingdom

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There were men in my room, and it was bright, too bright, and I was being lifted out of bed. I didn’t struggle or cry out; I didn’t make a sound. The uniforms they wore felt cold, as if they had just been taken from the fridge.

I was told to wait on the road outside our house. Rain drifted past the street lamp, rain so fine that I could hardly feel it. I watched as a soldier fastened a strip of cloth around my upper arm. My shadow bent where it fell across the kerbstone, like a piece of cardboard folded in two places.

They put me in the back of a lorry, along with people of every age, all of whom wore armbands, none of whom I recognised. No one spoke, or even moved. I remember no violence, only the silence and the constant, weightless rain.

From where I was standing, by the tailgate, I could see my parents. They hadn’t had time to dress properly. My father wore pyjamas, a suit jacket and a pair of slippers, and his face had lines and creases on it, as though sleep had crushed him in its fist. My mother’s feet were bare.

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