David Hannay

Fading Light

A hollow silence laid heavy in Fisher’s room as he sat on the end of his bed, feet waving, the only one in the house awake. Mum and Dad in the next room, still and peaceful, Fisher took his vantage in, surveying the surfeit of toys that littered his bedroom floor. Trucks, dolls, cars, trolls; all of his favourite, and all of his unwanted, things. Discarded parts, still and motionless, lay like the parents, surrounding the ones that he still had affection for. Nothing penetrated the stillness and darkness of the early morning like the longing that Fish had for a return to days gone where playing and laughter remained untainted by differences, by doubt, by the smog of something changed. Transition found its way into his young life through a display of brute force that startled and overawed even the adults.