I put one foot on the step, then the other: one, two, one, two. Then the next, left foot, right foot, and I count. Eight steps. OK, now the four-foot distance of the platform then sixteen more steps. Left foot, right foot; left foot, right foot. I’m not crying any more. I am on the sixteenth step. I walk a few careful paces forward and reach up in front of me and feel for the ladder and it is there, it is there! I grab one of the rusty rungs and I climb six of those thick staples that cling to amber brickwork, then I feel for the metal of the hatch. I prop my foot on the rung above to give me leverage and I push against the hatch with all my might. Shit, it’s heavy. It’s really bloody heavy. I try again and again. Eventually it lifts a little, causing a slim chink of light to appear, but it clanks straight back down into the hole again.

‘Come on, you bugger!’ I hiss at it and I have another go. It lifts again and this time falls back at a slight angle, not covering the whole hatchway. I get my leverage.

‘Come on!’ Finally, heaving it with all my might, I’m able to lift the hatch up and away from me enough that I can get a handle on the front edge of it and then I push and push until I can heft it very slowly, slowly away from me and on to the grass beyond the hatch.

I collapse on to my forearms on the top rung of the ladder, breathing in the air and the light and the freedom above me. I’ve done it. I’ve made it. I climb the final three rungs and scramble out of the hatch and into the fading summer sunlight, the day’s last hurrah, where the sun is disappearing behind the top of the Ferris wheel and I can hear people laughing and living their best, absolute lives, and I’m sprinting on the grass towards the fair, feeling the rush of air and sunlight and sky in my lungs and my veins and I’m running towards hope and praying I’m not too late, that I’m not too late for everything.

Three Months Later

The sun is lowering behind a bank of clouds that streak and drift. It shyly peeks from behind cotton-wool white then disappears again. The horizon is periwinkle blue, tinged with pink. It’s a beautiful evening.