It’d be nice if he'd let me breathe. Just inhale a little air to keep my teeth company- maybe even exhale again when they grow tired of one another. You really don’t notice how wonderful it is to breathe until you’re lying stomach down with empty lungs and the creepy man from the corner store sitting on your back.

But what can I say? Not- ‘please get off of my back, I can feel my spine against my stomach and I don’t like it.’ Because I really can feel my spine against my stomach and am breathless to say such. My cheek makes like feet against the wooden floorboards. This man has a whole forest of trees in here! All lying flat, cramped and without breath or life. I can sympathise. We cling to each other and both ache to breathe again.

I can’t for the life of me remember his name. It was there bold and black on his shirt pocket every four pm. He was always the one with the far-off eyes and the rotting algae teeth. ‘He’s a nutcase’ Sam had said. I had laughed the laugh of late August, with gumball staining my tongue blue and hands full of silver. But then we were talking about Louise and the old man was as far away in my mind as his eyes seemed. Until now where he’s awfully close and dreadfully heavy.

He is watching television. It is an old television with veneer walls and a rusted antenna I can’t see the end of. The picture is colourless and bleeding static. I think of how much nicer the weather lady looks on our plasma screen at home. But I am not at home; I am beneath a slightly-overweight, balding man who I’ve never really said two words to.

I am to replace his chair. ‘You are to replace my chair,’ he said- as though this was the most normal thing on earth to be, ‘the floorboards are too hard and I need to watch the news.’ I said nothing- the way you say nothing but are really saying very many things in your mind very loudly. If I say nothing and do as he asks he’ll let me be home in time for tea. We’re having apricot chicken. But if I don’t get air very shortly I won’t be able to eat it. So I steal air here and then when he moves about.

It really does hurt, you know. My bones feel like splinters of wood about to break. I fear my rib-splinters already have. The floorboards feel my pain; they’ve been sawed to pieces so many times they’ve lost count of how many places they exist. But it could always be worse.

I imagine I am on the jungle floor and an elephant sits atop my back. I am sore all over but I am happy because afterwards (broken boned or not) I can tell everyone about the elephant who sat upon my back. But then I steal another breath and what I inhale isn’t what jungle dirt and flora should smell like. I just want to go home.

Eventually the television sings a crackly song of credits, but it’s early birdsong to me because it marks the ending of his news program. He shifts his weight to his bare feet and suddenly my lungs are sails caught in wind. I breathe again. It’s a delightful cycle of ins and outs, a hymn of life. ‘Can I go home now, please?’ He nods and brings a haired finger to his mouth, ‘Not a word, okay?’

I walk home as the sky dips from afternoon to night. I delight in the way the air rushes in and out, the way my chest is unrestricted and my body is light. 'Such a lovely thing,' I say aloud, 'and yet everyone, every day goes about doing it without realising just how lovely it is. '