Smiling boy in pram, Birmingham Grand Central. Picture in my mind black and white, grand stencil.
Orange puff parka, sugar-stains and orange juice dribble, mother fiddling with phone.
Smiling boy on the twenty forth, from that day and forth I hope he doesn't remember me. Not on this day.
I wonder if I look old to this boy of about four, hand sticky from rainbow lollipop ichor.
I hope I don't look old enough to have played a part in the start of what I can only describe as an unmitigated catastrophe.
I want to talk to him, I really do, but I have to go. But know, small thing, that this wasn't my idea. I vote with my hopes and not with my fears.
I did not play a part in the condemning of daughters and sons by The Sun, read by the ones who do not have to run because their houses haven't been reduced to just about enough rubble to fill a bubble wrap lined brown envelope.
I hope he doesn't know, as I'm walking away that I preferred him there in a pram, happy and pink than blue and cold.
Because I care about all sons and all daughters, even the ones that are fleeing from slaughter.
I don't want this pram boy to be leaking seawater.
