Read Wildlife for Free Online Page A

ignores the people who pass him on the pavement. They are subdued. They lack the personality and the romance of the crumb.
    The sky is an outdated streak of piss. Joe Aspen walks under it. He turns onto Cross Street. Maybe, thinks Joe, in this Wild World we will all get our own private piece of sky to hold above our heads like an umbrella. I can’t bear to share this sky with others. I can’t bear to share it with Life. I can’t believe she’s marching about under the same sky as me. It’s painful to think about. Let’s hope the Wild World has sky-cutting tools. I will take my little section home and be happy with it. I will hold it above my head and get rained on. I will be quiet. I will be a happy puffin.
    Joe spots the pop star Asa Gunn the moment he enters the Royal Exchange. He’s over by the bar filling a plastic cup with water and then downing the contents quickly. The theatre was once the world’s biggest room. Nowadays it is Manchester’s most beautiful. Three enormous stained-glass domes cast a blue light into every corner. On days like this, when the sun has got its hat on, the Royal Exchange contains the perfect light for life.
    Joe approaches his colleagues who are beginning to congregate around a table near the entrance of the huge room. These people are not Joe’s friends. They are the new group who replaced the old group, Joe’s group. Joe is the only non-student who works here as an usher. His group, his friends, have all gone off in search of real jobs. Somehow Joe has not.
    â€˜Good Christmas? Good New Year?’ asks David, a tall, posh, brown-haired drama student with a fancy spoon where his brain should be.
    â€˜Not so bad,’ says Joe, deciding not to share the story of the bit of shit with these people and wondering whether David realises that he is destined for an upmarket, silk-lined casket and a surprisingly low-key funeral.
    As well as David, there are three girls. They’re very excited to see each other again having been away for the Christmas holiday. When they talk their fingers claw at each other enthusiastically like rat hands. They touch each other’s Christmas clothes. All four people, it transpires, received MP3 players from their respective parents.
    â€˜Did you get anything, Joe?’ asks Merrill, a bouncy-titted girl with a pretty face imprisoned in frantic acne.
    â€˜I got a calendar. But I bought it myself,’ says Joe, running his fingers through his dyed black hair. ‘It’s a wildlife one.January is a leopard. February is a crocodile. April is a puffin so I’m looking forward to it. April, I mean. I’m looking forward to April.’
    Joe rubs his lips, scraping off the flaked remains of his awful sentence. He spoke for too long, he realises. Merrill nods and points her tits and acne scars at someone else. Another shame. I spoke for too long, thinks Joe, getting up and leaving his colleagues to a fresh conversation about the Wild World. Students love the idea of the Wild World because they have a sense of detachment towards most things: wars, worlds, trends, survival.
    Asa Gunn is still drinking water at one corner of the square bar that juts out into the theatre’s foyer. He’s wearing baggy green combat trousers and a tight-fitting black T-shirt. Joe approaches him, takes a plastic cup from a stack and gestures that he’d like to fill it with water.
    â€˜This week in America,’ says the pop star, filling Joe’s cup, ‘a man came second in a water-drinking contest and then died. He died from overconsumption of water.’
    â€˜I know,’ says Joe. ‘And the winner survived.’
    â€˜Winners do,’ says Gunn, refreshing his own beaker once again. His voice is high in pitch, his jaw is a little overwhelming and reminiscent of the word
mammal
. ‘It’s just a huge competition, life. There’s a fine line between victory and suicide.’
    Joe nods.