43
Spewage
Halfway across the river, the water was a mere centimetre off my bottom lip. Any higher and it would be in my mouth and up my nose. The thought of it turned my stomach. I held in a violent puke, swallowing down the burn and sidestepping one of those bubbling mounds of rubbish, where dragon flies the size of my head buzzed around menacingly.
A minute in the river seemed like a lifetime, but the waterline began to drop off as we got close to the other side, struggling up a rising pile of junk until we waded clear.
We stepped on to the grass bank on the other side, painted boots-to-chins in a yellow-brown film. We ran tired across the patchy grass field and the tarmac road, up to the huge wire fence, brown water pouring off us as we went.
I looked up at the fence, with its rol
