Multiplex

Walter actually liked people, just not the ones he generally met. Always big he had had a lonely but loving childhood brought up by foster parents who both supported and encouraged him and though not outstanding his school years were fairly successful and by and large enjoyable (bullies didn’t dare!). It all started to go wrong when they both died (killed on a pedestrian crossing by a drunk driver on the golden mile) and like a rudderless liner he lost his compass and started to drift.  
Though not officially expelled, there was a tacit understanding between the school and himself that his dwindling attendance should be made permanent and since he was 15 anyway social services also seemed rather phlegmatic about his living arrangements. “Don’t call us we’ll call you” seemed to be the attitude. He didn’t ring. Instead he sat down and prioritised. Shelter secured, his parents left him the house, a job was the priority. After a few false starts he spent a happy summer as part of a rather sad show tucked away in a side street of the Golden Mile described as “Wonders of the world” where he sat with a fake mermaid, a dwarf and a very hirsute woman in a small enclosed portmanteau which in other times would have been called “Freak show”. Strangely enough he quite enjoyed it, the camaraderie and the sheer weirdness of the situation making for an odd sense of belonging. He was therefore quite annoyed when inevitably, out of time with modern tastes and  social and political agendas, it was shut down. He eventually found himself another position still caged and watched but in a much lonelier and worse paid way at the Coral Island. Coral Island the biggest, the brashest and the best. A bewildering array of grabbing, spinning and pushing silver, mesmerised people and bleeping cacophony.