Wesley is lying in his own excrement and urine. Only twenty steps separate the toilet from his room, but he did not make the distance in time. Wesley is all alone in the house. No one is around to help him, so he lies soaking in the putrid pool. Company does not necessarily bring comfort or relief. The jangling of keys and squeaking of door hinge are a portent of yet another drubbing. He knows it all too well. A slap, hard and hot. A slam of the head against the wall. Leather belt noosed around his neck, then pulled tautly, asphyxiating him. Leather belt on naked skin, each slash a laceration of the soul.

Wesley is lying in his own excrement and urine. He can do nothing but wait.

Wesley lives with cerebral palsy, a set of permanent movement disorders caused by abnormal development or damage to the brain during pregnancy, labour or shortly after birth. In the five-member Wee family, as Wesley quickly learnt, cerebral palsy is dishonour. Inconvenience. Shame. In his own house, Wesley was a bête noire, a mere flea begging to be swatted. His late father was a man of stern countenance. Hell-bent on making his son walk, he would press-gang the latter into exercising, wielding a weapon barbed of fear and crushing words. To Wesley, hands gripping his walker, heft of his own weight on legs that had no strength, walking was not just impossible, it was torturous. During the punishing exercises, he could only hobble, and whenever he failed to complete his rounds, his father would starve him.

I’m sorry, dad, for not being able to walk.