Excerpt: The Fire Cracker from Andorra

Adriana had one thing going for her right from the beginning of her life – she was beautiful. Even as she fell through the toilet on the train, as her mother’s umbilical cord ripped and she fell to the ground, a bathroom of sorts, as the placenta bounced three seconds after her, the animals smiled. They were surprised to see a little girl, a human, a living and breathing and stinking thing; they were much more used to shit. And isn’t that how it always goes? From the most unexpected place comes a most unexpected thing. Adriana was that. Her mother, who went to the bathroom with a tummy ache, almost fainted on the wooden toilet and when she realized, when she saw that cord dangling that’s when she quickly pulled up her underpants and ran.
A mother’s instinct? She wasn’t a very active woman. A little lazy, some may have described her to be in fact. But Adriana’s mother, however judged by her peers, was passionate. They had to give her that. She’s been in and out of love for most of her life. And this child wasn’t wanted by the man who she loved. He was married. He was going to leave his wife, but time was ticking for Oda. The baby was coming and she was beginning to get surges of energy. It was revolutionary. All her brothers and sisters were well aware of Oda’s laziness. About the only thing she did was her nails, her hair and if you count blowing on her nails then that’s something but this woman wasn’t typically brave or strong.
A couple who was traveling, tourists, through the mountains of Andorra was sitting on the train near the door since the wife, an American, felt she needed air. The train ride was charming for the first four hours but it was now hour fifteen and the mountains were beginning to lose their charisma. And to see Oda, a woman with blood on her hands and on the rags she called a dress to travel in, jump off of the train was something Jennifer and David simply couldn’t take. It happened so fast, they’d later tell the newspapers.
But that’s what Oda did. She jumped off the train, since she knew the train was moving in the opposite direction of her daughter and if she died, then she died for love. Oda loved him, as lazy as she was, as negligent of responsibility; of forward planning she’d been in her past life, the minute that baby left her womb, Oda changed. The father of that baby was the most important person in Oda’s life when she jumped off that train, and that baby was the ticket to getting to see him again.
It wasn’t a scream, as she leapt. She called out. She said ‘Bonaventura!’ and flew into the air. Her best friend, Mellisandra, ran to the edge of the car and called after her: “What are you doing you dumb twat? He’s not worth killing yourself over!” But it was too late for Oda to heed her friend’s warnings.