Background

Oliver is a ‘ghost child’ living on the fringes of society. He is not on any school registers and has not come to the attention of social services. The trauma of a fire and his time in an orphanage have led him to perceive the world as a fundamentally ‘unsafe’ place. To overcome this sense of insecurity, he has rendered himself a state of ‘non-existence’ where no one can touch or hurt him. He does not play; having skipped the stages of childhood, he leads an existence focused solely on survival.