#0018 – Saveloy

“So, do you think you might wanna fuck me tonight, then?”

Even as the words came tumbling unchecked from his mouth, he surmised that it was probably his worst chat-up line ever; and there was a long and illustrious legacy of those, make no mistake. Five years of spectacular failure with the fairer sex, coalesced into one alcohol-fuelled moment of hope, delivered in the midst of a stinking, bustling chip shop. A horrified glance also confirmed that the girl on the receiving end of such a lady-killing bullet was halfway through chomping down on an enormous saveloy, bulbous and shockingly red, making the situation a million times worse.

It was the beginning of fresher’s week, and Jack had struck gold, or so he had thought. A bumbling, gangly mass of hair, acne scars and awkward mumbling, Jack was a self-proclaimed outcast, and the first days of a four-year course in Graphic Design had instilled in him a range of uncomfortable emotions. First, there was a sense of creeping dread, gently enfolding itself around his heart and chilling his genitals. It had mutated into a paradoxical strain of panicked calm, as he tried to convince himself that whatever will be, will be. Then, in the final hours of the comfortable rut he had settled in, as his parents drove him along the coast to drop him off in the dilapidated digs that were to be his home for the next twelve months, that “calm” had become a piercing, world-consuming terror.

She had changed all that at a stroke. Bravely entering the communal kitchen within a few minutes of getting his room key, she had looked up from the rickety old table with a big grin and proclaimed: “I fucking LOVE your hat.” It was a ridiculous hat. Made from crinkled brown leather and dirty sheepskin, with floppy ear-flaps, it was the kind of hat that only required a pair of goggles to complete the sepia-tinted aviator look. Jack never did live on the cutting edge of fashion. He had frowned at her in confusion, sensing an imminent putdown. But her smile was genuine, and it had made his heart plunge down into his stomach, and his pubic hair stand on end. She extended her hand, porcelain-white and slender-fingered. “I’m Kirsty.”

Kirsty’s porcelain-white skin was now a violent crimson as she stood stock still in the middle of the chip shop, rapidly approaching the same shade as the saveloy that was now perched precariously on the end of a little wooden fork in front of her. The other girls from the communal kitchen, in various stages of ingesting their own dirty post-pub suppers, were equally silent. “What the fuck did you say to her?” asked Justine, after what felt like an age. That bitch. Jack had hated her from the start; all false eyelashes and make-up applied with a spade.

The night had gone so perfectly, too, which made his clanger stand out in such stark relief. Emboldened by cheap beer and sleazy rock music, Jack had slowly begun to relax. They had gone out as one big happy family; Kirsty, himself, and the other boys and girls of Hamwick house, floor 3, kitchen 1. Boasts were made, shots were consumed, guards were lowered. From across a row of flaming sambucas, against a backdrop of heaving bodies dancing to the beat, he could have sworn that Kirsty had been watching him, eyeing him up and down, taking stock. He had winked at her, a truly brazen, cocksure gesture that he never knew was in him. She had smiled broadly, brushed a stray lock of blonde hair away and downed her shot. With another lingering look directly at him, she had sauntered back to the bar. He watched her.

“Never gonna happen, mate,” Ben had said. Jack had made fast friends with Ben on account of him studying a similar course to himself, and with the first few days of fresher’s week already behind them, was probably his most trusted confidante. But Ben was wrong. It was going happen. Kirsty was different. She saw something in him that none of the others had seen. She saw past his clumsy flaws and his awkwardness in almost every social situation. It made him bold. It also made him brash. ”Wanna bet?” Jack had said, with a smirk.

The night had drawn inexorably to a close, and Jack had felt his confidence ooze out of him with every passing song. As today ticked over into tomorrow, the beers came too thick and fast, and that cocksure arrogance that had briefly elevated him above his own self-doubt soon gave way to drunken lechery. He stood at the edge of the dancefloor, statue-like, feet like lead. All he had to do was talk to her, lead her off somewhere, go for a “chat”. But five years of rejection hung like an albatross around his neck. Ben watched on from the sidelines, confident that he would £20 up when the sun rose.

The saveloy was resting on Kirsty’s uneaten tray of chips now, and Jack’s last desperate gambit for love and money hung thick in the air between them, an tangible as the smell of chip fat permeating newspaper. She still hadn’t breathed a word. The saveloy fell off the mountain of chips onto the floor, comically rolling away from her. Kirsty then turned on her sparkly high heels, and sailed out into the night. The other girls dutifully filed out behind her. Jack stood mute as Ben came over and ruffled his mop of tousled hair. “Very smooth, mate. You owe me twenty sheets though.”

Jack reached into his pocket. He had kept the note back as the night had drawn on; he had expected this all along. As his fingers found his wallet, his phone buzzed in his pocket. It was a text.

Come to my room when you get back. Hurry xx

He held the phone up to Ben’s face. And winked for the second time that night.

—

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#0017 – 23.04 To St. Pancras

In seven minutes and thirty-four seconds, Pierre will become a hero. Not that he knows that right now, of course. Right now, his noblest thought is which way to screw his wife when he gets home to give her as much pleasure as he will get out of the exercise.

Our hero has had a long day, and is gently wilting in the luxurious black leather of his First Class seat on the 23.04 Eurostar from Paris to St. Pancras. His eyelids are nearly fully closed; his head is beginning to loll forward onto his chest in the first blissful waves of a sleep of pure exhaustion. His forays to the French capital, which have been increasing exponentially lately, are always tiresome affairs, but today’s whistle-stop tour has finally broken him, setting a deep malaise in his middle-age bones.

He imagines his wife’s silhouette appearing in the frosted glass of his front door, framed by the glow of candles from somewhere within, as he fumbles hurriedly for the keys to his castle. He feels her soft embrace and basks in the comfortable familarity of her smile. In his slowly-deepening dream, he hears himself ask about their son, but he’s already safely stowed in bed, he is told, and the salacious grin of his wife makes his heart pound faster.

The rustle of a passenger passing by on his right briefly wakes Pierre from his slumber. He clears his throat anxiously, in that way that all people do to prove, in vain, to their fellow passengers that, no, of course they weren’t asleep. He clasps his brown leather briefcase closer to him, checking the locks absent-mindedly; a gesture he repeats so often each day that he no longer notices he’s doing it. Across the table from him, a sleeping couple gives him solace that he’s not the only tired passenger tonight, whilst also deepening his desire to get home to his wife. The girl rests her head on the man’s shoulder, brunette locks framing a porcelain-white face studded with freckles of auburn, and he rests his head on hers in turn.

It is at this point in our story that the life of our hero is changed irrevocably, never to be the same again. The door to the carriage slides open with a low hum, a now-familiar sound to him as a veteran of Eurostar journeys. There are perhaps eight or nine rows of seats between his table and the door, so he initially dismisses the sight that follows as sheer exhaustion mixed with his failing eyesight. Pierre blinks a number of times, a watery film in his eyes blurring his vision briefly. He looks again, but this time there is no mistake. Two men, one built like a mountain, the other the same build as Pierre, stand at the end of the carriage. Over their heads are black balaclavas, through which they are breathing menacingly. The motorised door slides shut behind them, and the mountain-sized man begins to speak, as if that were his cue.

‘Listen up,’ he barks. His voice has a rough edge to it, as if filtered through gravel or cracked with years of cigerette smoke. It instantly turns our hero’s veins to ice, his legs to jelly. ‘If you do what we tell you, and don’t kick up any stink, this will be all be over real soon and no-one will get hurt. If somebody tries to be a fucking hero, we’re gonna turn nasty. You don’t want this guy to turn nasty, believe me. He’s a real fucking killer.’ He gestures over his shoulder to his accomplice, and it’s only at this point that Pierre notices the long cruel arc of a crowbar protruding from his massive, ham-sized fist.

In the  next moment, three things happen simultaneously. The other, smaller man grabs the nearest passenger – a frail-looking woman with badly-dyed hair – by the arm and barks an order in her face. The mountain reaches around to the small of his back and draws a gun from the waistband of his jeans. And Pierre remembers what he has in his briefcase.

‘I said, empty your fucking money in the bag!’ the accomplice screams. His fingers dig into her arms, producing bright red welts. She tries to stifle back terrified sobs, but fails miserably. She scrabbles in her handbag for her purse. ‘Don’t pretend you haven’t heard me, bitch.’

Most of the passengers in the vicinity of the robbers have their arms up, and our hero can hear them whispering, and their muffled tears. A young black guy immediately to the right of the mountain tries to get up in a sudden lunge for the pistol-wielding honcho, but he moves quickly for a man of his size. He brings the arm holding the pistol up sharply, his elbow connecting solidly with the youth’s nose. There is a sickening crunch and a splatter of blood, but these are mere flesh wounds as the mountain then twists round and brings the crowbar down onto the man’s legs. He howls in pain and doubles up over his knees. Screams erupt from his nearest fellow passengers. The mountain leans down. Pierre can only just make out the words. ‘You try and be a hero again, motherfucker, and I’ll kill you.’

It’s at this point in our story that Pierre rises gingerly to his feet. The couple sitting opposite watch him in horror, mouths agape, slowly shaking their heads. Our hero reaches down and plucks his briefcase from the table. He takes a step down the carriage, the briefcase clasped in both arms over his chest like a shield. He hears the unmistakable click of the safety being released on the man’s gun. ‘Don’t take another fucking step, mate.’

Our hero stops. ‘Wait,’ he says, his voice low and steady. ‘I have something in here you might want to see.’

He unlocks the clasps on his briefcase and folds down the lid. The robbers stare in amazement. Then all hell breaks loose.

Image is for illustration purposes only. Photo credit: Amy Massey.

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#0016 – The Bar

The pint of beer slowly perspiring on the table before him would be his last. So he was determined to enjoy it, he decided.

It was miserable outside. A humid morning had given up to the merciless onslaught of a savage storm. Rain lashed at the window by his side, illuminated in drops of high-definition by occasional sparks of lightning. It was apt weather really, but it didn’t accurately reflect his mood. He was surprisingly calm and collected. His fingers did not shake as he reached forward and took the icy glass in his hand.

He’d been coming to this bar for the last twenty years, he surmised with a rueful grin. Of course, it hadn’t always been done up like this. Flashy neon signs for brands he didn’t care for. Polished chrome bar rails that showed every fingerprint that had ever touched them. These things had replaced the home-spun charms of the bar’s glory days; kitsch tankards and faded photographs of the bar’s previous owners. His memories of them were still sharp, even if those images had not been. Roger and Alison had been dear friends of his; relationships forged by countless conversations held across the bar as he sat perched atop the scruffy stools, the stuffing spilling out of tears and cigarette burns. He missed them, truth be told, the pair of them tragically killed in a car accident close to five years ago now.

He’d been coming back here out of respect. Or was it obligation? Of course, he hadn’t always come alone. His wife Rosemary had been his constant companion. They had shared many drinks and meals at this spot by the window, even if the table itself had changed over those years. As summer afternoons had receded into autumnal evenings, they would look out on the coastal road that picked it’s way along the rocky front outside and watch younger couples than themselves caught up in their own private worlds. Watching lovers walk along the promenade arm in arm, with smiles radiating on youthful faces, had always brought a smile to Rosemary’s own features. She always had been sentimental like that. She had always had an empathy that surprised him; able to so closely entwine her emotions with others.

He sighed deeply and removed his battered baseball cap, yellow and stained with age, and laid it gently on the table. Such reminiscing was thirsty work. He took a full swig of his beer, grimacing at its tangy aftertaste. He smoothed the remaining strands of snowy hair across a head studded with liver spots, a constant reminder during his morning shave of the inexorable passage of time.

His wife had been soppy alright, but he would be lying if he said his own heart was made of harder stuff. A born romantic, he would often surprise Rosemary with thoughtful gestures. Weekends away and fulsome bouquets of flowers were par for the course, obviously, with any old joe able to pick a bunch at a service station or book online these days. More subtle gestures had cemented their marriage, like when he had gone through a phase of hiding love letters in pages of books she was reading or, during their courtship, when he had turned up at her workplace in a horse and carriage, courtesy of a couple of mares from his father’s stable.

He chuckled softly, and savoured more of his beer. A passing waitress – Sarah? Sandra? – favoured him with a smile. Yep, he’d been a softie alright. But there’s no doubt it had paid off. He had loved her fiercely, and she had loved him back, from the first time she sat with him in that resplendent carriage, right up until the twilight hours of that dreary September evening last year when she had passed away in her bed, him perched on a rickety wooden chair beside her, her frail hand clasped in his own.

He glanced again out of the window, distorted by rainwater. Afternoon was beginning to succumb to a deepening dusk, punctuated by the fragmented glimmer of red and white headlamps glistening on the road. There were no couples sauntering on the seaside this day. No memories being made along the promenade. A man with a briefcase and an inverted umbrella, screaming obscenities in the wind, sloshed down the pavement in a comedic bow-legged dance in a vain effort to not put his expensive loafers down into ever-widening puddles.

He drained his beer quietly. The months since Rosie’s death had been hard, but he was feeling happier now he had come to his decision. A load had been lifted, and he wondered bemusedly why he hadn’t thought of this solution before. An old Van Morrison number began to filter over the stereo system; an odd choice for a trendy bar, but a welcome one all the same. Rosie had always loved Van Morrison.

He reached into his frayed old windbreaker and produced a crumpled sheet of foolscap paper. He spread it out on the table before him and smoothed it out with a gnarled hand, before taking a fountain pen from his other inside pocket. Twisting off the cap, he suddenly found himself wondering what he would write. The details hadn’t really been thought through, he realised. He brought the nib of the pen to the paper regardless, and soon the words began to flow.

Dearest Rosie, he wrote. I miss you so deeply that I can hardly form the words. All I know is that I am too tired to live this life without you anymore.

—

From across the bar, the waitress watched the old man write quietly at the table by the window as she wiped the suds from a clean pint glass. A half hour passed, his beer long since finished. She was about to go and ask him if he wanted another when he rose slowly from his seat, the letter clasped in his hand. It was the last time she, or anyone else, ever saw him.

Image is for illustration purposes only. Photo credit: Amy Massey.

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#0015 The Wait

“Luke, will you stay with me if… you know, if it turns out positive?”

“Of course, babe,” he replied instantly. “Of course I will. You don’t even need to ask – you know I will.”

She didn’t know, and the truth was, neither did he. This was uncharted territory now, and shit was very definitely hitting the fan. Luke turned away from his girlfriend Sheena, and resumed staring at the frosted glass pane of the reception desk, directly in front of his vision; a blank canvas that allowed his mind to wander. He tried to piece together the events that had led them to this waiting room in the doctor’s surgery, to this decisive crossroads in their young lives, to a test result that would likely change everything for both of them and shape all that was to follow for the remainder of their lives. But no images came, just a flurry of fragmented memories and seething regrets. They had been so stupid.

A nurse appeared in the doorway, her soft-soled shoes barely audible against the polished wooden floor. He felt Sheena tense involuntarily in her seat at the sight of her, and then relax again as the nurse called out for another patient. Luke watched a frail old man rise gingerly from his seat in the corner. He picked up his walking stick from where it was propped against an adjacent armrest and took a few tentative steps towards the nurse, who looked on with an expression of well-worn patience, forged from years of practice. The old man suddenly coughed violently, faltering where he stood. The nurse crossed over to him quickly, and with words of encouragement and sympathy, quickly extracted him from the waiting room. Wow, thought Luke, it really sucks to be old.

“Because, you know-” Sheena began softly, turned towards him now as he watched them walk away. “I’m not sure I could cope without you. I’d be lost without you.”

Luke looked at her closely, watching as her pretty face began to crumble as the gravity of her situation dawned on her. Her eyes were sparkling with the onset of tears. Strands of her fiery red hair were falling down from behind her ear to rest against her cheeks. She was so frightened, and it terrified Luke to accept how vulnerable she was, and how much she was relying on his strength to carry her through. He managed a wan smile and brushed the strands of hair back from her face. This display of tenderness surprised them both, and Sheena’s face broke with emotion. A huge tear rolled down her cheek, dropped off her chin and splashed silently into her dress. “Baby, I promise. Honestly, I promise.”

The seconds ticked slowly into minutes, which in turn became an hour. They had long since lapsed into silence. Sheena had busied herself with a magazine in an attempt to distract herself from what lay ahead, but Luke was too restless to concentrate on anything other than the ticking of the clock, and the fragmented silhouettes behind the frosted glass window. Finally, his patience ran out. He got up quickly, so quickly that his white slip-on trainers squeaked against the floor. He was momentarily aware of all eyes in the room suddenly resting on him, this intrusive noise shattering their collective introspection like the firing of a starter’s gun, before slowly settling back into their own private reverie.

He crossed over to the reception desk and gently rapped on the glass pane. It slid back immediately, and a middle-aged woman – Brenda, judging by her nametag – greeted Luke with a plastic smile and eyebrows raised. “Erm, yeh hi. I was just wondering how long it would be? We’ve been here for over an hour now and loads of people have gone in before us.” Luke tried to remain calm, but could feel his rising impatience and fear choking his words, clipping off his sentences.

“Just a moment please,” she said, turning to her monitor. Her fingers clacked over the keys of her keyboard ferociously. Luke took a second to gawp at a huge wart that had seen fit to grow above her upper lip and below her nostril, like some oozing black bogey that had slipped unbidden from her nose. He grimaced involuntarily at his own thoughts. If she saw it, she didn’t let on. ‘Doctor Flowers is still with his patient I’m afraid, sir. He shouldn’t be too long. Would you like me to pop my head in and see how much longer he’ll be?”

“Please,” came Luke’s terse reply, punctuated for him by the window sliding shut again, with Brenda’s silhouette receding into a myriad of broken colours in the room beyond. He returned to his seat, sitting down noisily and with a too-loud sigh.

“What did she say?” asked Sheena, her magazine perched on her knee, the next page held between her fingers.

“That he’s still with his previous patient,” replied Luke. “This is becoming a fucking joke.” He cracked his knuckles – a sure sign that he was becoming frustrated. Sheena reached over the armrest and stroked his arm.

“Try to be patient, baby,” she coaxed. Her words made Luke feel a pang of shame. Here he was blowing his top and being soothed by his girlfriend, when it was he that should be the one offering comfort. He looked over at her. She smiled again at him in encouragment. The long wait had seemed to restore some of her resolve, even as it eroded his own. The enormity of their situation was beginning to creep over him again, breaking his skin out in gooseflesh and making him sick to his stomach. He made a conscious effort to pat her hand as it rested on his arm.

“She’s just asking now,” he explained. “I’m just going to pop out for some fresh air.”

Outside the front entrance, a line of taxis were queuing. Luke stood and stared at them for an age, and then finally gave in.

Photo credit: Amy Massey

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#0014 “Daniel son”

Ben felt Dion’s knuckles crash into his chest again, pounding his solar plexus and instantly driving the wind out of his stomach. It was the third such punch in quick succession and his ribs began to flare with pain. ‘For fuck’s sake!’ he cried, stepping back and lowering the sticks he held in each hand.

” Well, you’ve got to focus, man,” Dion said, spreading his arms wide in a ‘what-do-you-expect’ gesture. “You’re guard is all over the place”.

“But why? You’re teaching me how to defend against guys with big sticks aren’t you? Not attack them. So surely you should be carrying these things?”

Ben heard a snigger over to his right, a sound he had heard so often at his expense, that the laugh triggered his blood to boil like some kind of Pavlovian response. “Listen to Miyagi, Daniel son!” Justin was mocking him again, a smirk playing out across his cherubic little face.

“It’s Daniel-san, you fucking moron. You know, like how the Japanese address each other. It wasn’t even funny the first time, but if you’re gonna keep saying it, how about you fucking get it right?”

“Ooooh, time of the month, Ben?” crowed Justin. He lifted up an arm and idly bounced his own stick on his shoulder, licking his lips in glee at the response his piss-taking was getting. There was no love lost between the pair; mutual dislike had swiftly mutated into outright hostility throughout every one of Dion’s coaching sessions. Ordinarily, the abuse would have stopped Ben from turning up at the Karate lessons, but he needed this. He was tired of running away from his fear. He needed to toughen up, to stop being afraid.

“Alright, guys, that’s enough,” barked Dion, turning from Ben to Justin and back again. “You’re both here to learn Karate, not to give each other handbags. If you don’t stop your bullshit bickering, I’m gonna cancel these meet-ups, and to be honest, I really need the cash.”

There was a momentary silence. Ben half-turned away from the situation, gingerly rubbing his chest. He lifted up his hoody, and inspected his ribs. Sure enough, bruises were already beginning to form, spreading like a sickly fungus over his skin. Overhead, he heard a plane slicing through a murky sky. He kicked a rock away, with force, anger still simmering.

“Yes, sensei,” Justin said, finally. He offered a little formal half-bow that concealed yet another smirk. Ben shook his head incredulously that he was still keeping these antics up. “Fucking prick,” he whispered under his breath. Dion heard him.

“Just settle down, Ben,” he said, holding out a hand to indicate his pupil cool off a bit. “Let’s try this again. You need to get into the mindset of the attacker before you can even think about your defence against him. That’s why you’ve still got the sticks. Justin will have to do the same, trust me.” He shot Justin a glare to reinforce that he wasn’t joking about this.

Ben readied the sticks again. This time he set his feet properly, raised his right hand just above his left. He tensed his muscles, allowed a steady rage to percolate under his skin. He imagined himself squaring off against Justin on a darkened night in the town centre, jumping out on the little tosser, ready to smash his teeth into the pavement. With this in mind, he lunged forward with a start, bringing the stick around with all his might. He was expecting the impact of wood against skin, half-fearing that he’d been too aggressive in what was only a lesson, after all. Instead, he felt a dull ache in his wrist as the ridge of Dion’s hand cracked into it. The stick went spiralling away from his weakened grip. A moment passed, and then Dion’s left fist came in once, twice, three times; two slugs to the gut and a third once again smashing into his solar plexus. A cluster of white spots exploded in front of his eyes, and his legs buckled. He slipped on the mud and sat down heavily. Pain lanced up his spine as his coccis struck the ground. Rage descended like a sudden black cloud, even as he doubled over in agony.

“This is bullshit, you fucking coon! Stop fucking hitting me!” The word had slipped out before he could hold it back, and he instantly regretted his mistake. Dion snapped. A switch inside his mind had been flipped. He was all over Ben in a moment, his heavy black trainer careening into Ben’s stomach. Ben felt the air evacuate his lungs. He coughed reflexively, but the trainer came in again, even harder than the first time. Dion stooped over him, his frame momentarily blocking out the light. Ben was dimly aware of him picking up the one of the sticks that had fallen from his grasp. The next thing he knew, a white explosion flared up across his vision as the stick cracked down on his temple. He heard Justin’s cry dimly, as if from a great distance away, and felt a warmth on his face as blood began to pour from his skull. Dion’s face was twisted with an intense hatred now, and a deep terror suddenly filled Ben’s veins with ice. Fuck, he thought. Fucking hell.

The stick came down again, and again. Each blow brought a resounding crack as the weapon bludgeoned against Ben’s skull, a sickening sound that reverberated around the hill. Ben was aware of a buzzing in his head, as his vision began to fade. Sounds started to run into each other like treacle. White stars punctuated a heavy black veil that began to slowly descend from the sky. His breath came in broken staccato gasps. With Justin’s strangled cries coming to him from a whole world away, blackness engulfed him and then, nothingness.

Justin looked down at Ben’s broken body for just a moment more, then turned tail and fled for his life down the hillside.

Photo credit: Amy Massey

#0013 Chinese New Year

Trafalgar Square heaved. It undulated like an ocean, Londoners and tourists alike, spilling out into the surrounding streets like so many tributaries. Their combined chatter murmured in the air, punctuated occasionally by a staccato burst of laughter, or with someone calling out to a friend. The Chinese lanterns, strung up on pieces of wire that spanned the Square, bobbed in the wind. Those that carried red balloons with them, above their heads to avoid them popping, looked like blood cells coursing through capillaries. London was out in force alright, all ethnicities joining in the Chinese celebration. Any excuse to get pissed, David thought, wryly.

He was sitting on a bench overlooking the scene, alone, wrapped up tightly in a black parka. He had the hood up, and it was probably this that was deterring others from sitting next to him. He watched the celebrations unfolding below him with ambivalence and a cold detachment. These weren’t his people. They weren’t each other’s people either. They were strangers united under a tenuous banner, pockets of disparate groups sharing the colour red. Down to his right a Chinese dragon, fashioned from thousands of fiery streamers, wrapped itself continuously around Nelson’s Column like wool on a knitting needle. Huge saucer-like eyes peered out from a head twisted into a rather frightening rictus, no doubt hiding one of the sweaty volunteers underneath who had to carry the burden, stooped like a hunchback, for the rest of the day.

David allowed his mind to drift, his head lolling back onto the bench. His gaze settled on the grey clouds scudding across the sky, and his thoughts turned to Sanghee. A quiet Chinese girl who was a friend of a friend, Sanghee had lived in the room next to him during David’s second year of uni. Five guys and Sanghee. If she hadn’t been withdrawn and reclusive before moving in, such levels of testosterone and boorishness was sure to have kept her cooped up in the safety of her room. David had barely heard a peep out of her since she had moved in; the only sign of her even living there was the rice cooker on the kitchen sideboard, an implement that saw constant use. He might have even forgot she was living there if he hadn’t come home from the library one day to see an entire Chinese family sharing a meal together in the lounge. Sanghee had looked up and smiled at him, bowls of chow mein (he had guessed), in her hands, in a way that had suggested that he wasn’t welcome in his own lounge. He made his apologies and had gone upstairs, and cranked up his music to maximum, ear-deafening, volume. It had more than likely been The Black Keys, a favourite band of his throughout the latter years of his uni life.

Loud music wasn’t the only thing Sanghee must have heard. If she was a silent housemate, then David was more akin to a bull in a china shop. Fancying himself as something of a lad, it wasn’t uncommon for him to have girls over several nights a week. And not always the same girl. Some were, shall we say, less than discreet. It had been a carefree time for him. He had his looks, his creative talents, he had a world of opportunity opening up in his future, right in front of him; beckoning him to take the first step. As he looked back on all that fresh-faced optimism, those formative hopes and jumbled ambitions, he felt pangs of real regret start to lodge in his throat. Back then he had been a charismatic charmer, surrounding himself with fun and friendly people and always welcoming others into his life. Now he was sitting here on this bench, all alone, with nothing else to do, hood raised as a barrier against the outside world. He was a closed book, an inscrutable island. He had become more like Sanghee – quiet and reflective, keeping himself to himself and suffering through the sounds of others living their lives to the fullest.

He pulled back his hood, and spread his arms out over the back of the bench. It wasn’t too late, was it? He could recapture those former glories, couldn’t he? Above him, the clouds were beginning to break apart. A sliver of blue split through the blanket of grey. Sunshine begin to peek through. David wasn’t the superstitious type. If he was, he may have taken it as a sign, but he was far too pragmatic to believe in such things. No, his resurrection would need to be made of more solid steps, of tangible desire and industrious resolve. No more excuses, and no more introspection. The time for navel-gazing was past. It was time for the pheonix to rise from the ashes.

He smirked at his over-dramatic literary analysis of what, in all probability, would be a false dawn. Tonight, he would go home, eat a ready-made microwave dinner, and collapse on the sofa in front of his PlayStation. Thoughts of reform, vague promises of renewed effort; all of these would be forgotten in favour of the path of least resistance.

His reverie was brought to an abrupt halt when he heard a cry go up from the crowd below; turning quickly from distress to panic. A wave of commotion and excited babble erupted from a crowd of people congregated around Nelson’s Column. David squinted against the fledgling sunlight and noticed the Chinese dragon writhing manically amidst the thicket of people. It was on fire; the tail was lit up in flames, more brilliant in hue than all the fake plumage that it was charring to cinders along the frame of the dragon’s body. A pair of youths turned away from the dragon and broke instantly into a sprint, a trail of accusatory fingers and indignant yelling picking out their trail. Without thinking about what the hell he was doing, David launched himself from the bench and ran after them.

Photo credit: Amy Massey

#0012 Derek Chambers

“Wear these, you’ll need ‘em,” he said, proferring some wafer-thin plastic coveralls in his hairy fist. Jason noticed the corners of the craggy bastard’s mouth turn up a fraction, splitting his face into a succession of deep caverns from his forehead to his chin. A cigarette dangled limply between cracked lips, revealing yellowing teeth underneath, and sending plumes of smoke up into a crisp Monday morning sky.

Jason reached out to take the coveralls slowly, savouring his hatred for his community support officer as he stood slouched against the railing, uniform sagging on his skeletal frame, fingernails grimy with dirt, salt-and-pepper hair hanging lank and matted against a leathery forehead. As the coveralls were exchanged, he reached up and plucked the cigarette deftly from his mouth and twisted over to flick some ash into the swirling waters below. He turned back to Jason, brought it to his mouth again. The derisive sneer that was forming on his features grew more pronounced, accentuated by a hacking cough that was more than a little punctuated by mocking laughter.

“Why do I have to paint them all red? Surely they are more visible when they are white?” Jason could barely get the words out, so deep was his level of distaste for this man. He had had the displeasure of his company far too often in recent months. Of course, he only had himself to blame.

“It’s not your place to question that, now is it, son?” drawled the officer, straightening up in a vain effort to become more imposing. “Now why don’t you just be a good little boy and take that paint and your little paintbrush there and just get to it? Believe me, this is a cakewalk compared to some of the shit that I had planned for you, son.”

“Son”; always with that patronising, humiliating “son”. If Jason had a pound for every time he’d heard this son of a bitch call him that over the past year, there’d be no need to keep shoplifting. But that wasn’t going to happen, so the shoplifting would just have to continue. The officer – Derek Chambers, 62, divorced – gave a final smirk and a derisive wink. He flicked the butt of his cigarette over the railing into the river. He turned on his heels and walked away without another word, already reaching into the pocket of his jacket for another cigarette. Jason watched him walk back towards his car, and then took out his own packet of smokes. He lit one up with a match, took a deep drag, and sighed heavily. It was going to be a long day.

Morning slowly oozed into early afternoon, and the April sun burned the clouds from the sky. Jason was aching. He’d applied himself to his ornery task with a diligence that surprised even himself, crouched forward on that sodding stone jetty, knees raw and with pain lancing up his spine, but a quiet sense of satisfaction creeping over him that Derek would have no grounds for further bullshit. The water had whipped at him constantly, savaged by a sudden gust of wind and drenching him from hat to boot. Derek had been right – he had needed the coveralls. Even his beanie was soaked through. Hopefully, now the sun was shining, he had a chance of respite from his damp and dishevelled fate.

The painting itself had been pretty pleasant, if he cared to admit it. The steady rhythm he had fallen into had allowed his mind to wander, to settle on things that most definitely needed to be settled. There was his Mum, of course. Unemployed, penniless, miserable. It broke him to see her like that, even though she tried her best at all times to marshall herself before him, and smile away his protestations. Then there was his girlfriend, Sasha, pregnant now. Shitting herself about telling her parents and not wanting Jason to tell his own. Well, his Mum anyway. Dad had fucked off a long time ago. With the weight of the world bearing down on his shoulders, it was small wonder that he’d resorted to shoplifting. Small things at first – a loaf of bread and teabags for his Mum – but soon escalating up to CDs, DVDs and gadgets. Anything that he thought could raise a few quid on eBay, Jason pilfered. Trouble was, he wasn’t particularly good at it. Hence his close association with Derek.

He paused, and pulled the soaked beanie from his head. He slicked a hand through his hair in a vain effort to dry it off and laid the paintbrush down on the upturned lid of the paint pot by his foot. He wondered suddenly how it had managed to get like this, why life had dealt him these breaks. His childhood had been happy, serene even. His aptitude for school saw him receive glowing reports from his teachers, and grades to match. All were agreed; Jason’s future was a bright one.

And then he’d gone. Just like that. One morning last year, Jason awoke to find his Mum sat at the kitchen table, head in hands, shoulders shaking uncontrollably as her sobbing wracked her body. On the table, a brief letter, in his Dad’s hand. Hardly a word of explanation about where or why. Just an empty apology, devoid of grief or regret. He had been surprised at how deeply it had affected his Mum, how systematically grief and apathy had destroyed every facet of her life. He sighed again. Sacrifices, he told himself. Things are different now, roll with the punches. He began painting again.

Half an hour later, he heard Derek’s car pull up at the end of the jetty, watched his crumpled form saunter down towards him. Surprise, surprise, another cigarette was dangling between his lips. “Now then, son. You managed to get this done all by yourse-,” Derek words were cut short by a sudden curse. Jason watched him lift up his boot, and saw the paint lid stuck to his sole.

Photo credit: Amy Massey

#0011 Three’s A Crowd

Even as he saw the tram doors yawn wide open before him, promising safety within the carriage, Mikael was convinced he was going to die. Every fiber of muscle in his legs was alive with pain; his lungs were fire. It was the agony of the break-neck run through the backstreets behind City Hall and the dash across the courtyard that was crippling him the most; the deep knife wound in his stomach felt distant somehow, even as his own blood spilled out over the fingers pressed tightly against it to stem the flow. He heard screams all around him as bystanders began to realise what was happening, crowds of panicked people parting like the Red Sea before him. Over and above this commotion, he heard the relentless pounding of heavy boots on stone, chilling his heart like ice. He snatched a quick glance behind him. They were perhaps thirty yards away, but gaining ground, faces twisted with pure hatred, oblivious to the commotion that they were causing.

Then, the unthinkable. His leg gave way beneath him, and Mikael collapsed to the ground. Pain lanced up his arm as his elbow struck the flagstones with a sickening crunch, his fingers coming away from his stomach. Blood, his blood,  splashed across the ground, a grisly Pollock painting in the cold light of a Wednesday lunchtime. A wave of nausea came over him, as an indisious black fog seeped slowly into his vision. He blinked quickly. Still his sight was darkening. Is this death? he wondered. The sound of screaming came to him again, right beside him, but this time sounding muffled to his ears, as if its owner was shrieking into a pillow. He propped himself up on his broken elbow to see all five of the gang members bearing down on him. “Cut that fucker apart,” he heard Johan say, the knife with which he had stabbed him still clutched in his white-knuckled fist, slick with blood.

***

Anya’s mother opened the door to her daughter’s bedroom gingerly, her nostrils immediately assailed by the fetid stink of cigarettes and alcohol. The watery rays of the sun were trying to permeate the gloom within the room, without success. She surveyed the damage – the debris littered on the stained carpet at the foot of the bed. An empty bottle of vodka, several crumpled beer cans, and an overflowing ashtray; the detritus from another mis-spent evening.

“I think it’s about time you got up, Anya. It’s past midday.” She had tried to say it gently, with as much patience as she could muster, but the words still came out angrily, their relationship fractured by so many similar mornings. She saw Anya stir in her bed, the darkness moving slightly as her daughter raised her head to regard her mother’s silhouette in the doorway.

“Get the fuck out of my room.”

Anya’s mother closed the door and walked away down the hall. She tried to tell herself it was just a phase her daughter was going through, an extended period of teenage angst. Inside, her heart was breaking.

***

It felt as if her head was filled with sharp glass. The sunlight, weak though it was, was burning her bleary eyes. She heard her mother’s soft footsteps on the hallway carpet grow quiet. She was surprised to find that she felt no remorse. She felt only loathing for her mother, and for herself. The previous evening was something of a blur. She remembered the discussion with Mikael, the look of fear that had crept across his face. His skin turning pallid, his eyes glassy. She remembered downing the beers once he had left, and, unsated, the trip to the off license and the bottle of vodka. She remembered passing out, fully clothed, leaning against the end of the bed. She remembered waking in the early hours of the morning, groggy and frightened. Most of all, she remembered the pregnancy test. It was still lying on the floor. She wondered idly if her mother had seen it, but didn’t care either way. The situation couldn’t get any worse anyway.

How could she have been so stupid? She raised herself on her elbows, and a wave of nausea flooded through her. She tore the quilt off her clammy body and jumped out of the bed. She made it as far as the door before she realised the bathroom was too far. She turned to the bin by her desk, and noticed the empty box for the test resting atop the rest of the rubbish before vomitting into it.

She wiped the sweat from her forehead, and collapsed down on the floor. Her hair was lank against flushed cheeks. Her stomach felt hollow. Gooseflesh broke out up her arms. A quiet, creeping sense of helplessness settled around her heart. It was only then that she noticed her mobile flashing on her bedside table. She uneasily got to her feet and snatched it up, flipped it open. A new message. From Mikael. That feeling of helplessness mutated into one of panic as she read the message:

Johan knows that it’s not his baby. He knows about us. He wants to meet me at City Hall. I’ll meet him. I have to be the bigger man about this. I wont let him near you again. We’ll make it work, I promise. I can be a dad. We can make this work. I love you. I’ll call you in a bit. He’s not going to be happy. xx

She snapped the phone shut, and the room fell silent. She was acutely aware of the dull throb of her heartbeat, thunderous in her chest. From downstairs, she heard the kettle boil. The muffled voices of some TV show as her mother tried to go about her daily routine and forget about her daughter destroying her life in front of her face. The silence was shattered by the sudden screeching of sirens as an ambulance careened down the road outside her window.

Photo credit: Amy Massey

#0010 On The Banks Of The River Moskva

Picture a bridge. This bridge arcs across the dark, icy waters of the Moskva River as it picks its way through Moscow in the heart of Russia. In this scene, the city is in the grip of an impossibly bleak, hopeless winter. The sun is choked by a blanket of white; darkness descends in the early evening. The streets are empty before dusk, the Moscow citizens retreating to warm corners in their homes to hibernate each night and look out into the black void with reflective eyes.

Underneath this bridge, picture a girl. She is sitting on a slab of frozen stone, its surface slick with ice and black debris from the river beneath. She has her knees drawn up to her chest, and her arms wrapped around her shins. She struggles for warmth, but even with the hood up over her head, lined with fake fur, she fails. A face as white as porcelain, and just as delicate, peers out from beneath the hood. Her eyes are glassy as she watches the river churn past her in angry torrents, lapping noisily against the concrete pillars of the bridge as it careers downstream and merges into the Oka River.

She has come here every evening for a week, a daily ritual almost mechanically observed. As a watery sun begins to sink behind the grey, ashen horizon, she heads across the muted city, carefully clambers over a stone balustrade as cold as frosted glass, and gingerly slides down the shallow, slippery granite to her churning retreat. And he always follows.

Picture a boy. He stands shorter than the girl, which isn’t helped by the fact that he tends to hunch; an unconscious consequence of being ostracised by his peers. Onyx-black hair falls thickly over his forehead, almost obscuring his vision, but kept long in a vain attempt to hide the wine-red birthmark that rings his left eye. It preys on his mind and he finds it difficult to think of anything else. The kids at school are merciless; they call him ‘freak’ and hurl stones at him as he crosses the playground from the school gates, desperate for the comparative safety of an empty classroom before the bell tolls. His is a lonely existence. But she is different to the others. She doesn’t point at him. She doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t throw stones. She keeps to herself, hood always up.

She knows he is there. She has known it every night, even though she doesn’t acknowledge his presence. Not because she wants to be mean to him, but because communicating with him will somehow break her own reverie, her own vague reasons for coming down here beneath the bridge. She knows he is in love with her, even if he doesn’t himself, with a certainty that can only be borne out in the black-and-white minds of youth. It comforts her that he is there, on the other side of the stone platform, even though she ignores him. He validates her decision to come down here, makes it less alien to her.

He sits awkwardly on the lip of the platform, one leg dangling over the edge, no more than a foot above the hostile waters of the river. He fumbles with a button on his coat, and snatches the occasional glance over at her. He can’t see her face, only the fur that lines her hood, and the gentle arc of her arms as she hugs her knees to her chest. She intrigues him – a loner like himself, but a self-made one. She offers him a tiny island of formless hope in a sea of misery. He desperately wants to go over to her, but knows that the very last thread keeping him from sinking into a bottomless pit may snap if she, too, rejects him. So he sits. And waits.

Picture the rain. It rolls in in pregnant black clouds. The last fading rays of sunshine are snuffed out by a blanket of stone, and against this sullen backdrop, the weather breaks. It falls in icy shards that lacerate the choppy surface of the Moskva river, sending up a thousand plumes of spray, giving the impression that the water is boiling. They both hear the rain crashing against the sweeping curve of the bridge above them as it creates an eerie echo in their secret cavern. The air becomes still colder. He glances over again, this time fascinated as she exhales a breath that crystallises into mist.

A rumbling peal of thunder makes them both start violently, the boy even emitting a muffled cry. It is enough for the girl to turn her head to look at him for the first time. He snatches another glance, quickly turns away again when he notices her looking. When he gathers the courage to look again, she is still turned to him. He keeps his gaze steady, his eyes locked with hers for the first time. They look at each other for what feels like an age to him, but in fact lasts only a few moments. A smile begins to spread slowly, oh so very slowly, across her lips. It takes a second crash of thunder to turn their heads.

He looks out at the river, marvelling at how angrily it rages. It smashes against the riverbanks as if possessed by wrathful demons. The heavens continue to empty, the rain falls in unbroken sheets of ice, and it feels as if the entire world is ending. But inside the boy, a tiny flame, long since extinguished, sparks into life once more. He carefully brings his leg up onto the platform, and only now notices that it is soaked to the skin from the rain splashing from the balustrade overhead. He rises to his feet and slowly walks over to the girl. She doesn’t turn to him, but he can see her body soften; her vice-like grip on her shins relaxes.

“What’s your name?’ he asks, on the banks of the river Moskva.

Photo credit: Amy Massey

#0009 The Big 8

Bacon. Eggs. Sausages. Hash browns. Beans. Mushrooms. Fried bread. And toast. They call it the ‘Big 8′ around these parts, and you’ll still get change for a fiver. But, boy, you better be hungry. They even do a ‘Big 16′, which is exactly what it says on the tin, but even I’m not that insane. I’ve only seen it done once, by Tom ‘Tubbs’ Tiverton, but he was physically incapable of moving for a whole half hour after he’d shovelled that last rasher of bacon into his gob. And he never wasted an opportunity to tell us how it ‘repeated’ on him for days. Yeh, I know; not a pleasant image.

I’ve taken to eating the ‘Big 8′ every day this week. It’s become a ritual for me, an almost meditative state. Each morning, at around half nine, I head to the Frank & Beans Cafe on Wheeler Street, a copy of the Guardian tucked under my arm. I nod to the cashier, whose name I forget. She fixes me with a hateful stare every time though, the old witch. Would it kill her to raise a smile? Actually, judging by those wrinkles and hair whiter than Santa’s beard, maybe it will.

I then sit down at my favourite table – the one right in the back. It’s not a large cafe, so it’s not as if I’m in some far-flung darkened corner, but it does allow me to survey the entire cafe over the lip of my paper. The chair I sit on has its faux-leather cover torn from each side. The stuffing is clearly visible, and even that is turning black with dirt. I’m probably not helping that much; I swear I’ve worn this pair of jeans day in day out for perhaps a month. Never have they seen the inside of a washing machine in all that time. In fact, they even have a large hole in the groin area from repeated use. To those that point out the offending opening, I crassly joke that the large girth of my penis is responsible for tearing a hole in the fabric. Rarely do I get laughs in return, even polite ones.

So this morning I was tucking into my fifth ‘Big 8′ of the week. I inherited my Dad’s metabolism – I could eat crap every day for a year and still have a 30″ inch waste. I claim that it’s a curse to those who stare incredulously at the calories upended into my mouth, but who are we kidding? It’s one of the greatest gifts my old man ever gave me, and that includes the white suit with flares he got married in. The less said about that gift, the better. About halfway through the first sausage of my breakfast, dunked in the runny yolk of one of the eggs, I remembered what I was supposed to be doing today. After a week of lounging around after being laid off from work, today was the day I’d earmarked to work out what the hell I was supposed to do next. Easier said than done. I’ve always been pretty wishy-washy when it comes to my own career path. I just can’t decide what to do, you see. I have grandiose plans, half of which are inflated pipe dreams. But this morning, well… this morning everything changed.

I had glanced up from my breakfast, the sauce that the beans had been swimming in was smeared over my chin. As I wiped it away with a napkin, I noticed the old lady sitting in front of me, resplendent in a dark brown leather cap. It seemed a strange fashion change, totally at odds with my admittedly stereotypical views of what I imagined old ladies should be dressed in. It stirred deeper, more sheltered memories; unspoken half-truths that comprised a darker side of my cheerful mentality. Prejudices that really hadn’t been examined in the cold light of day, but hidden behind locked doors in my character. As you can well imagine, having such deep thoughts whilst halfway through a fry-up, and triggered by something so trival as a fucking leather cap, was more than my mind could realistically compute at half nine on a Friday morning. I reached over for my cuppa, as if the bottom of a mug held some further clarity.

It dawned on me this morning, as I placed the mug back down on the plastic veneer of the table, that I’m old before my time. I’ve been shutting myself off from my own life, erecting barriers to everything around me, desensitizing myself to the pleasures of company, of compassion, of life. I’ve been made redundant because I’m lazy; my endeavours are started in some burst of frenzied passion, extinguished in minutes like a sparkler going out on Bonfire Night. Half-baked ideas discarded with only nominal effort expended into them, whilst big opportunities are shrugged off in a haze of apathy. It was a sobering thought to digest, even as the ‘Big 8′ was slipping down real easy. The woman in front of me had gotten up by this point – she had obviously finished her breakfast. I smiled to myself, imagining she had just polished off the legendary ‘Big 16′ without thinking about it, scoffing at the young whippersnappers who heaved and struggled through it; pretenders to her crown. All morning, my mind was turning over ideas like that, examining them for the first time, outdated prejudices abandoned in favour of fresh perception. It all sounds like so much bullshit now, but it’s exactly what I needed.

It was enlightenment, or ‘satori’ as the Japanese say (I’ve been studying Buddhism lately) – at least it was as much enlightenment as a guy wearing month-old jeans could muster anyway. I rose from my feet and slapped down the princely sum of a tenner, and then practically skipped out of the cafe. On the way out, I gave the cashier a salacious wink and my biggest shit-eating grin. And, wouldn’t you just know it, the old witch actually smiled back.

Photo credit: Amy Massey