The problem never changed, and the problem was that nothing ever changed. The town had done nothing since before John's father was born; just sat there in its tiny valley and seethed. So by the time John came along it was already very angry, and the anger seemed like it had grown along with his clothes. It was there at his first school and even worse at his second, a thing that was never spoken of as he erupted in spots and hair.
People would say that young people had always been angry, but no matter his age John had always seemed calm. He'd held it together when his dad had left and the time that he'd briefly come back, both times cradling his mum as she lay on the floor only sobbing. But now something was breaking over everyone in North East Wales, and for the first time in his life he was really very angry indeed.
"IT'S BECAUSE YOU DON'T LISTEN!" he was shouting down the corridor at his mother. "You're just always thinking about what you need, and never about anyone else!"
"And you're one to talk!" his mother shouted back. "Always uni this and uni that, with never a thought as to what I'll do if you're in Cardiff or Aberystwyth or"– her voice sank with horror –"or somewhere that's outside of Wales! That's your problem, that is! You always just think of yourself!"
Both of them were so angry that nothing around them seemed real, all of their attention focused on the stupidity of the other person. And so neither of them noticed the stains on the carpet and walls, and how both were now softly beginning to glow.
"I don't need to listen to this!" shouted John, grabbing his phone from his pocket. "I'll call Dad; tell him what you're saying! See what he has to say about my future"—
"And I've got something to say about that!" shouted his mother, snatching his phone away. "What're you going to do now, then?" she yelled. "Shout for your father, as loud as you're shouting at me?"
"I don't need technology!" shouted John. "I've got a load of coins!" Their thin house was at the corner of a road, and just opposite was a bright red phone box, as shiny and new as nothing in the town ever was. John had never seen anyone use it, and wasn't really sure if anyone had, but at that moment that didn't seem to matter. He slammed open his front door and ran outside towards it, not noticing how everything was now blazing orange in the sky.
"You're not getting off that easily!" his mum shouted from inside the house. "I'll come in there if I have to; cut the phone off the bloody receiver! There's not a jury in the land who'd convict me!"
"LET ME GO!" shouted John as he ran to the box. "You've been like this since I was a child, and you'll be like it 'till you die! Because you never change, do you? Whatever happens, you NEVER BLOODY"—
A blast of orange flew from behind John and hit his mother square in the chest. Her expression flickered, as if she was too angry to be stunned, and suddenly light was exploding off of her body and clothes.
"Mum?" said John, anger instantly forgotten, then "Mum!" as he processed the fact that she'd just exploded. He looked in horror at his mother's face, which was melting into the shape of another person's entirely…
...before his house exploded into orange light, too, his street and the trees and the clouds. He looked round in horror as the entire world fizzed and glowed, everything except the phone box in front of him and the battered blue shack just beside…
It was an absurd thing to do, but absurdity was all he had left to him. Screaming, he threw himself into the phone box—
—and fell down onto a metal floor, which was far too large and not a bit orange at all. The mania of the last few minutes was replaced by an overwhelming silence, and he lay there for a while as the adrenaline ebbed away.
Eventually, he looked up at where he was. At first, he thought he must be dead, but then Hell wouldn't have so many wires. It wouldn't have a corrugated metal floor, and white concrete walls in place of devils. And it certainly wouldn't have a woman in the centre of the wires, blonde and strange and looking very uncomfortable indeed.
"So," said the woman in the end, "so this is going to be hard to explain."
"Where am I?" said John. "And who are you?"
"This probably isn't what you want to hear right now," she said, "but I'm a qualified psychiatrist."