5th November 2010, 9.00 pm
A tall silhouette walked down an alley. In the background fireworks tattooed the sky like scars, like lightning.
The alley was dark. It was cold. It was wet. It was merely a huge shadow with nothing to reflect in darkness. Insignificant in the world, and to everyone but that silhouette, irrelevant. But the silhouette was the same. He was cold, and wet too. Right now, this was where he belonged. Somewhere hidden.
At the end of the shadow there were occasional snatches of talking and laughter as children went by, play-fighting with glow sticks, their parents following behind at a slower speed. Simply glances of outside, a different world to the nightfall.
He listened for some seconds, then sat down on the ground, leaning his back against the damp and dirty wall, and becoming a silhouette hidden in darkness. Next he reached into his inner coat pockets.
Suddenly there was a tiny, little flare of light that rested in his hand. He held the lighter gently and watched the flame struggle on its own. The light it poured out made the features of his face flicker in and out of sight.
"Remember, remember, the fifth of November, with gunpowder, treason and plot."
Two teenage girls wandered by, giggling hysterically. One glanced down the side street, saw him, and whispered furiously to her friend. They moved on.
He brought his face close to the light, and let the flare lick his fingers before he broke in the darkness and took something else out of his pocket. A sparkler.
Reviving the lighter, he brought the sparkler close until finally it lit up, setting up a huge crackling and cackling and crunching and crying. Sparks attacked the darkness in split-second battles which they always lost.
He watched the slight wisp of smoke that emerged twist slowly up to the sky, his very own little firework. In the background the sky was imprinted with a red line that exploded and disappeared, but his firework was better.
Like he had done with the lighter, he brought the sparkler close to his face, just far away enough to not get burnt. His face was shown in abrupt flashes that ran away.
Eventually he got up, and put the sparkler on the ground. The silhouette walked out of an alley.
The sparkler spat indignantly for a minute, fighting even as it died, and then it did die, but darkness didn't.
"I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot."
XXX
5th December 2010, 4.00 pm.
Sherlock Holmes
Crime. The word sent a delicious shiver down my spine, but for all the wrong reasons. I was always detecting crime, but what if I was the criminal? I always wondered, after all.
It's wrong. It's horrible. It's dark.
It's dangerous.
I mean, I wouldn't do it seriously, just… just to prove to myself I could do it. I'd reverse any damage straight afterwards. It would be a simple experiment, nothing would go wrong.
Well, come on, I'd been bored for so long. And I was sick of the crimes these everyday idiots do. I could do so much better, can't they see that? I can prove it.
No. No, it's wrong. I'm better than that. I had no reason to do it, except self-fulfilment. Think how disappointed everyone would be if they found out, think of the risk, think of the suffering it would cause.
What would John say?
I'll do it, but now I don't think I want to any more.
I wandered towards a park slightly out of the town shopping centres, slightly emptier. There was one family, a mother with a pram, boy and two little girls. In the middle was a slide and nearer to the hedges that hid a path was a sandpit.
I was on the path hidden by tall hedges and trees. I waited at the end, out of sight, trying not to think about what I was doing.
The mother rocked the pram and suddenly her mobile went off. She huffed in irritation, and answered it. Soon she was engrossed in conversation with a friend.
'I know! And I was like, why would you do that? But anyway, tell me about…'
Turning round, I saw an elderly couple walk by and out the park. As they passed I broke into a sweat. Could they see what I was doing? Did they suspect? I told myself to stop being so paranoid, and glanced at my watch before noticing that the little girl was playing alone in the sandpit, so close I could nearly touch her.
A hatred of life, of myself, of the innocent girl, filled me until I was burning with rage and I sent up a prayer, but not to God, or John, or anyone.
'Hey!' I muttered genially. The girl looked up but turned back to her sand.
'Hey!' I repeated, a little bit louder. The mother was still on the phone. This time the girl looked up and saw me. She had long straight blonde hair and green eyes. She wore a flowery dress with thick tights underneath and a big blue coat on top. I estimated her age to be three or four years old.
I beckoned and she got up, coming towards me. Kneeling down so I was her height, I asked her quietly:
'Now, you're a good girl, aren't you?' She stared at me closely and nodded. I smiled, 'Good, because I have a secret to tell you. Are you good at keeping secrets?'
She nodded again, and I was filled with self-loathing. I faked sudden doubt.
'No, I probably can't tell you, you'll just tell.' I sighed. The girl shook her head furiously and whispered quietly.
'I won't!'
'Promise?'
'I promise.'
'Ok, good. But the thing is, I can't tell you here. Someone might hear us, and we wouldn't want that, would we?' Again, she indicated no, and by now looked quite excited.
'If you follow me, I'll tell you somewhere else.' Suddenly, she looked doubtful, and glanced towards her oblivious mum, still talking on the phone.
'I'll bring you straight back, don't worry,' I reassured her, 'We won't be long.'
Finally she nodded and followed me as I straightened, taking her hand and leading her away. Something inside me felt like breaking myself up into little pieces, I was a loathsome, horrible person.
Not baring to hear my own thoughts any more, I struck up conversation as I led her through a car park.
'So, what's your name?'
'Katie,' she told me happily, suddenly much more open, 'What's yours?'
'Sher… Sam.'
Her hand felt sticky and I guessed she liked toffee. I was silently relieved that I had thought to bring sweets, and instantly repulsed by my relief.
We were only walking for five minutes, but it was already getting darker and it must have felt like a lifetime to her. Katie started to lag behind, and finally stopped altogether. I panicked momentarily.
'What is it, Katie?'
'Are we gonna be there soon?'
'Very soon, don't worry…. Have a toffee.' She perked up slightly but inside I was terrified. What if someone suspected? What if the mother had noticed by now? What if she had phoned the police?
I suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to be alone. I just had to get rid of Katie. But how? I couldn't just leave her in this empty street, who knows what would happen to her?
Abruptly I began to pull Katie along more forcefully. She stumbled slightly as she tried to keep up, and I prayed she wouldn't fall over or do anything stupid.
Going down several streets with promises that I would tell her in a minute, I finally saw a policeman and was filled with a strange mixture of relief and paralysing fear. Struggling with myself like an inner civil war, I walked up to the policeman with the girl in tow. Lucky for me it wasn't a policeman I knew.
'This little girl, she got lost. She says she was in Aving Park.'
The man, a wizened wiry fellow, looked down at her and said thank you to me for bringing her and that he would return her right away. I left with her bewildered look as I handed her over embedded in my memory and the words I had said etched into my mind.
Never again, I promised, never again.
XXX
24th December 2010, 3.30 pm
I walked slowly through Hyde Park, feeling my hands go numb with cold. The wind battered my face and made my hair messy. I tightened my scarf and dug my hands deeper into my pockets. It was only half past three but dark and light were tangled in the sky.
In the background there was the faint tinkle of a Christmas Carol trickling out of an overly festive shop. People rushed by laden with last-minute shopping. As I watched them I realised for the fifth time with a prickling of resignation that I had nowhere to be this Christmas…. Oh well, I wasn't very festive. Really, I was fine.
As another wave of wind roared through the park, ruffling barren branches. I shivered, but couldn't find the energy to go somewhere warm. In fact, I got a strange savage pleasure from subjecting myself to this cold.
Instead, I sat down on a bench and, looking around for something to entertain me, I read the small memorial stating who this bench was dedicated to.
Dedicated to James Morstan
Died aged 40 years.
Uninteresting. Irrelevant. I turned back around and observed people hurrying past.
Female. 45. Secretary. Recently divorced, with two children and a boyfriend.
Male. 64. Brother recently passed away, staying with his daughter for Christmas.
Male. 33. Unemployed. Has fiancée but not sure if they can get married due to financial status.
I watched them for some time.
To my consternation, a young lady came and sat next to me on the bench. Out of the corner of my eye, I deduced that she was 22, had a boyfriend, was staying with friends for Christmas, recently quit her job, and diagnosed with terminal cancer. She was bald. Irrelevant.
Dispassionately, I looked in front of me again because I could not find the will to leave. Too cold.
For several minutes we sat.
'Do you know how it feels to know your own, literal, deadline?' she suddenly spoke up. I didn't know what I was meant to do, so I ignored her. She carried on regardless.
'Do you know what it's like to try and appreciate everything you previously took for granted, all at once?' As she travelled along her monologue she sounded increasingly angry. I didn't understand really what she was angry at.
'Do you realise how you regret not doing all the things you could have, not grabbing each opportunity, not seeing the beauty everywhere? Of course, it's worse for the people with little or no warning, though. They have no chance to see things through the right pair of eyes. I'm the lucky one.' She stopped slightly.
'I… I have four months, they tell me, but cancer isn't what's killing me. What's killing me is how blind everyone is. I wish people could just clear their clouds and look. Is it so hard? Is it?' her voice was sharp and bitter now, and felt like salt in a wound.
What was I meant to say? I was confused by her emotion. Should I comfort her? But before I could make a decision she spoke again, in a different manner.
'I'm… I'm sorry, I've probably disconcerted you now, right? Sorry, don't worry, I was just… um, well, you know, speaking up…. You can go if you want.'
I left.
But as I walked along I couldn't help but think of her speech in my head.
How blind everyone is.
I looked at the world and wondered what I should be seeing if I wasn't seeing it right. As I ambled along, I mindlessly pulled a flower out from a hedge (I was vaguely surprised to see it, as it was the heart of winter). Slowly I tore it apart and mused.
Just clear the clouds and look.
I stared down at the crushed and broken flower, and got the feeling I knew exactly what she meant. At that moment the wind died down and I got a strange leapy feeling in my chest I hadn't felt for such a long time I'd forgotten what it felt like, what it was. The feeling broke out onto my face and suddenly I was smiling for the first time in months and months.
I felt a raindrop signal the beginning of a raining onslaught and suddenly I was laughing for the first time in eternity.
A balloon drifted up to the sky and out of sight.
-This story is very much open to interpretation. I didn't plan half the things that happened in this story… it sort of carried itself. There's one more chapter, an epilogue. Take this story in any one you want. Love it, hate it, I don't mind. What I didn't realise till I finished this chapter is that's there's barely any mention of John. Again, not planned.
