novel Blog and Journals

James-

Present day.

Two men are holding a not so private discussion on the sidewalk, their conversation follows the same pattern of accusation, silence and then shouting. This happens for what I can count to be 3 minutes 27 seconds. Then one man screams, I assume him to be the younger of the two.

“Fuck you man, you want that shit, pay up.” His accent is local and agitated.

Silence. Then the other man laughs, its gravely and broken by a smokers cough. I slide open the blinds, the smaller black figure tilts his head towards my window, I stay still…silence. He looks back and finds the larger figure has left his side. A throaty chuckle bubbles to my lips, but I catch it before karma kicks me in the butt too. The larger man walks slowly around the perimeter of his car 16 times before I look away, ashamed that the man who didn’t know I was there, intimidated me enough to divert my eyes. Slowly I look back towards the street to find two figures again, but one is lying on the floor, bent over...screaming silently. I notice then the light gleaming on a pool of blood oozing from the larger mans neck.

I teach myself things quickly, instincts, morals and humanity. I learnt from the people I love two things. That when bad things happen, they happen to bad people. That makes sense right? Karma, fate the usual will strike bad eggs first. They also taught me that when you see bad things, that well, bad things go away if we never speak about them, that makes sense right?

One car door slams and echo’s off each closed window but mine. The sound now is more powerful than a gunshot or a scream, I wonder if this is my fault. The large man crawls towards the sidewalk, gasping for air. For a moment I think he’s seen me, his head turned towards my window, our eyes lock. His chest slows, his jaw goes slack and he dies with his eyes still meeting mine. I grab the handle of the blinds, and pull quickly until the sheets of fabric cover the dead man, out of sight out of mind.

I take two minutes to tear myself away from the windowsill, in the space of 5 minutes 12 seconds a man has died, slowly I turn away and crouch down with my back against the wall. I can feel parts of myself slipping in and out of consciousness. I am counting the pattern on the wall paper; there are 3933 tiny beads of red, broken up by maps. I wonder if I will visit these places or would I feel less amazed if I dreamt about them. Yesterday there were 3781 tiny beads, I wonder if this is a joke, or a slip of the mind. Either way I am infallible, that’s for sure.

The room is getting lighter by the minute; a fraction each time, my shadow becomes larger beneath me. My sight blurs and everything become so dark, like night but even my lamp is black too. It’s either sleep or death, id take both.

When I come around to the light it hasn’t changed much, the clock tells me I was in hell for only 32 minutes, how strange, it felt like forever.

Downstairs my mother mutters under her breath about work and sleep. I can only assume I am the reason she lacks both, I wonder her reaction when they find a dead man outside, I wonder if she’ll ask me questions I wont answer. She will. Her humming raps against my door. Before I can get up the kettle switch clicks into place, coffee for two and she knows it.

I make myself vertical, my head swims with the reflection of myself. I move very slowly towards the door, trip over my school bag and go sprawling into the wall. The rhythm of my mother’s tapping fingers stutters and then picks back up with double pace. I make my way down the stairs, clutching the rail for dear life. When I hit the bottom step my mother whirls into action, telling me all about the gruesome murder of a man she knew as a child. She tells me that Maud across the street heard gunfire, screaming and swears to the lord’s name there was a gang war on the street. I force the smile away from my face. Maud is 73 with a hearing aid and double glazed glasses, in her day there was no such thing as knife crime and gang wars.

My mother is awake with excitement, her grin half frantic. She sees something in my face that says I know something she could repeat, her eyes pierce into mine. “Baby what’s wrong?” She isn’t concerned just curious but the edge makes her sound motherly. My reply is slow and emphasizes my point, “I’m just tired” in my head I add ‘off you’ but stop the thought there. I shake her off and cut eye contact, she sighs loud enough for me to hear and slumps across the table.

This silence is uncomfortable but I know what she’s going to say before she says it,

“Do you hate me?” Her question is mumbled into the table.

Wow. I didn’t see that one coming. I take two seconds to consider the consequence of saying yes, but I just give up and just walk over to the counter, take the car keys and leave.

Before I even get the key in the ignition my mother is at the window of the car, beating against it with her fists. By all means the frost should be biting her skin and the air should drive her inside, but it doesn’t. No, she’s too crazy for that right now. For a moment she actually looks at me like a mother, like she’s scared or sorry. She isn’t. My mother is not a mother, she is a woman and I am her child.

I have no idea where I am going apart from away. It’s a good place to start.