The sky is close and swollen with violent bruises today; the clouds are pressing down on the town and the air is hot and close. It will break soon and drench us all in a passing relief, but right now it feels cloying and sticky on the back of my neck.
I’m sweating heavily as I walk down the pavement but I’m walking fast so that’s no surprise. I’ve got nowhere to go but I need the illusion of purpose. Too many people round here see doubt as an opportunity, and I know what that means.
My hands feel heavy, pendulums swinging on a clock counting down to something bad. I’m keeping moving, staying focused on the street ahead, not looking back. There’s graffiti on the hoarding all the way down the road, nonsense scrawls, names and misspelt tags repeated 20 times. They don’t get any tidier the further down you go, like these idiots don’t learn anything from practicing. Normally this kind of shit makes me angry but I don’t have time for it today.
There are a couple of kids skulking at the corner at the end of the road. I’m wondering if it’s them that tagged the wall; I think I must have been staring at them because they look round with twitchy, jerking shoulders, spit a final glance back over their shoulders at me and leave.
I can’t say I blame them either, I look the part. I’m a big guy; I work out a lot and it shows. I wonder if it was the new tattoo that sealed the decision for them. It’s a fire that starts at my wrist with flames reaching all the way up my neck to just below my ears. Hurt like you wouldn’t believe when I had it done a few months back but now it’s healed it’s perfect. Some people just take one look at it, how big my arms are, clam up and walk away. I like that.
I’ve got other tattoos too, like my brother’s names on my left calf and a devil on my shoulder. Not a cartoon devil though, an angry one with fire and brimstone and all that stuff. Seems like people have always thought I was dangerous, even when I was little.
My mum always used to tell me, ‘That temper of yours is going to get you killed; you can’t start fires all the time and not get burned.’ The thing is that I didn’t start most of the fires, seems like everyone else was happy to do that for me. I just put them out. I ended up thinking, ‘Fine, maybe I will burn people.’ That’s why I got the latest tattoo.
I’ve got skulls on the knuckles of my right hand as well, but that was a bad idea. Nights out with Gav can get fucked up; what happens in the ‘Dam stays in the ‘Dam, except when some fucking Polak inks it onto your fist for the rest of your life.
My head’s dropped now though, I’m thinking too much again. The paving slabs are splintered and they’re rising up to meet me, pulsing like my veins. I steady myself with a hand on the hoarding, squeeze my eyes tight and push out the flashes of that night back. Fists, whores, Gav’s inane fucking laugh, endless whiskies and over and again that nasal, barking cackle. But even that is better than thinking about her.
I’m breathing slowly, giving myself time to let it pass. As I lift my head I see a curtain twitch, probably someone waiting for me to collapse so they can point and label me everything that’s wrong today. They might be right, Jesus.
I still feel a bit dizzy, my head full of blood and strobe-lit nastiness, so I light a fag and wait it out. I see Angela’s face in there a couple of times, her red hair in the cherry of the cigarette. She used to have really long hair, all the way down to her arse; it was beautiful, the way she could lie there in bed and have it snake round her belly, strands of molten metal blowing in the breeze. It’s too short now, barely covering her ears, makes her look like a man. Before she was the most perfect thing on the Earth, I swear.
That’s enough though, I’m not meant to be dwelling; I’m meant to be moving. I push off from the wall and start pacing down the road again, quickly like I’ve got a purpose. I flick the butt of the fag into the gutter and watch it fall. Sparks shatter off the tarmac as it lands and at the same time it hits there’s an almighty crash like the Reckoning.
I’m not sure if it is thunder or an explosion at first, but it’s everywhere. It slaps me on one side of my head and as the compression wave bounces off the buildings it batters the other side, then the front and then it’s like a giant has grabbed my skill and is squeezing really hard, just for a second.
I’ve got that chill in my spine, like when you have a near miss in the car. When the blood all drops out of your face and your fingertips tingle like your life is shrinking inside your skin. In that second where I think that I’m dying I see her lying there in the bed, just as I left her this morning.
A massive wall of dust rolls over me and I’m blinded for a few seconds, confused and scared. Something really weird is happening and I don’t like it. I can hear a high-pitch noise, in fact that’s all I can hear. Whatever has happened has left me blind and deaf for the moment.
I feel out for the wall with my arms and follow. I remember seeing a shop at the end of the road so maybe I can get some help. I’m coughing with all this dust and blinking it out of my eyes. It’s all settling on me so I’m starting to look like I’ve been buried alive.
I must be half way down the wall when I put stumble and put my arm out to steady myself on the hoarding. Except it’s not there, it’s been blown out and is leaning casually against a car, shattered glass littered around it. So I fall into the gap, and it gets better because there’s no floor, there’s just a fucking slope and I’m rolling down it, arms flapping, my knee in my face, rocks falling out of the ground to land on my head. I can’t even see the sky flash past because the dust cloud makes it feel like I’m stuck in some giant dirt ball, no light, no escape – just dirt.
