Boots

Boots

Rain tumbles from the obese clouds of Nazi grey that cover the sky.
Puddles are collecting on the uneven tarmac concourse of the bridge out
of the station. Neon sunshine flickers in the corner of Fool's eyes but
he keeps them focused on the ground, saving money for a holiday in a
warmer climate. Flip-flops and browned feet kicking up the sand, sand
scalding his skin pleasantly.
Shuts overtime out of his mind. Paces across the bridge as though there
were a hurry. Thinks of the remaining two hours of the evening and of
the frozen cold steel can of beer in the empty fridge. He can just
about taste it already. Salty-sweet.
Watches his black half-boots leading the way, treading firmly through
the lakes. Morning shine all gone now. An empty box of biscuits, a
billowing plastic bag, an umbrella contorted and broken, they fly past
his boots.
Half-runs down the steps of the bridge, a joyful dance that lasts a few
seconds before reaching the street. Faster now, almost there, nearly
home. Smart shoes pacing evenly in the opposite direction, towards the
station or the taxi rank, other nights just beginning or days ending
very late.
Fool pauses in front of the convenience store, contemplating the idea
of food. Was there any bread left this morning? He guesses that there
was and hurries on, making up for lost time, conscious now of his
hollow stomach and the weariness permeating his body.
Boots wheel around a corner, into the home straight. They hesitate all
of a sudden, rain beating noisily around them as they edge forwards a
few steps more and come to a halt in front of a discarded high-heeled
shoe, black like themselves but shiny.
The heel is snapped.
Further down the alleyway is its partner, surrounded by a cluster of
oversized, rubber soles with yellow stitching around their rims, fat
shoes like the clouds above, menacing blocks like slabs of raw meat
with testosterone and ill-aimed electricity throbbing through
them.
In slow motion, the high heel spills onto its side, taking a lifetime
to resist gravity and fail.
Sound is drowned out by the greater volume of rain now spilling from
the black sky, drenching everything in sight, soaking the world. A
garment of white is soiled by the ground. A skirt, torn.
Half-boots break free of hypnosis, lurching urgently towards the
group.
"Hey," Fool screams.
The group whirls together, drunkenly, all except for the reclining
high heel.
"Get him," someone shouts.
"Get the bastard."
Half-boots begin to back away.
Too late by the time they try to turn and escape.
The cluster bears down on them.
Half-boots toppling now, Fool's head smashing against bricks. Scraping
down to the ground like a ripe fruit hurled at the wall. Giant chunks
of leather swinging backwards and propelling themselves into Fool's
guts, bladder, bones.
Almost noiseless, as though it weren't really happening.
From a distant point at the end of a long, long tunnel - growing
rapidly larger and larger - comes the sharp, looming shape of pain.
Blocking out all memory. Eliminating all other consciousness.
The big boots don't tire, pumping their kicks, a perfect advert for
selfless teamwork. The biggest pair stamp on Fool's mangled leg and
another pair, a skinny claret couple, copy this new move.
And each time the hope inside Fool dares to pray that the last kick
was the final one, a new blast of heavy black thunder crushes his
flailing nerve ends. New black clouds of horror arrive. Inside his
eardrums, newborn babies smash wildly on discordant pianos.
Finally the pain has burnt itself out. The blows have blended smoothly
into a new normality. Only the fatal strike from a new weapon produces
a farewell blast of white-hot nightmare.
Like broken toys, a wooden baseball bat and a twisted pair of
half-boots sprawl side by side in the sea of dark rainwater and sticky
blood. A million miles away, it seems, in distance and in time, a siren
howls into action behind the station.

Rain dribbles from cracks in the night-time sky. An ugly wind grasps
the plastic bag from the concourse out of the station and deposits it
over the side of the bridge.
Worn half-boots take the walkway measuredly, leaving shuddering
whirlpools in their stride. They cross above the road, down the steps,
onto the street. They pause outside the convenience store, move onwards
again.
They reach the turning into the alleyway, hesitate. Pace evenly, slowly
forwards. A plane roars quietly somewhere in the sky.
A siren wails into action up by the station. The half-boots pass a
discarded high-heeled shoe but don't stop. They keep on walking,
searching. Their footsteps send electric vibrations into the ground,
frying huge pools of water that flood the town after a week of on and
off storms. A pair of shiny office shoes coming in the opposite
direction move sensibly aside before stumbling and sprinting away
faster than they were designed for.
There is a playground not far from Fool's house. He listens to the
complaints of the wind and the monotonous drumming of the rain, listens
beyond these elements and makes his way towards the swings, seesaw and
merry-go-round where his neighbours exercise their children's
excitement by day.
The play apparatus is unused, swing seats wrestling this way and that,
their chains twisting themselves in the wind.
In a dark, empty corner three pairs of boots tap restlessly on the
soaked concrete. A cigarette butt is crushed underfoot and booted into
order alongside a cluster of others.
They scrape backwards, seeing that they are accompanied. Slowly, Fool
reaches and takes the new cigarette being lit and the metal lighter. He
lights up and takes a long drag.
Three pairs of boots take no time to recover and rise in unison.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" warns a barely restrained
hiss. A slender knife is already glinting orange in the lamplight
across from the playground.
"Bad for your health," Fool explains.
"I'll show you bad for your health, you fuck. Come on, lads."
As he looks Fool up and down, his crazed eyes rest on the pair of black
half-boots that look somehow familiar. But shoes like that are common
enough. It is only as the knife is lunging blindly forward that he
begins to guess at his mistake.
The face puffed with unsightly bruises and smeared with blood. The
dirt-splattered clothes hanging off the mangled limbs. They confirm his
fear.
"It can't be you."
"I'm my twin brother." Fool draws closer. "Where's the rest of your
team?"
"What the fuck are you talking about? I'll kill you! What do you want?"
Desperation babbling from the mouth of the wearer of meat boots.

In the morning, it is distressing for a mother to walk out into the
first day of sunshine for so long, leading her galloping son to the
seesaw, only to find the horror art of a madman laid before her
eyes.
Instinctively she covers his eyes to stop him seeing the three bodies
seated stiffly on the swings. God knows why they are there, swinging
gently in the morning breeze like three overgrown kids. Heavy boots
tied together and around their necks, thick laces drawing the skin
tight like a drawstring and dangling down to their bellies. White eyes
rolled into their heads.

No more pleasant is it for a tired mother to rouse herself from
druglike sleep, stagger into the bathroom, and be confronted by the
sight of her troublesome, beloved son's claret-coloured boots swinging
haplessly in front of her horrified eyes. And her son himself dangling
like a piece of steak from the pipes that run into the toilet, fastened
there by stout laces that she now realizes are missing from those
boots.

But worst of all, perhaps, for the old gardener who attends the
graveyard near the station. He sets about cutting the grass of the vast
cemetery early in the sun-filled morning, whistling a tuneless ditty to
himself in time with the irreverent squawks of early bird crows in the
trees above.
Something out of character with the landscape catches his eye. He
approaches what appears to be an odd-shaped modern sculpture over on
the far side of the graveyard. He has a feeling he knows which grave it
is.
And as he draws nearer, he stops in his tracks, mouth wide open in
disbelief.
The grave has been interfered with.
Over the heap of freshly-dug, sweet-smelling earth, lies the
undignified naked body of a corpse that was only interred two days
before. Young suicide that got caught by the police for some nasty
crime, then did himself in. Lying now with his face in the brown earth
and his backside raised in the air by the peak of the mound of soil.
Out of his arse is sticking what looks almost certainly like a wooden
baseball bat.
In spite of himself, the gravedigger chuckles. He's seen it all but
this takes some beating. And weeks later he's still wondering if he
didn't glimpse a ragged corpse of a man disappearing into the trees
nearby.

In a vast room filled with almost blinding white light, Fool stands
naked in front of the mirror and it talks to him - not a mirror after
all.
"Fool! You were wrong. The way is forgiveness," the reflection tells
him.
"That's easy for you to say."
"Why did you do it?"
Fool shakes his head and throws up his hands. "I don't know! Anger. An
eye for an eye!"
"A common misconception."
"They deserved it!"
"Who are you to decide?"
Fool wants to believe that he isn't here, this isn't the next stage.
Silently he watches his own image passing judgement on himself.
"You chose to remain behind and seek justice for yourself. If you wish
to remain behind, so be it."
The voice doesn't sound like his, at least it uses words that seem
strange coming from his two dimensional lips. Fool has to lean closer,
strain to hear the next pronouncement.
"You will, of course, have to go to hell."
"Already been there," he growls.
"You may laugh."
"So I'm to burn in flames?
"A common clich?."
"What about them? Are they to strut about the Garden of Eden? You can
have their company if you want it."
"Since you ask, their punishment is the same as yours."
"And what's that? Eternal community service?"
The lips of the reflection twist into a wry, almost bitter smile.
"You will stay there only until you learn."
"Learn what?"
God begins to turn away. "Forgiveness."
"It's unfair!"
"You get what you deserve." He is walking away, giving Fool a rare view
of his own bare profile from behind.
So it is an eye for an eye," he mutters before a spiral of colours he
has never seen starts to suck him inside itself. Noises of unbearable
pain echo and fold around him.
He is in the alley again, the rain shafting down, surrounded by leather
boots with stitching around their rims. The first blow strikes his
ribcage with a dull sensation of hate.