Sin Read Free

about
stopping it. It's about THEM, the 'them' that includes you, my dear
Dr. Connors, not the 'them' of those already dead. I was the Big
Bad Wolf come to blow their lives apart. But I didn't know it, not
until Mr. Hindsight came along and shook me by the hand, and that
wasn't for a while yet.
    I don't know
how long it took me to forget that one. Oh, I couldn't entirely
wipe it from my memory - I had to work there, eventually, when they
had made it safe again. But to forget the horror, to forget the
impact? It wasn't long. Soon enough I was wandering around as if
nothing had happened. Simple as that. Easy as sweet caramel and
apple pie with lashings of vanilla ice cream, just like me old ma never
used to even think about making. But I'm not heartless. It was the
coin. The coin seemed to be making me immune. It seemed to deaden
something in me, some essence of actually caring. Of course, me
hearties, I didn't know. I carried on regardless, just like good
ol’ Sid James.
    I had three weeks then. Three
weeks of uninterrupted mundane brain drain. Normality was the norm,
just as it should be. There were no nagging thoughts eating away at
the back of my mind, like locusts feasting on a vast field of corn.
I didn't look at myself in the mirror and see evil shadows running
across my face, dancing gleefully at the carnage I was creating.
Nope. Nothing like that. Everything was hunky-doodle-dory. Nice and
normal.
    Flip.
    Catch.
    The trains collided just outside
of town. All on board dead. I was waiting in my car, impatient that
they always closed the barriers about ten minutes before the
train's going to arrive and about two seconds before I turn up. How
was the coin in my jeans? Ask me another. How did it get into my
hand? Ditto.
    All on board dead. And the Post
Office. And the refinery. They all screamed out to me.
    Dead.
    Say it enough times and it
becomes just a word. Dead. Dead. Dead. Four letters thrown together
to mean something that was so much more and so much less. Dead. An
absence of life. An absence of anything. For the few days that it
took my mind to wash away the spectacle of the train crash, I said
that word to myself over and over. I didn’t feel responsible for
the accidents, for that was surely what they were, but I didn’t
feel quite… right. But, like I say, eventually it becomes simply a
word. Meaningless. Emotionless. Dead.
    Flip.
    Catch.
    An earthquake. Turkey I think.
Somewhere over that side of the world, anyway. Rivers flooded their
banks. Landscapes changed their features, as if they had suddenly
frowned, angry at the little humans skittering over them. They
don’t know how many died that time. I do though. I know. Four
hundred and seventeen thousand eight hundred and ninety two. Seems
a lot written out longhand like that. Seems more than 417,892.
Numbers are just numbers. Written out, it’s more real, more
horrific, more sorrowful. More like a kick in the teeth, to be
honest. They estimated about 350,000.
    They were wrong.
    How do I know? How do you know
the sun will rise tomorrow? How do you know that Sunday will follow
Saturday? You just do, dontcha? You just do. Same here.
    I just do.
    I think it was around then that
I started to wonder. I think I began to suspect something. I’m not
sure. I mean, it’s only a bloody coin! How can I, or it, influence
world disasters? Besides, Turkey? I’ve eaten it, but I’ve
never been there! I threw the coin anyway. Dropped it into the
River Freshney on the way home. Here little fishies! It’s a bit
tough, but tuck in. Keep you going for weeks that will!
    Flip.
    Catch.
    I didn’t notice. I have all
sorts of coinage passing through my pockets during the week.
Newspapers, coffee machines, petrol, Mars bars all play their part
in the ebb and flow of the Royal Bank of Pocket. How one particular
two pence piece could manage to remain in there was a mystery. Why
it hadn’t been passed to a shop assistant in return for a bottle of
Coke (diet) or a packet of