Sin Read Free Page A

chewing gum, I couldn’t guess. How it
came to be back in my possession at all after taking a swim in the
river…?
    WHY does the sun always rise?
HOW does Saturday always follow Sunday? You know they will, but why? I don’t know either. I don’t want to know. It just
does.
    It was four days. The earthquake
still dominated the news both on screen and in print. In my head,
though, it was already fading. It was going the same dulled way as
the rest. The feelings of being responsible were dissolving too,
like sugar in water, diluted until, no matter how hard you looked,
there was just a foggy liquid that tasted just a little too sweet.
I didn’t notice the coin in my pocket. I don’t remember taking it
out. I don’t remember flicking it up. I just remember the arc of it
through the air and the warmth as my hand closed around it.
    A child. Perhaps four years old.
Typical TV advert stuff to slow your speed. The ball bounces into
the street. The boy runs after it. Laughing, naturally laughing. He
doesn’t see the car. The car doesn’t see him. The driver feels,
rather than hears, the thud.
    The child bounces into the
street.
    It happened in front of me
again, not thousands of miles away. Mere metres from where I stood.
Hah! The ball even rolled to my feet! How’s that? I turned and
walked away. I could hear the young woman waiting for half a dozen
first class stamps. I could see the drivers of the trains. I could
feel the heat from the flames on the refinery. I could taste the
water from the flooded, surging river as it swept away all that
stood in its path. I could hear the laughter of the boy.
    I just walked away. I think I
maybe even whistled a happy tune.
    That time the memory didn’t
fade. The horror stayed with me during the dark nights and darker
days. As time went by, my oh my, my mood darkened too. I knew. I knew it was me. I knew it was the coin. I knew I was responsible. I went to the pier at Cleethorpes. It stuck out
like a literal sore thumb, reaching away from the beach into the
lovely waters of the River Humber, or is it the North Sea? Either
way, it’s muddy and murky. I certainly wouldn’t want to swim in it
– paddling when I was a kid was bad enough. Well, the two pence
coin was going to find out if it could sink or swim. I knew which
one I was betting on.
    I held it in my hand for a
second, then simply let it drop. It spun away to splash into the
water. There was a brief flash of reflected sunlight just before it
hit and it was gone. Good riddance.
    I noticed that, as it spun, it
almost looked like it would had it been flipped. I shook my head.
Nonsense. Get a grip. Get a life. Get an ice cream. Yeah, I really
fancied an ice cream at that point. A whipped 99, a chocolate and
vanilla mix with a flake, juice and hundreds’n’thousands. I checked
the change – the safe change – left in my pocket. Wouldn’t
you know it, I was two pence short! Typical. Oh well, that’s the
way the double-choc-chip cookie crumbles.
    Ooh, I just had a brief Homer
moment: Ahhh, cookiessss.
    I felt a few spots of rain. Good
job I didn’t get the ice cream, really. My car was only a short
distance away. By the time I’d reached it, the heavens had opened
and it was heaving it down. Cats and dogs? Elephants and rhinos
more like! By the time I was half way home, thunder was grumbling
towards me with sheets of lightning to brighten its merry way.
Remember that, Dr. Connors, me fella-me-laddio? Remember that?
Rained for a solid seven days. Solid non-stop. Solid as Niagara
Falls on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Except we forgot what that nice
smiling sunshine looked like for a while there, didn’t we? Too busy
wishing our cars were like James Bond’s so we could flick a switch
and the wheels would turn in and we’d skim along like a boat. Too
busy wondering if the insurance would pay to replace the carpets
and suite and TV. Too busy eating your tea with ducks swimming
around your ankles. Too busy watching your kitchen table