Sin Read Free Page B

float away
like a raft with legs. It was as if the whole island, good ol’
Great Britain herself, had been submerged under two feet of water.
Someone had pulled up a zipper from Land’s End to John O’Groats and
the sea had come together from either side. It didn’t matter that
there was no electricity – the constant lightning lit up everything
like a giant camera flash.
    Remember Dr. Connors? Because I
certainly do.
    I don’t think anyone died then,
amazingly. Maybe there were one or two casualties, but considering
what happened, it was a lucky escape. Did someone get struck by
lightning? Can’t remember. Maybe. Still, considering… Of course so
many thought that their lives had ended, or wished they had. Houses
were flooded, belongings were ruined. Most of the country had waded
to a standstill. It took a mighty effort to get moving again. It
took a mightier effort to shake the drowning feeling I was overcome
by when the cries of my other victims echoed in my ears.
    Anyway. I don’t know why I ask
if you remember it, Doc. I know you do. Everyone does. I just
wanted you to think about it for a moment. Just hold in your mind’s
tiny grasp (or should that be ‘tiny mind’s grasp’?) for a second or
three. OK? And on we go.
    When things got going again and
life returned to its quirky little ways, I bought a bus ticket. My
car, the same as just about everyone else’s, was knackered. It
didn’t want to play. Well, who can blame it, eh? How would you feel
if you’d spent the best part of a week and a bit with your arse end
submerged in water? It probably wouldn’t do your plumbing any good
either, now would it? I bought the bus ticket to town. I used to
take the number 5, at one time. Never no more, oh no. 3C or 3F,
they’re the ones for me. No other number will do, thank you very
much. The 3F costs 20p more each way and goes all around the houses
(which all buses do, I know, but this one goes ALL around them) to
get to the same place, so the ride lasts a good fifteen minutes
longer, but it’s not the number 5. The 3C costs about the same and
only takes about five to ten minutes more, but it’s not the number
5. What is it, every half hour for the 3F and every twenty minutes
for the 3C? Something like that. The number 5 was every ten
minutes. Of course, it still goes on its happy travels, round and
round the same route it goes, where it stops everyone knows – all
the bus stops and the Post Office. No, it doesn’t. That Post Office
stop was a little one off special, just for sweet little ol’ me.
Ain’t it nice. Why, thank you ma’am. Thank you oh, so very much,
indeedy. Still. Anyhow and anyway, the number 5’s not for me, no
way!
    My friend, my chum, my pain in
the bum was back to say a great big fat “Hello.” Right on top of
the ten pence piece, to make sure I couldn’t miss it, was the two
pence piece. Howdy, pardner.
    Flip.
    Catch.
    You know how it goes.
    Across town, apparently, a
seventeen-year-old kid was fed up. He was bored with his life and
himself. His dad was in a shooting club. The gun was locked away in
a secure box hidden in the attic, in line with all the police
requests. The boy knew where his dad kept the key. He got the key,
then the gun. His name was John, which makes it every bit worse. I
know his name. He’s not anonymous. I know his name, I know him . He left a copy of Terminator in his DVD player to make
it look like he was influenced by action films where every gun held
a million bullets. He wanted them to think that, even though he
knew it was crap. People, he thought, did what they did because
they wanted to. A film was a film, that’s what he thought. Sure,
Arnie might waste a few bad guys, but that didn’t make him want to do it. No, John did it because he wanted to. He was
bored.
    Besides. His dad’s .22 pistol
only made a little hole.
    He would have taken the 9X bus
to town, I guess. At least the number 5 doesn’t go that way. The
shopping centre was, naturally,