TOM .....part 5

Tom was led home; ready for tea and the end of their shift. His journey was always the same; past boarded up shops, the job-centre, a paper shop, air-ambulance place and a drop inn pub; where many dropped out.

Nothing seemed safe anymore; everyone wanting to live ordinary lives and feeling part of the whole instead of separate. People only seemed to notice other people if they were bright, beautiful or rich. Rich inside didn't count but living in big houses or knowing the right people or all of the above counted. Yet, Tom lived in a large house where people shared the same bathroom and ate together in a room with a high ceiling and huge windows and heavy red curtains to keep out the drafts when winter roared in again and summer clothes and sandals returned to the attic; next to the Christmas tree.

He was part of a large family; who went everywhere in a green mini-bus and for this he was fortunate. Yet, this wasn't his family but he was part of a unit and not a hospital several miles away; where it might be easier for him to be forgotten....just like the tree in the attic with the baubles would be forgotten....until the time of season returned.

Tom saw things on the television in his little room; where the seconds, minutes, hours,
days, weeks and months jelled into one.

Tom watched the Olympic games, sitting cross legged near his single wardrobe and single bed; all paid for by a community care grant. He'd sprung from the floor and then asked Jenny if blind people could be fitted with magic eyes as those men on the telly had been given magic legs. Then Jenny asked him to calm down; if he wasn't to jump right through the ceiling.
'Don't be silly sausage Jenny....my mum could never calm me down...you know that...don't you.