What's The Worst... Chapter 05

Town centres are never really quiet these days, except for that brief pause in the early hours between the end of the night and the start of the morning. It’s the time when the only people on the streets are the ones with nowhere else to go. It’s the time when the sounds of life die away to a low murmur.

Then the morning starts. It sees the coming and going of the street cleaners, the delivery folk, in a few places, the bakers; all the many and varied, the assorted supporting cast of the day to come.

They give way to the early starting office workers, the shop staff.

Then come the early shoppers, generally the older folk chained to the rhythm of their lives every bit as securely as Marley was chained to the deeds of his past. They’re on their way to the small supermarkets, the independent butchers and bakers.

As the day progresses you move through the general bustle of a busy town. The scene that we’ve all seen on a thousand weekends through our never changing lives.

Darkness begins to fall, and the noise level rises, the tone changes and the revellers appear from their various dens of iniquity in the varying stages of drunkenness and disorder…

As it gets later still, we return to the round of cleaners and enforcers, tidying up the human and physical mess of the day, preparing the way for the next round, and round, and round…

But, to be fair, there is that main stream, the body of normal folk, that group of people to which we belong, the ordinary ones…

This autumn morning was no different; nothing was exceptional. The chill was passing, the sun was rising, the sky was a clear blue.

He’d kept walking... and now he found himself in town, not yet in the centre of town, but getting closer.

He stopped.

To his right was the slightly run down shopping arcade that had once been the pride of the main street. Now it was the poor second cousin, eclipsed by the future, by the dream of urban regeneration made good. The various attempts to enhance had done nothing more than reinforce the image of an aging hooker making the best of cheap makeup and dim corners.

To his left was the broad expanse of pedestrian friendly pavement and ahead of him was the main street, and people.

He didn’t really want to get too close to a crowd; he didn’t like the noise.

He slowly turned, looking in every direction, a full 360 degree rotation and came back to looking down the street, at the people.

He was about to move forward when the pain hit, he convulsed, struggled to stay standing. He reached out, grasping for something against which to steady himself. But with a keening wail, shatteringly loud, the pain passed through him and away. He sank to one knee, his right hand pressed against his head, his left steadying him against the ground.

He slowly reopened his eyes, noted one or two passersby looking at him. There was only concern for themselves in their eyes. Each veered a little farther away from the stranger crouching in the street.

He considered rising to his feet, he breathed in and coughed, and again, and again, the third time bringing his hand to his mouth. The light misting, red, on his palm was disturbing; the distant keening still audible. He felt confused, unsure of what to do next.

Ahead and to the right, past the arcade, a road ran down to a churchyard; it was bound to be quieter there. This time he did stand, without coughing, but still the bright copper taste in his mouth. Moving as quickly as he could he headed for the peace, becoming desperate to clear the fog of confusion, to let the pain and the shock of the pain subside.

Turning southeast past the shops, the low riding sun was in his face, on his body, warming him, but his clothes were dark, his heart already racing, he was warm enough; the light, the heat, it was stifling, it was too hot. He could sense more than see the trees of the churchyard up ahead, less than a hundred metres, there would be shade there.

He shifted into a shuffling run, his coat flapping around his legs, threatening to trip him; he was breathing hard, the ragged draw, the burning exhale, the distance seemed to stretch out before him, like the world was an elastic band and his sanctuary was being drawn away. It was like he was in a dream, running in slow motion while the world accelerated away; the first shards of panic started to ground against his skull.

He could hear a whimpering, couldn’t place where it was coming from; through the haze he could see nobody and then as he fell he screamed. He hadn’t even seen the low brick wall.

Tumbling forward, again he felt pain, this time his shin, knee and then shoulder as he tucked into a forward roll.

Stunned, he lay on his back. Above him it was less bright; there was a thin canopy of leaves.

He paused, breathing heavily, but regularly; his vision cleared revealing the mass of tree branches above him and ahead of him, ‘Peace...’ but as the breeze stirred the leaves he could hear them whispering, laughing, sharing their secrets as they stared unblinking, down at the fallen fool; the fool who was clasping his hands to his ears and squeezing his eyes tight shut, but oh how they whispered and laughed.