What's The Worst... Chapter 14

The noise pressed down upon him.

While he sat there, the insistent ebb and flow of people continued around him. Now there was no avoidance, they were close. His bench was no longer his own.

Some just passed by but others sat, paused a while and then moved on.

Some of those who paused just rested, some ate and drank; sandwiches, burgers, water, Coke, coffee.

He always found the smell of the coffee the same. A sharp, burnt smell; the smell of ashtrays; the smell of something unpleasant that was now finished with.

He didn’t like the smell.

He didn’t like the smell at all.

At home she smoked, she drank coffee, whilst slowly she died in front of him; bitter as the coffee she drank, as detestable as the smoke she exhaled.

Again he felt the anger slowly rising within him.

He didn’t notice the two youths moving toward him; he couldn’t have made out their ignorant bickering even if he had noticed them; he may have spotted the Costa take out beakers but in all other respects they were completely anonymous baseball cap, baggy jeans, hooded top, gold earring wearing stereotypes.

Their bickering was escalating to physical contact, pushing, shoving with liberal dose of general profanity.

They were completely oblivious to the rest of the world around them; their pushing and shoving causing them to bump into other pedestrians...

The final shove was too hard; one youth stumbled backward, into the arm of the bench. He had no chance of breaking his backward fall as his arms cart wheeled and his legs bent around the bench. His inarticulate cry startled all of those nearby including the seated one.

He turned in his seat just as the beaker of coffee sailed into his chest spilling hot liquid over his t-shirt, coat and jeans...

This time there was no internalisation of his rage,

“What the...!!! You FUCKING IDIOT...”

He clenched his fists, the stench of the coffee filling his nostrils,

“What the fuck did you do that for?”

The question was entirely rhetorical and was followed immediately by a stream of blows. In his fury there was no consideration of what he was doing. The anonymous youth sprawled across the bench had no chance to protect his face; each blow hammered into his face smacking the back of his head against the seat of the bench. By the third blow he was bleeding profusely and on the wrong side of the edge of consciousness.

The second youth, stood there at first, completely shocked at what was happening; then his baser instinct kicked in and he jumped at the dark clad figure pounding his friends face into the bench.

The dark clad figure glanced away from his first victim aware that the second youth had now started to move, in his mind a single thought flashed vivid and bright, “You’re next!!!”

The second youth expected to charge straight into his target, barrelling him away from his stricken friend. Instead it was like hitting a brick wall, there was no give, but he didn’t bounce off.

The impact forced him to change focus; the first youth was lying motionless across the bench; he turned to the second who had just hit his shoulder, pushing him away in order to get some free space to act, he then started raining blows into the face of the second youth. The blows landed fast and hard. The second youth had taken four or five hits before his legs failed and he collapsed to the ground.

Lacking a further target he dropped his fists, adopting a guarded stance as the crowd around him stared at the spectacle they had all just witnessed.

He looked around each of the faces, daring each to step forward; none accepted the challenge... he heard one word “...police...” but this was nearly drowned by the laughter. None of the faces registered anything but shock, but he could hear them all laughing. They were all laughing at the fool soaked in coffee...

The shrieking started again, growing louder, with it the rising laughter, becoming more hysterical as the volume increased. Again he clapped his hands over his ears, closed his eyes, dropped his shoulders forward and charged through the crowd.