Detonation
We inherit much more than just cold, hard cash. There are colder, harder things than that in this world.
Toby sighed as his father refilled his glass. The old man was a drunk, there was no question. But what in his personality extended beyond this central trait was difficult to judge. He was the sort of person who struggled between fiction and reality. He would tell stories about this absolute bastard called Moriarty that he’d read about, getting nigh apoplectic with rage, before going on to sing the praises of the British constabulary for employing such clever detectives.
This hard-wired suspension of disbelief extended as far as his own stories, the overall narrative of which concerned the Buttle’s family demolition business,
“Listen here, lad, listen. I tell thee yer not like some o’ than whose run here in’t past. Proud ancestry you got and you ought to be living up ter it. Us Buttles stretch all the way back to the Big Bang we do. That were our first commission as a family and we been doing it ever since. You outta buck your ideas up if you’re to carry on this proud… what’s it now… what’s that word, eh? Legacy! Lagacy isn’t it!”
His unfocused eyes welled with pride.
“Night, Dad.”
“You come back ere and listen you little bastard. You got no respect!”
Toby wasn’t too keen on carrying on this proud tradition. Every other kid he met in his fourteen years on Earth had longed to have his job, his family burden… almost to the extent that he longed to be free of it. Give him a rainy winter ride up a mud path over wiring explosives any day, any day, newspaper deliver over touch-paper delivery, any day. He stared out from his loft window over Avon Murray. He cursed his dad, this town, the people in it, the country, history in general…
Before he could reach the giddy heights of the world, the universe, and a God he didn’t much care for the existence of, he heard a noise. Something scrabbling, scraping – maybe a badger? A fox? – out in the storage sed. Then he heard a moan. Was it someone? A woman, as it sounded? Faced with a choice between loathing stars and investigating, he headed downstairs.
“Back are ye? Bout time you learned some respect. Now your great great great great granddad, Xiu Chan Buttle, he knew sumt bout respect. He were commissioned by the Emporer o’ China to invent that gunpowder… eh, where you goin? Little bastard!”
Closing the door behind him, he heard more mumblings and fumbling from the shed across the yard. Someone must be in there, but who? He mentally listed their rival demolition companies… none that would profit from industrial sabotage… barely even worth it to be honest… Was there another logical presumption he could make? No? Well…
He pushed the door open slowly, “Hello?”
“Hey!” A man shouted, a woman chuckled.
“Erm… Who are you?” He spoke unto the dark
“We’re terrorists!” A woman shouted, a man chuckled.
“Oh…” silence lingered, a touch more chuckling in the darkness, “Well, there isn’t any explosives in here or owt…”
“Nah, we’re just in here for a kip.”
“Yeah, beats sleeping on a bench, eh?”
Faced by the obscene joviality of these so-called terrorists – reckoning them to be sharing a similar chemical state with his father – Toby decided to leave them to it,
“Just don’t smoke in here, right? There’ll be trace elements on some o’t equipment, most likely.”
“Whatever.”
The next morning he considered going down there again, but thinking better of it – they were almost definitely gone by now – he stayed in his room and read comics. “KABOOM!” went the unrighteous, and the day was saved! As he went down for some lunch he heard his dad tinkling in from the shops, bottles like chimes in an ill-blowing wind.
“Ey, Toby! While you were upstairs lazing about and fiddling with yerself I’ve got us a new commission. Big un an all! Bout as big as you great great great great granddad Ulysses’ job as ‘e were to do on Troy. Oh aye, this’ll do the Buttles proud this will. Real history being made!”
Toby set about to frying up some Spam and eggs; knowing the whole story would eventually come out at his dad’s own pace, and not particularly caring if it did. As it was, it took the first two pints and an expletive-laden, not-necessarily canonical rendition of Homer before he got around to it,
“You see, that chimney up in’t valley on north edge of Avon Murray – t’one by mill? Aye. Well that’s going on account of them building a new housing estate out there for the city folks to live at when they aren’t in town. It’s our job to see it goes – all one big bang, like. Going to be a whole festival there is – all to celebrate our job. History, lad, history. Not as your generation know owt about it though, so.”
“Alright,” Toby munched, “I’ll ready the equipment after lunch.”
* * * * *
It was only upon opening the shed that Toby remembered the couple from last night. The reminder came two seconds after he’d opened the door.
“Hey!” They waved from a heap on the floor.
“Oh, right. You still ’ere? I’ve got to prep the equipment.”
“Go right ahead. We don’t mind.”
It was the first time he was able to see them. Both were tall, with gaunt features – although it was hard to be certain with them both lying in a crooked mess, swaddled by some monstrous fur coat.
“So,” he hesitated to ask as he set to his business, “What do you do then? Are you really… terrorists?”
They chuckled again, it was unsettling – spoke of conspiracies. Eventually the woman began talking. She had long black hair in ringlets, similar dark rings hung around her eyes,
“Yeah, we’re terrorists. I plant ivy next to people’s houses.”
“That doesn’t exactly sound…”
“Use their engines against them!” The man suddenly blurted before the woman could continue,
“Yeah, exactly. People think it’s picturesque of whatever conservative, picture-postcard nonsense the English like nowadays. Really it’s pulling down their houses from the inside. Nature tearing apart their flimsy bourgeois worlds and reclaiming what’s rightfully Hers!”
Toby was half-listening, nodding along, his hands busy with wires, triggers, timers – instruments in the symphonies of demolition. Clearly nonplussed by his unresponsiveness, the man decided to continue their introduction, standing and brushing off his long limbs,
“Yeah, I’m Lawrence, Lawrence Bastille… this is Cat, Cat Thompson…”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Toby, erm, Buttle, Toby Butt…”
The effort of standing had provoked a vicious coughing fit from Lawrence, through which he attempted his revolutionary rhetoric – occasionally lifting a clenched fist when he felt he needed to make his point seem sufficiently radical,
“I” cough cough “am a sexual terrorist! I” cough cough “Seduce young men and women, sleep with them and never speak to them again…” he raised one first, catching his coughed-up sputum in the other, “People think love and sex are the same – but it’s all property relations. Heartbreak is just the consciousness of a failed capitalist system!”
“Right, yeah that sounds… yeah.” Toby shrugged as he polished the metal that would send an electrical impulse into plastic explosive in the near future.
“So, Toby Buttle,” Cat rolled on the floor, staring at him with grey eyes from deep rolls of fur, “What do you do, eh? What’s your contribution?”
“You can see what I do,” he waggled a detonator at them, “Family business. Demolition.”
“But, why?” She smiled, all-too-leadingly.
“I dunno. We’ve always done it.”
“But, why?”
“Yeah, Toby!” Lawrence joined in, “Why?”
“The reason everyone does everything, I suppose. So we don’t starve.”
“So, you blow up people’s houses for cash?” coughed Lawrence.
“No, not always houses. Buildings in general, I guess…”
“You know what we have here, Lawrence?”
Cat. “Cat” is right, Toby thought as she purred, imperious,
“We’ve a capitalist terrorist!”
“Shut up.”
“What’ your latest mission then, eh terrorist?”
He looked into those dark-ringed eyes, across to the over-tall man clearing his lungs yet again. Screw it, he thought, he never has anyone to talk about these things with anyway. Except Dad… in some ways this company here’s at least an improvement… So he explained to them the latest commission, older commissions, his family business, his Dad, his Dad’s drinking, and, inevitably, how he wished it would all just end.
* * * * *
It was two in the morning when he next saw them, not ideal. Neither was their appearance, unannounced, beside his bed.
“Hey Toby!”
“Oh my God! What?”
“We’ve got a plan.”
Groaning, he disappeared beneath the bedsheets. Lawrence spoke up in their defence,
“Nah, nah, it’s a really good idea Cat had. It’ll change the way people think! Smash the system! Fuck with their heads!”
The bedsheets groaned, turned away.
“Toby,” it was the Cat, “It’ll save you from ever having to work in this business again.”
The bedsheets paused, “What?”
“Yeah, it’s perfect!” Lawrence chimed in, “Freedom, man! Freedom!”
“Alright…” a bemused head birthed from the assorted cotton folds, “I’m listening…”
* * * * *
Twas the night before the explosion and all around the fete, nothing was strirring, except for the usual badgers, foxes, bats, insects, and of course the mice… but unexpectedly, from the dark, the gate…
Everything sat silent in the preparatory blackness. Slides and merry-go-rounds, catering vans and coconut shys, the bandstand ready for the Mad Hatter’s brass, the full-stocked bar and ready-stacked chairs, the podium prepared for mayors, historians, local folk and grandsons of dead milliners. All was ready for history to be made. An era was ready to end.
Across the valley people were dreaming of what was to come – fed by the day’s gossip and tales of yore until they were full to burst with the spirit of Avon Murray, England, and the glorious Industrial Revolution. Hardly any stirred as a low crumpling BOOM shook the valley. Many assumed it was their significant other making one of those familiar night-time noises common to biology but alien to art.
It came in the morning news…
“In lighter news, it seems an accident in the northern town of Avon Murray led to a planned demolition occurring a night early. Local residents are undoubtedly upset as the demolition was scheduled to be celebrated alongside a local fete. I wonder if it will still go ahead, Ken?”
“Breaking news. Following an interview with the head of local demolitions company, Buttle Deconstructions, it appears the detonation that occurred in the northern town of Avon Murray last night could not have been an accident. Police are now carrying out an investigation to surmise exactly what transpired.”
“New developments on the Avon Murray Chimney Story. We go live to Scotland Yard where the chief constable is expected to report that last night’s explosions were the act of an as-yet-unnamed terrorist organisation.”
“Tragedy in Avon Murray. We’re here on the scene getting the local’s responses to this appalling act of terrorist violence –
“I’m shocked. Everyone is. It was going to be an event to bring together the community. We’re torn apart by the news.”
“Shocking. This is an attack on Britain and its proud history. I hope they find them soon. This is a tragedy, it really is.”
“I took the day off to go down with my kids and watch. My kids could have been there. It’s endangered lives. Thank God no-one was killed.”
“Hangin’s too good for em!”
“Where were the police?”
“Things are really going downhill. This country’s going to the dogs!”
“This is an attack on our British values, our history! It’s a crime to be British now! Something must be done!”
* * * * *
Toby woke up late. He clambered out of bed, dizzy. He wasn’t wearing any trousers but somehow his walking boots were still tightly buckled onto his feet. Urgh, one mystery at a time. He reached for his dressing-gown. Time for a cup of tea before he got around to remembering what exactly it was that happened the previous night.
As he descended the stairs a vague mist of red buttons, Cat’s eyes, laughing, foxes in the darkness, moonlit clouds washed around his head. Through the haze he caught the sound of sobbing. Sobbing and clinking. Oh Jesus…
“Where we’ye, y’bastard?! All mornin I bin out wit police on this thing and you bin in bed fiddling wi’yesel. Y’wee shit, we’re doomed! Donyaknow… doomed! Such shame on our heads. Never since gregregregregranddad Aragorn fuddled the battle of Helms Deep… oh, the shame o’it lad! Ner since yer gregregregregrndad Belial made those cannons fer’t Satan as yer man Milton sed about… terrible lad, shame! Shame and desolation!”
Dodging his father’s whiskey glass, outstretched in accusation, Toby retreated into the kitchen. He filled the kettle, set it to boil, popped a tea bag in the mug, and waited. The raging outside was growing louder, wilder, incomprehensible, so he turned on the radio. Tuned to a local station he caught the end of some tune by Elgar and - before he could wonder at why a pop-oriented show was playing classical – he realised. The DJ, his guests, the callers, his father in the next room. All churned away in disgust, spitting out their well-chewed words and dousing him in guilt. He couldn’t wait for the kettle, he just couldn’t… Then he looked out of the back window. Then he ran out in the yard.
The darkness of the shed held no sarcasm or chuckles. He almost pulled the string clean off when he switched on the light. Squinting for a second, his eyes eventually adjusted to view an empty shed. No sign of anyone. Oh Jesus. He looked under some old scaffolding, pulled back a mower, anything but no… nothing. His stomach sank.
In a panic, Toby ran back up to his room, narrowly avoiding the smash of an empty whiskey bottle on the way. He crashed into his bed. Bury himself in covers. Bury himself so no-one will find him. It was them! All them! Not me! Oh Jesus. He wondered if they were even real. Was he going mad? Were they some story that had crept into his head as happened so often to his Father? Had he even been out last night? Seek solace in that… seek solace in– but they’ll find out. They’ll definitely find out. It was them then. They were real and it was them and not me! They’d blown up the chimney! They’d interfered with the natural order of things! Doomed. Certainly. Doomed. Fate. And what’s this now? This low wailing? Valkyries? No… sirens. They were coming! Them! It was them! It was all them! Not me! Never me! Never on my life! Oh Jesus, think think think. He had to get his story straight. Story straight down the line. What did they know… want to know? Not me. The story.
He sat up to think. To think about his story. To tell them exactly what they wanted to hear. That’s all anyone hears anyway. What did they want to hear? What do you want to hear?
What do you want to hear?
Toby sighed as his father refilled his glass. The old man was a drunk, there was no question. But what in his personality extended beyond this central trait was difficult to judge. He was the sort of person who struggled between fiction and reality. He would tell stories about this absolute bastard called Moriarty that he’d read about, getting nigh apoplectic with rage, before going on to sing the praises of the British constabulary for employing such clever detectives.
This hard-wired suspension of disbelief extended as far as his own stories, the overall narrative of which concerned the Buttle’s family demolition business,
“Listen here, lad, listen. I tell thee yer not like some o’ than whose run here in’t past. Proud ancestry you got and you ought to be living up ter it. Us Buttles stretch all the way back to the Big Bang we do. That were our first commission as a family and we been doing it ever since. You outta buck your ideas up if you’re to carry on this proud… what’s it now… what’s that word, eh? Legacy! Lagacy isn’t it!”
His unfocused eyes welled with pride.
“Night, Dad.”
“You come back ere and listen you little bastard. You got no respect!”
Toby wasn’t too keen on carrying on this proud tradition. Every other kid he met in his fourteen years on Earth had longed to have his job, his family burden… almost to the extent that he longed to be free of it. Give him a rainy winter ride up a mud path over wiring explosives any day, any day, newspaper deliver over touch-paper delivery, any day. He stared out from his loft window over Avon Murray. He cursed his dad, this town, the people in it, the country, history in general…
Before he could reach the giddy heights of the world, the universe, and a God he didn’t much care for the existence of, he heard a noise. Something scrabbling, scraping – maybe a badger? A fox? – out in the storage sed. Then he heard a moan. Was it someone? A woman, as it sounded? Faced with a choice between loathing stars and investigating, he headed downstairs.
“Back are ye? Bout time you learned some respect. Now your great great great great granddad, Xiu Chan Buttle, he knew sumt bout respect. He were commissioned by the Emporer o’ China to invent that gunpowder… eh, where you goin? Little bastard!”
Closing the door behind him, he heard more mumblings and fumbling from the shed across the yard. Someone must be in there, but who? He mentally listed their rival demolition companies… none that would profit from industrial sabotage… barely even worth it to be honest… Was there another logical presumption he could make? No? Well…
He pushed the door open slowly, “Hello?”
“Hey!” A man shouted, a woman chuckled.
“Erm… Who are you?” He spoke unto the dark
“We’re terrorists!” A woman shouted, a man chuckled.
“Oh…” silence lingered, a touch more chuckling in the darkness, “Well, there isn’t any explosives in here or owt…”
“Nah, we’re just in here for a kip.”
“Yeah, beats sleeping on a bench, eh?”
Faced by the obscene joviality of these so-called terrorists – reckoning them to be sharing a similar chemical state with his father – Toby decided to leave them to it,
“Just don’t smoke in here, right? There’ll be trace elements on some o’t equipment, most likely.”
“Whatever.”
The next morning he considered going down there again, but thinking better of it – they were almost definitely gone by now – he stayed in his room and read comics. “KABOOM!” went the unrighteous, and the day was saved! As he went down for some lunch he heard his dad tinkling in from the shops, bottles like chimes in an ill-blowing wind.
“Ey, Toby! While you were upstairs lazing about and fiddling with yerself I’ve got us a new commission. Big un an all! Bout as big as you great great great great granddad Ulysses’ job as ‘e were to do on Troy. Oh aye, this’ll do the Buttles proud this will. Real history being made!”
Toby set about to frying up some Spam and eggs; knowing the whole story would eventually come out at his dad’s own pace, and not particularly caring if it did. As it was, it took the first two pints and an expletive-laden, not-necessarily canonical rendition of Homer before he got around to it,
“You see, that chimney up in’t valley on north edge of Avon Murray – t’one by mill? Aye. Well that’s going on account of them building a new housing estate out there for the city folks to live at when they aren’t in town. It’s our job to see it goes – all one big bang, like. Going to be a whole festival there is – all to celebrate our job. History, lad, history. Not as your generation know owt about it though, so.”
“Alright,” Toby munched, “I’ll ready the equipment after lunch.”
* * * * *
It was only upon opening the shed that Toby remembered the couple from last night. The reminder came two seconds after he’d opened the door.
“Hey!” They waved from a heap on the floor.
“Oh, right. You still ’ere? I’ve got to prep the equipment.”
“Go right ahead. We don’t mind.”
It was the first time he was able to see them. Both were tall, with gaunt features – although it was hard to be certain with them both lying in a crooked mess, swaddled by some monstrous fur coat.
“So,” he hesitated to ask as he set to his business, “What do you do then? Are you really… terrorists?”
They chuckled again, it was unsettling – spoke of conspiracies. Eventually the woman began talking. She had long black hair in ringlets, similar dark rings hung around her eyes,
“Yeah, we’re terrorists. I plant ivy next to people’s houses.”
“That doesn’t exactly sound…”
“Use their engines against them!” The man suddenly blurted before the woman could continue,
“Yeah, exactly. People think it’s picturesque of whatever conservative, picture-postcard nonsense the English like nowadays. Really it’s pulling down their houses from the inside. Nature tearing apart their flimsy bourgeois worlds and reclaiming what’s rightfully Hers!”
Toby was half-listening, nodding along, his hands busy with wires, triggers, timers – instruments in the symphonies of demolition. Clearly nonplussed by his unresponsiveness, the man decided to continue their introduction, standing and brushing off his long limbs,
“Yeah, I’m Lawrence, Lawrence Bastille… this is Cat, Cat Thompson…”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Toby, erm, Buttle, Toby Butt…”
The effort of standing had provoked a vicious coughing fit from Lawrence, through which he attempted his revolutionary rhetoric – occasionally lifting a clenched fist when he felt he needed to make his point seem sufficiently radical,
“I” cough cough “am a sexual terrorist! I” cough cough “Seduce young men and women, sleep with them and never speak to them again…” he raised one first, catching his coughed-up sputum in the other, “People think love and sex are the same – but it’s all property relations. Heartbreak is just the consciousness of a failed capitalist system!”
“Right, yeah that sounds… yeah.” Toby shrugged as he polished the metal that would send an electrical impulse into plastic explosive in the near future.
“So, Toby Buttle,” Cat rolled on the floor, staring at him with grey eyes from deep rolls of fur, “What do you do, eh? What’s your contribution?”
“You can see what I do,” he waggled a detonator at them, “Family business. Demolition.”
“But, why?” She smiled, all-too-leadingly.
“I dunno. We’ve always done it.”
“But, why?”
“Yeah, Toby!” Lawrence joined in, “Why?”
“The reason everyone does everything, I suppose. So we don’t starve.”
“So, you blow up people’s houses for cash?” coughed Lawrence.
“No, not always houses. Buildings in general, I guess…”
“You know what we have here, Lawrence?”
Cat. “Cat” is right, Toby thought as she purred, imperious,
“We’ve a capitalist terrorist!”
“Shut up.”
“What’ your latest mission then, eh terrorist?”
He looked into those dark-ringed eyes, across to the over-tall man clearing his lungs yet again. Screw it, he thought, he never has anyone to talk about these things with anyway. Except Dad… in some ways this company here’s at least an improvement… So he explained to them the latest commission, older commissions, his family business, his Dad, his Dad’s drinking, and, inevitably, how he wished it would all just end.
* * * * *
It was two in the morning when he next saw them, not ideal. Neither was their appearance, unannounced, beside his bed.
“Hey Toby!”
“Oh my God! What?”
“We’ve got a plan.”
Groaning, he disappeared beneath the bedsheets. Lawrence spoke up in their defence,
“Nah, nah, it’s a really good idea Cat had. It’ll change the way people think! Smash the system! Fuck with their heads!”
The bedsheets groaned, turned away.
“Toby,” it was the Cat, “It’ll save you from ever having to work in this business again.”
The bedsheets paused, “What?”
“Yeah, it’s perfect!” Lawrence chimed in, “Freedom, man! Freedom!”
“Alright…” a bemused head birthed from the assorted cotton folds, “I’m listening…”
* * * * *
Twas the night before the explosion and all around the fete, nothing was strirring, except for the usual badgers, foxes, bats, insects, and of course the mice… but unexpectedly, from the dark, the gate…
Everything sat silent in the preparatory blackness. Slides and merry-go-rounds, catering vans and coconut shys, the bandstand ready for the Mad Hatter’s brass, the full-stocked bar and ready-stacked chairs, the podium prepared for mayors, historians, local folk and grandsons of dead milliners. All was ready for history to be made. An era was ready to end.
Across the valley people were dreaming of what was to come – fed by the day’s gossip and tales of yore until they were full to burst with the spirit of Avon Murray, England, and the glorious Industrial Revolution. Hardly any stirred as a low crumpling BOOM shook the valley. Many assumed it was their significant other making one of those familiar night-time noises common to biology but alien to art.
It came in the morning news…
“In lighter news, it seems an accident in the northern town of Avon Murray led to a planned demolition occurring a night early. Local residents are undoubtedly upset as the demolition was scheduled to be celebrated alongside a local fete. I wonder if it will still go ahead, Ken?”
“Breaking news. Following an interview with the head of local demolitions company, Buttle Deconstructions, it appears the detonation that occurred in the northern town of Avon Murray last night could not have been an accident. Police are now carrying out an investigation to surmise exactly what transpired.”
“New developments on the Avon Murray Chimney Story. We go live to Scotland Yard where the chief constable is expected to report that last night’s explosions were the act of an as-yet-unnamed terrorist organisation.”
“Tragedy in Avon Murray. We’re here on the scene getting the local’s responses to this appalling act of terrorist violence –
“I’m shocked. Everyone is. It was going to be an event to bring together the community. We’re torn apart by the news.”
“Shocking. This is an attack on Britain and its proud history. I hope they find them soon. This is a tragedy, it really is.”
“I took the day off to go down with my kids and watch. My kids could have been there. It’s endangered lives. Thank God no-one was killed.”
“Hangin’s too good for em!”
“Where were the police?”
“Things are really going downhill. This country’s going to the dogs!”
“This is an attack on our British values, our history! It’s a crime to be British now! Something must be done!”
* * * * *
Toby woke up late. He clambered out of bed, dizzy. He wasn’t wearing any trousers but somehow his walking boots were still tightly buckled onto his feet. Urgh, one mystery at a time. He reached for his dressing-gown. Time for a cup of tea before he got around to remembering what exactly it was that happened the previous night.
As he descended the stairs a vague mist of red buttons, Cat’s eyes, laughing, foxes in the darkness, moonlit clouds washed around his head. Through the haze he caught the sound of sobbing. Sobbing and clinking. Oh Jesus…
“Where we’ye, y’bastard?! All mornin I bin out wit police on this thing and you bin in bed fiddling wi’yesel. Y’wee shit, we’re doomed! Donyaknow… doomed! Such shame on our heads. Never since gregregregregranddad Aragorn fuddled the battle of Helms Deep… oh, the shame o’it lad! Ner since yer gregregregregrndad Belial made those cannons fer’t Satan as yer man Milton sed about… terrible lad, shame! Shame and desolation!”
Dodging his father’s whiskey glass, outstretched in accusation, Toby retreated into the kitchen. He filled the kettle, set it to boil, popped a tea bag in the mug, and waited. The raging outside was growing louder, wilder, incomprehensible, so he turned on the radio. Tuned to a local station he caught the end of some tune by Elgar and - before he could wonder at why a pop-oriented show was playing classical – he realised. The DJ, his guests, the callers, his father in the next room. All churned away in disgust, spitting out their well-chewed words and dousing him in guilt. He couldn’t wait for the kettle, he just couldn’t… Then he looked out of the back window. Then he ran out in the yard.
The darkness of the shed held no sarcasm or chuckles. He almost pulled the string clean off when he switched on the light. Squinting for a second, his eyes eventually adjusted to view an empty shed. No sign of anyone. Oh Jesus. He looked under some old scaffolding, pulled back a mower, anything but no… nothing. His stomach sank.
In a panic, Toby ran back up to his room, narrowly avoiding the smash of an empty whiskey bottle on the way. He crashed into his bed. Bury himself in covers. Bury himself so no-one will find him. It was them! All them! Not me! Oh Jesus. He wondered if they were even real. Was he going mad? Were they some story that had crept into his head as happened so often to his Father? Had he even been out last night? Seek solace in that… seek solace in– but they’ll find out. They’ll definitely find out. It was them then. They were real and it was them and not me! They’d blown up the chimney! They’d interfered with the natural order of things! Doomed. Certainly. Doomed. Fate. And what’s this now? This low wailing? Valkyries? No… sirens. They were coming! Them! It was them! It was all them! Not me! Never me! Never on my life! Oh Jesus, think think think. He had to get his story straight. Story straight down the line. What did they know… want to know? Not me. The story.
He sat up to think. To think about his story. To tell them exactly what they wanted to hear. That’s all anyone hears anyway. What did they want to hear? What do you want to hear?
What do you want to hear?
