news in breif
Two days before he was killed, I heard him say the sweetest thing I’d ever heard. I was trying not to drink at the time, so I was in bed, awake, looking for reliefs in the re-enntries in the map which the stain had made on the ceiling. But there was no relief there. I was touching my wife’s skin with my skin, but somehow lightyears had crawled slow and malicious in the atoms between us. A time ago, we were so close. I was listening to her breathing, deep and cool and even and I was wondering how long it would all last. The house is 80 odd years old, and other people must have lain in that room wondering how the distance had crept in and lain between them too, surely, and I was wondering about that as well. Once you’re that far away after being that close, closer than close, I don’t know how you go the distance. And I was wondering if I even wanted to wonder about it all. Downstairs, I knew where I’d hidden a bottle of gin.

Outside, with the window habitually propped open, I heard XXXf walk clatter down the council’s street of souped up cheap cars and broken down expensive dreams.

“oh god her”. She lived across the road, but she was no neighbour. God knows I’m not fit to judge but (and you knew that “but” was coming, didn’t you?) she was a wreck of a woman. Blackened teeth lurched in a drunken smile and her unbleached roots oozed white lightning and class As. In the day, I’d see her, and wave. Sometimes I gave her kids a quid or two for some sweets. The kids were unkempt, ill fed, uneducated and cheerful. I liked the younger of them, but we’d lived there a while and I noticed that they soured as they aged. And then at night, the whole street would wait for the hullabaloo. Cars and women would screech, men would curse. Women would shout louder. Threats and incoherence.

“I told her not to serve you. Ow many times have I told her not to serve you. What’s she doing serving you? Come on, lets get you in” I heard XXXm say as they passed the window. And I wondered how he could say something so sweet to her, when I could say nothing, nothing at all to my wife. I wondered that too long a time.

The next night was quiet and the night after that he died. It started with the usual fandango, or so we thought. We were in bed watching tv. I was wondering about the distance thing, but there was no way I was going to mention it.

Outside we heard “Smash the door down”. We turned the tv down and then we heard the same woman, outside, say “He’s fucking dead”. Scared, I dressed and went out into the street. I think that I’m giving evidence about what I saw next later on this year and I’m paranoid about the internet and privacy so I am going to delete this whole thing before the question is closed. There was blood on the ceiling and blood on the doors. Blood on the window and blood on the floors. A horror had unfurled itself and stained the whole street. I could see the way the arm was over the leg, and I could hear the screaming. Most of all, though, I could smell the blood. The night was frozen solid and the smell of the blood had crystalised and I could taste it on the back of my throat. Night after night we’d all lain there. The walls are thin, so if we’d heard the screaming every night, others must have too. But we did nothing. The whole street did nothing. 80 years ago, surely, our grandparents would not have just sat in their rooms and done nothing? We did and that’s the crime I witnessed, too. The look in my neighbours' eyes as we talked on the street, later, amongst the cider cans and flowers left in tribute about what we all knew was going to happen.

“I’m never going to drink again” I promised her after we were allowed back in our house. But I remembered where the gin was, and I felt the distance and I have, of course.
(sirolimus, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 8:15, 2 replies)

Excuse me sir...
What the Feck are you on about?
(Bluffboy South Africa! World Champions!!!, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 13:10, closed)

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Everytime I read one of your stories I always picture you looking like Richard E. Grant in Withnail and I.

Maybe it's just me though.
(allyourbasekris Hotdog, Jumping Frog, Alberquerque, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 15:09, closed)