If he had been there that day he would have stopped himself.
James stood with his back to an old wall in front of an old church which looked as if a strong breeze could blow it over at any moment and if it did no-one would notice no-one ever went to the church at the end of Cromarty road.
James was standing at the top of the ‘T’ in the T junction. Sat snugly into the corner of the ‘T’ was a park with one rusty swing, one slide and several hypodermic needles which would provide more fun than the slide or swing for the type of children who lived in such a place. Down all the branches of the ‘T’ where rows of grey terraced houses, everything here was grey, grey houses, grey streets, grey cars and grey people. A van sped past James, engraved in the grey grime where the words “I wish my wife was as dirty as my van”.
James took a drag on his cigarette, rolled the smoke around in his mouth, swallowed it deep then blew out several O’s of smoke. He savoured the taste. He would stay out here until his mum and dad stopped screaming at each other like two angry children, which, was exactly what they where. He had started drinking half a year after the shouting started, the smoking started after a year. He had stopped caring, and loving his mum and dad about two years after the shouting had started.
James looked down at his trainers. Walking towards James was a boy of about 5ft 6inch with curly brown hair and a permanent look of anger on his face. This was Gary Seater and he had bullied James for the last two years of his young life. James did not see Gary coming so when the unexpected smack on the shoulder came he jumped.
“You’re not scared off me are ya’ mate?”
“I ent your fucking mate”
“Alright Jamie, you’re a bit fucking tetchy aren’t ya?”
“I’ve been tetchy with you for the last year, so why don’t you fuck off?”
“Are you a puff? coz I’ve only ever seen a girl act this way”
“I’ve told you –“
“So you are a puff then?”
“Piss off”
“eh, you gotta learn some manners mate, ya see I’m a people person, but then I suppose you take after ya mam ‘n’ dad on that one, shouting and swearing, mate I can hear em now, the whole street ca –“
The word touched Gary’s lips but never got any further as James’s fist engraved its print on the side of his face. Only, it wasn’t James. James was standing watching the entire scene from about five meters away, trapped inside a glass cage which he couldn’t break. Gary fell and his head hit the pavement like a child’s football might bounce of a wall. The boy was kicking Gary in the stomach hard enough to make a fountain of blood explode like a volcano from his mouth. James was franticly trying to break through and stop the boy to no avail.
One smooth kick in the jaw led to a crack and a lob-sided scream, the scream was like an animal being slaughtered and was more of a grunt-squeal. Inside the cage James was crying and screaming at the boy to stop but he did not hear. Instead he took Gary’s head and placed it carefully against the curb before kicking the side of his head. His head caved in and opened letting an avalanche of brains flow out onto the pavement but Gary was still screaming and kicking. He grabbed his own brains and tried to put them through the crack in his skull.
All James could do was scream and hope the boy on the outside would hear his pleas to stop.
One more kick led to a gargling from Gary’s throat and then nothing. The boy smiled and wiped saliva of his lip. A puddle of blood had collected near his shoes. He sat in it and closed his eyes. When he opened them he was himself but still he didn’t move, he looked back down at his trainers and cried, why not, what else could he do?
If he had been there that day he would have stopped himself.
By Samuel Murray