Holdup As clearly as if it was happening right now, I remember the last day I ever went in second-hand bookshop. That day was #life-defining. I used to spend a lot of time in that bookshop. I liked to lose myself in its dark recesses among the dusty tomes which teamed with tales of drama and courage. I'd put my headphones on and disappear. With my world filled by blaring guitars and roaring death-metal vocals so I couldn't even hear my own footsteps or breathing, I felt as if I was not quite part of the reality around me. It was like playing a video game of my own #life. Just the way I liked it. That day, I'd been kneeling down for some forgotten period of time, exploring the covers of two books, eagerly soaking up the clues they offered me about their content whilst a dark musical maelstrom thundered in my ears. I would never open a book before I'd bought it. That would just feel wrong. This wasn't a library. I didn't come here to read, I came here to choose, and to buy. A little drop of my meagre wage earned from heroically rescuing abandoned trolleys from the Tescos car park, would find its way into the coffers of this place. It was like I was feeding it. And I loved the choosing almost as much as I loved reading the books. But my God, something changed that day. Some sixth sense caused me to glance over my shoulder. Just a quick twitch of the head; I hardly knew I was doing it. And I was gazing back down at the books before I even began to process what I'd seen. A couple of figures standing at the counter which was a fair distance away. But there was something wrong. The image chrystalised in my mind and I turned my head really slowly this time, my heart pounding so powerfully I could almost hear it over my music. A shotgun... pointed right at the girl behind the counter. Animated gesticulations from the hooded figures. Slow mo. The thick quagmire of music muddied the world — I was detached. One of the men grabbed the girl and dragged her by the arm out from behind the counter, the shotgun trained on her the whole time. I didn't know this girl, she was new. I'd nodded her a greeting when I came in but I'd noticed very little about her, except that she was older than me, plain verging on ugly, and she was pregnant. It didn't cross my mind to wonder why these men had chosen a bookshop to rob. It was clear they had not seen me. I was in a dark corner, dressed in my long black coat, black hair, black jeans. I was a patch of shadow, and this place was full of those. But I need to tell you why I had this fascination for books. I need you to know, so you can fully understand what I was going through. I am a coward. I don't mean 'a bit timid'. I don't mean 'scared of men with shotguns' just like everyone else, I mean my #life is governed by fear. Ok, I can go out of the house, do my shopping, live a normal #life without anyone guessing, but I'm what you might call a functioning totalphobic. I'm afraid of little things like what people think of me, right through to big things like plane crashes. But what terrifies me most is coming face to face with someone who wants to do me harm. I fear pain, and I fear people who don't. I know that if I met someone who really wanted to hurt me, I'd be too weak with fear to be able to stop them. My mind would flood with images of what might be about to happen, and I'd live the horrors before they'd even begun. That's why I love reading real #life stories, biographies and autobiographies of people who have faced up to horrendous dangers, endured unendurable suffering, kept their heads, and survived. The books I read are about real heroes, real men and women who have put themselves in danger of torture, injury, death, to save others. How can anyone do that? I'd be a pathetic, gibbering mess, my head filled with powerfully imagined experiences of horror as I cowered, waiting for my fate. I have no strength in my arms and shoulders. If you wanted to, you could cut my throat, or twist my arms until the shoulders dislocated. You could break my neck while I tried to elbow you off with increasingly feeble blows. You could slice me open and pull out my innards, I wouldn't be able to stop you. And these are the things that have happened to so many real people in the past, and probably are happening to people in the present, right now, right this second, so why shouldn't they happen to me? So, when I realised what was happening behind me, I went ice cold, and vomit rose in my throat driven by my pathetic terror. All I could think was 'Please don't see me.' The world spun to the sounds of satanic vocals and insanely fast drums. Nothing felt real. They dragged the girl and shouted at her. I had no idea what they were saying. I had no idea what they wanted. I was just glad it was her they had and not me. I was paralysed. I was looking in on another world. My mind was a block of ice, all my thoughts frozen solid. The only thing that kept going was the music, pounding and roaring and reminding me I wasn't dead. A brave person would have realised they had the advantage here. A brave person would have sneaked up behind the man with the gun and smashed something over his head. Or even, tried to to slip away to get help. But all I could think of was the damage a shotgun can do to a person. I imagined that dense cloud of tiny lead balls smashing into my gut, ripping me open, forcing my bowel out of my back in bits. Or what if he aimed higher? My jaw could be sheered off, my eyes peppered with shot, bursting them. Or lower? My penis, my testicles... I saw it all happening to me even as I crouched, books still in hand. All this had probably taken just a few seconds. And suddenly something changed. The sharp, bright sting of reality was all over me as if I'd become fully awake. I could hear the men now, they were yelling, “Where's the safe? Where's the fucking safe?” One of the men went round the back of the counter and disappeared through a door leaving the gunman alone with his terrified hostage. My whole being tingled, my ears rang, and it was several long, slow seconds before I realised my music had stopped. I think my phone battery had run out, but I didn't process that at the time. I just found myself removing my headphones and, for some reason, standing up. And that's when he saw me. “Who the fuck are you?” he said. Even from here, even through the stocking which smoothed his face into a blur of orange tan, I could see he was as nasty as cancer. He didn't care who he hurt; he'd come here to rob the place and I was in his way. If this was a film, it would be a film about him, and I'd be just some background character getting blown away before you'd even noticed me. I knew I was about to die in a red fog of my own exploding flesh. But he still had the gun on the girl, as if he could tell I was no threat. And I suddenly imagined, in vivid technicolour, what would happen to mother and foetus if that gun went off now. Christ, I did not have the mettle to survive this. I was not Oscar Schindler. I was not Grace Darling or Mary Seacole or the people who hid Ann Frank, or the man who broke into Auschwitz. I wasn't even one of the equally brave many who tried to help and failed, who risked their lives and lost. I was one of the unremarkable, unremembered, unheroic dead. I was crippled by over-thinking. Fear was shutting me down. Fear was killing me. I was floating. And, oddly, I was so numb that I was free of it, as if I'd come out the other side of some immense cavern, and I could think again. I blinked. I breathed. I spoke. “She's pregnant,” I said. It seemed like someone else's voice. “What?” the gunman said. I knew that one of those horrible things was going to happen to me now, but I wasn't thinking about them, I was just thinking about getting that gun away from the pregnant woman. “Look, I'm not going to try anything,” I said, eager to assure him he didn't need to fear me. I raised my hands to show him I was only holding books. “You've got the gun, I'm trying not to shit myself so I'm not going to try anything, but please don't point the gun at her, she's pregnant.” He spun the gun towards me and yelled, “Get down on the floor. Get on the fucking floor!” That was the end of my moment of bravery. Terror came flooding upon me once again. As I hurriedly knelt, dropping the books and clasping my hands over my head, I heard the roar of the shotgun, I felt the crowd of hot leaden beads surging into my flesh, ripping my face and neck apart and severing my spine... But that was just my imaginings. What really happened was this: the woman smashed a champaign bottle / candle stick over the gunman's skull and he collapsed. Anticipating the gun firing as he fell, I lurched to one side with a resounding whimper, but the gun did not fire. Then, the girl went back round the counter and slammed and locked the door to the back rooms where the other man had gone. I was on the floor not far from where the gunman lay. I knew I had to get the gun away from him, but my mind reeled with tales of what would happen if he awoke before I got to it, or even, if he awoke when I'd already got it. What would I do? I wouldn't shoot him! But he might shoot me. It seems such an easy, obvious decision when you read this sort of thing in a book, but fear had me paralysed again, like a huge, invisible being pinning me down. I couldn't move. But I knew I had to move. And, against my expectations, I found I could. I dived for the gun. The gunman's eyes flickered open and he groaned. I dragged it away from him by the barrel. Terrified it would go off in my hands, I turned it towards him, shaking. I felt as if I was crawling with spiders. I couldn't pretend I was some hard man. I wouldn't be able to frighten this man, so I levelled with him. I said, “I won't kill you but if you move I'll shoot your feet.” Where that came from I don't know. He could see I was shaking but that probably made him realise there was all the more chance of the gun going off whether I meant it to or not. I had it pointed at his scruffy trainers, and I slid my index finger over the two triggers. I didn't know if I really would do it, and I hoped I wouldn't find out. I felt ridiculous, standing there with a shotgun trained on a criminal like some sort of hero. My hands were shaking uncontrollably now, and cold reality made me want to vomit. This wasn't over yet. I knew I was going into shock, and I knew the criminal could decide to get up any moment. Would I shoot his feet if he did? I really didn't know. But those real-#life heroes I'd read about must all have found themselves in a situation like this, not knowing how it was going to end, not knowing if they were going to live or die, if the biography would be about them or about the man or woman beside them. In the end, bravery doesn't save you. Fate does. And fate is utterly random. I wouldn't survive this just because I was the goodie and the man on the floor was the baddie. It was still anybody's game. But fate was on my side today. The criminal's eyes closed and his bleeding head dipped reluctantly onto the floorboards. The blow had been a mighty one, and had put him slowly and gently to sleep. The police arrived. I hadn't even noticed the girl phoning them. There were no sirens, none that I noticed anyway, just a sudden influx of uniformed officers. The girl. She was the hero. She had knocked the gunman unconscious and locked the other man in the back rooms. A pregnant girl. I felt a warm flood of admiration for her. Beyond the wall of policemen around me, I noticed she was lifting her skirt unceremoniously and wiping her legs with some tissue a WPC kept handing her. “What?” the girl snapped belligerently when she saw me watching. “Weed myself, didn't I. Oh, and I'm not pregnant neither, cheeky bastard. Just fat.” Not pregnant? I almost laughed. But what would I have done if I'd realised that at the time? It was the thought of her unborn child which had driven me to speak to the gunman, which had given her chance to knock him out. If it wasn't for that misunderstanding, that might not have happened. Things might have been very different. A policeman relieved me of the shotgun and someone wrapped one of those silver blankets round me. I was going into shock. The gunman was stretchered away by an ambulance crew. The other man in the back rooms had found his way out and was gone, but apparently he hadn't got the valuable first edition he'd come here for. I later found out there was quite a back-story: the owner of the shop had bought a batch of old books for a few pounds, knowing they contained one worth several thousand. What he didn't realise was that the family he'd bought them from had gangster connections. I was just an extra in the final scene of this Saturday Night Drama; this was my brush with another world, a deeply dangerous one which exists within our own, on the streets, in the pubs and, apparently, in the bookshops too. I never went in the bookshop again after that. Not because I was afraid of the same thing happening again. And not because I was embarrassed to see the fat woman I'd thought was pregnant. I never went in there again because a couple of days later the gunman's accomplice came back and torched the place. At least, I assume that's who it was. So the drama continued as I went back to my #life of peaceful trolley-collecting with its death-metal soundtrack. But I had been in a #life and death situation now. I'd faced something I'd always thought I'd be hiding from forever, and I'd acted. It wasn't that I'd become brave, far from it. I'd always be afraid of physical harm, but I knew now that I'd always been more afraid of something else. Without knowing it, I'd been afraid of myself. I wasn't any more. _________ Thank you for reading this Opuss! If you enjoyed it, I'd be really grateful if you'd consider re-posting it.

Impatience It was dark, and I'd been stuck behind him for about five minutes, but it felt like forever. I wanted to overtake but it was impossible on these narrow urban roads, and I wouldn't have risked it, not with the little one in the back. We stopped at some lights. We seemed to be there ages. I thought, if I had overtaken the bloke in front I’d have made it through the lights before they changed. But when the massive lorry careened into view and slammed into him, squashing his car flat and smashing it through the post office window, suddenly I wasn't complaining any more. --------- Thanks for reading! If you liked this Opuss, please repost it for me and click 'like'. I'd love to read any comments you have too - the only way to improve is to find out what other people think. Thanks very much!

A Tiger Too Many [This is the first chapter of my recently self-published novel for children, A Tiger Too Many. I'd love to know what the people of Opuss think! It is set right at the beginning of World War 2, and follows the fortunes of a girl called Jill who is trying to save a poorly tiger in London Zoo. Although it's a children's book, it is an emotive and substantial one, and adults have really enjoyed it too. This Opuss is a shameless plug as the book is available on Amazon for £5.99. You can find out more on my website: www.antonywootten.co.uk. Thank you!] Chapter 1 Adults tried not to show us they were scared about the war. But we already had our gas masks, and we’d helped with the preparations, like putting up the blackout curtains, and sticking tape across the windows to stop glass flying around if a bomb landed nearby. How could we not be scared? We just had to carry on as normal though. The war started on the 3rd of September 1939, and for me, everything changed the very next day. Even though it would be almost a year before the Germans came, that was the day the killing started. Pete, my brother, was much older than me. He was a grown-up, and sometimes people thought he was my dad. But my dad had died when I was a baby. Pete worked in London Zoo, and whenever I could, I went with him to help. It was a Monday, but my school, and most public places, were closed, in case of bombing raids. The zoo was closed too, but only to the public. There was still lots of work to be done there. Mum was a housemaid for a rich lady in town, and she had to go to work as normal, so she said I had to go with Pete. I’d be safer there than on my own at home. It was sunny, but I had a dreadful sick feeling in my stomach. I could see the silvery barrage balloons in the sky. I liked the way they stayed up there, like kites, swaying peacefully, and changing shape very slightly in the wind. But I knew they were supposed to stop the Germans flying their planes low over London to drop bombs, and that made me feel afraid. Pete was Junior Keeper in the Lion House. Mr Florey was in charge of the Lion House, but today he’d gone up to Whipsnade. The Lion House was a long, brick building. Outside, there were enclosures where some of the animals could walk about, but lots of animals were kept inside too. It wasn’t just lions in the Lion House. There were Jaguars, tigers, and cheetahs. There were even two giant pandas, Tang and Ming. They were so soft and friendly looking, I loved watching them. I loved all the animals. But my favourite was Ronny, the oldest tiger. His orange stripes were the same colour as my hair. I thought he looked wise and gentle, and I felt sorry for him because he was getting old and was often ill. But today, something was happening in the Reptile House. I could see it from outside Ronny’s cage. It was at the other end of Broad Walk, the wide path which ran through the middle of the zoo. I’d seen the keepers coming and going with boxes, and the man in the suit with his clipboard, and the lorry parked outside. I followed Pete round for ages, getting in his way, asking him what they were doing. Eventually, when we were having a break in the keepers’ room upstairs, he told me. And I couldn’t believe it. “Why do they have to kill them?” I gasped. “Jill, Sugar,” Pete said softly, putting his big hand on my shoulder. Pete always called me Sugar. He called other people ‘Honey’; well, girls and ladies anyway. But ‘Sugar’ was just for me. “I know how you feel,” he said, stooping so his blue eyes were right in front of me. “But, you know, there’s a war on now, the zoo could get bombed. If any of those snakes got out, it would be really dangerous. If one of them bit someone... Some of them can kill, you know.” I knew Pete was right, and I’d been coming here with him for long enough to know that sometimes animals had to be killed if they were sick or injured. But killing healthy animals seemed so unfair. They couldn’t help being poisonous. The lump in my throat wouldn’t go away, even when Pete hugged me. He stroked one of my plaits. “I wouldn’t have brought you today if I’d known. No-one tells me anything. Anyway, it’s not all bad. I’ve got a surprise for you a bit later. You’ll love it. I promise.” He squeezed my cheek. Pete knew I hated it when other people did that, and he only did it as a joke. Usually I’d laugh, and then maybe punch him in the arm. But today I just turned, and went outside. “Don’t do anything that’ll get me the sack!” Pete called. I didn’t want to help Pete today. Today I just wanted to wander around, looking at the animals, and trying to forget the poor snakes and the war. I had my heavy gas mask hanging at my side. The string was already digging into my shoulder, but Mum said I had to carry it wherever I went, now. I could smell a bonfire somewhere. The zoo was almost deserted, and Ronny was pacing backwards and forwards in his enclosure. I leaned on the barrier and watched him through the thick wire mesh. He always had his head down these days. He seemed sad, and tired. Pete said the enclosures never got any sun, and the cold North Wind could blow right into them. That’s not good for a tiger. I wished I could save him, take him somewhere warm to live. He looked at me. I loved it when he did that. Some of the other animals never looked at you, as if they couldn’t even see the people outside their cages. But Ronny always looked at the visitors. Sometimes he growled at them, or jumped at the side of his enclosure, making it shake and rattle, and the people scream. I gazed back at Ronny’s dark eyes. I knew he was only teasing. I could hear the howler monkey whooping now, and the chattering of the birds in the nearby Bird House. But when the zoo was closed like this, it always surprised me how quiet the animals really were. Opposite Ronny’s enclosure were the wolves. They paced up and down all the time, and the wind ruffled the fluffy hair on their backs. I watched them for a while, then wandered up onto Broad Walk. I was going towards the big pond, to see the penguins, when I heard a gunshot. I recognised it straight away. That’s how they killed the bigger animals. Surely not snakes though. Pete hadn’t said any of the bigger animals were being killed today. There was another gunshot. It was close by. I suddenly wondered if maybe it wasn’t the zoo-people at all. I froze in terror. Had the Germans come here already? But why would the Germans come and attack the zoo? No, animals were being killed. With my gas mask box banging against my side, I ran back past the wolves, towards the Antelope House. I was sure the noise had come from there. I could already see the zoo lorry parked outside the front. Six men came out of the building, carrying a large animal in a sort of canvass hammock. It was like a big deer, with a ruddy-brown back and stripes on its legs. An eland. They swung it up onto the back of the lorry, making it bounce as the animal landed. They pulled the hammock out, and went back inside with it. A few minutes later they came back out again. This time they had a smaller animal, with short horns. It was a zebu. Soon it was on the lorry beside the eland, its legs sticking up in the air at an angle, like dead trees, and the men were mopping their brows. I couldn’t understand it. I knew about the snakes, but these two animals were so gentle. They wouldn’t hurt anyone even if they did get out. Why did they have to die? A man in a suit came out next. He was holding a clipboard. He had an old-fashioned bowler hat on and his gas mask box strung across his body. I wiped my eyes, took a deep breath and walked right up to him. “Excuse me,” I said, all calm, like my mum when she gets cross with someone. “Please kindly tell me why you are having these animals shot.” I had my hands on my hips. He looked down at me. “Hello, young lady,” he said. “Pete Larch’s little sister isn’t it?” I nodded. He sighed, and looked around at the other men. They all just looked away and started talking. I carried on looking up at him, trying to be stern. He crouched down in front of me and smiled. “My, you’re a bold one, eh?” he said, and squeezed my cheek. I just looked back at him, without reacting. He stopped smiling. He sighed again, and said, “My dear, sometimes, so others can go on living, some have to be... sacrificed.” “Why?” I said. “It’s... complicated.” “But... they’re not even dangerous like the snakes.” “No.” “Were they ill then?” “Er... They were old and… they needed a lot of medicine. It’s... it’s a lot to do with money. It’s very complicated.” He cleared his throat. But suddenly I had a horrible thought. “Are you going to kill all the dangerous or old animals?” “Not all of them, no. Of course not.” He smiled again. “What about the tigers?” “Well...” He stood up and looked around at the others. He waved one of them over, and whispered something to him. I heard what he said. He’d sent for Pete. The other man hurried off. I could feel tears pricking at my eyes. I shook my head. I couldn’t speak. I walked away slowly. “Come back,” the man in the suit said. I didn’t, so he tried again, more firmly this time, like a teacher. But I kept walking. I was about to break into a run when I saw Pete coming towards us. He must have already been on his way to find me. “Pete,” I shouted as I ran up to him. He hugged me, lifting me up. “What’s wrong, Sugar?” “It’s Ronny. They’re going to kill him.” I’d expected Pete to be horrified. But he just lowered me to the ground and held my hands. “I know. I’ve just found out.” “Well...” I began. “Well... aren’t you going to stop them?” “I wish I could. I wish I could. But it’s for the best.” I didn’t know what to say. For a moment, I just stared at him with my mouth wide open. How could he just let this happen? I hated him suddenly. But if he wasn’t going to do anything, I’d have to. I looked around at the other men, who seemed to be watching me as if I was one of their dangerous animals and needed to be captured. The man in the suit gave me kindly smile, but it didn’t work. I ran again. This time I knew where to run to. I’d only ever heard of Doctor Barker, the man in charge of the whole zoo. I didn’t really know what he looked like, but I knew his office must be in the big building on the other side of the zoo. Somehow, I would stop the killing. I would save Ronny.

Nathaniel's Daughter Nathaniel knew there was something different about his daughter these days. She was changing. He hated to see it; he hated to admit it to himself, but she was changing, and there was nothing he could do about it. After everything they’d been through! He’d loved her, and nurtured her, given her a good #life and shaped her into a nice, decent person, but she was changing now in a way which he knew he didn’t really understand, but it felt so final, so inevitable. He was losing her, and it was breaking his heart. Of course, she wasn’t really his daughter. He knew that. She knew that. He’d rescued her from the #life of evil which her real mother and father had led, and he’d taken her under his caring, loving wing. She’d resisted at first, but Nathaniel knew what was best for her, and, first through physical strength, and then, gradually, through his gentle words and fatherly love, he’d won her over. It had been difficult. Tough love, some would call it. To tame such an unruly child, the spawn of such appalling parents, had not been a straightforward task, and how she’d howled when he’d beaten her, beaten the devils out of her, beaten her into submission... It was like breaking a wild horse, but he’d done it, he’d driven her parents’ evil from her; he’d cleansed her. No longer would she crave the trappings of the modern world with its bright, white, noisy things, things which roared and shouted and flew and drove, things which towered and smoked and loomed and glowed; the spiteful, angry, terrifying, murderous city. Nathaniel had saved her from those that. She couldn’t help her parentage. It wasn’t her fault that her flesh came from a man and woman who were made of the city. That father: he was tall and ugly and hard and fearsome, just like the sky-scrapers and chimneys Nathaniel and his mother had shivered beneath in the dark days of distant memory, when he was small and helpless in a city which stank. His mother couldn’t protect him anymore, though he knew she was always nearby, watching him and loving him, but no longer able to hold him to her as she always had done in the cold maelstrom of the city. She’d left Nathaniel with nothing but a head full of stories of beautiful people in magical places. Places like this quiet patch of forest. That’s why he’d brought Silvie here. And, with his help, Silvie had become the loving, warm, beautiful person he knew she could be. He had freed her from herself, made her lovely. Of course, she hadn’t looked lovely by then. Or smelt it. In fact, she’d looked a disgrace, like a wraith, bloodied and filthy, just like his mother that night in the city, after the men had gone. That was the night Nathaniel and his mother had left the city, running, afraid. And that was the night his mother had become strange and white and sparkly, glowing like a moonlit cloud, no longer able to hold him, to kiss his forehead or grip his hand or tell him a story. From that night onwards, she was always almost out of sight, just disappearing around the next corner, or peering at him from behind a tree. It was as if she’d decided to let him go, to live his own #life, not in the city’s filth, but in the forest’s warm embrace. She was always near him, but never with him anymore. He was a big boy now; that’s what she used to tell him. Silvie had made the cellar stink. But at least the trees around the cottage wouldn’t have to listen to her cries anymore. At least the birds could start returning to the branches from which her screams had driven them, and peace could return to this tiny, wooded valley where the old ruin stood. Nathaniel’s ruin. He’d found it once; a great white hart had led him here, quite deliberately, somewhere in the stormy fog of time, when it was impossible to tell how near or far away things were. Sometimes, Nathaniel thought that was years and years ago, and sometimes he was sure that it was only yesterday, and sometimes he wondered if it had ever really happened at all, if his mother had ever happened, if there was anything else in the world but him and Silvie and the ruin. Sometimes though, there were other things in the time-fog: people shouting at him; people helping him; people without faces; city people, their voices a painful, roaring discord that he wished he could silence... The ruin must have been a game-keeper’s house once, something like that. He’d found it broken and roofless, in need of love and care and that’s what he’d provided. When the evil had gone from Silvie, he’d cleaned her up with water from the stream, washed the mud and blood and vomit from her hair and clothes and soft, pink skin, and dressed her in a pretty dress and shiny shoes he’d bought for her in town. He could see that pleased her. Then, he’d sat her on a chair which a family of gypsies had recently dumped in a nearby ditch. He’d mended it and painted it, and now it was a throne for the good princess Silvie. And the two of them had lived happily together since then, in their cosy ruin. Nathaniel told Silvie the tales his mother had told him, and Silvie listened like a good girl as the autumn leaves fell onto her jet-black curls, and the rain dripped, and a congregation of deer and rabbits gathered all around and a choir of sparrows, starlings and robins sang in waterfalls of golden sunlight which gushed from the vaulted rafters of the forest canopy. His mother loved Silvie too. She was often there, standing nearby, in the corner of Nathaniel’s eye, watching, smiling, approving. But Silvie was changing now. He hated that. Just when he had quietened her spirit, brought her gentleness to the fore. Why? Why had her skin lost that happy glow; why was that innocent radiance gone from her eyes? Why, when Nathaniel stroked her skin, did she feel like a stone, hard and icy? And when he ran his rough and heavy hands over her once silken locks, why did some of it come away in his fingers, like cobwebs? --------- Thanks for reading! If you liked this Opuss, please repost it for me and click 'like'. I'd love to read any comments you have too - the only way to improve is to find out what other people think. Thanks very much!

Fly “You have to go now,” I say, because the sight of him in my bed is making me want to screw up my eyes and say the word “safe” four times and one for luck. I resist because he’s looking up at me now. I’m standing next to the bed, with a towel round my body. I’ve already showered last night off me. He grins. He wants me to come back to bed with him but I say it again, to show him I mean it. “Well, that’s me told,” he says sarcastically, throwing back the covers and huffing through his nose. I can’t believe I felt so different last night. It’s always the same. The night is exciting and passionate, sexy and coke-fuelled. The morning is horrible and dark and I feel wrong. Why do I do it? A fly brushes close to my face and I waft at it, then I turn away because now I have to screw my eyes up so tight they hurt and the black world behind my lids is filled with blotches of colour. Safe safe safe safe. And one for luck: safe. I walk out of the bedroom. “Livie,” he calls after me, quite gently. I’m shamed that he remembers my name. I can’t remember his. He knows nothing else about me though. He doesn’t know I’m a fucking weirdo. I can hide it for a while, like when I’m out with my friends and I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine, like last night in the club. When he came over, I couldn’t look at him at first, but he thought that was because I’m shy. That’s what they always think. Boys seem to like that. I’m not shy though. It’s just that sometimes I can’t look at people because I’m afraid my eyes can hurt them, like give them cancer or something. I scrunch my eyes up really tight again until the blotches come, to get rid of that horrible word, and then I go downstairs. Safe safe safe safe. Safe. The filth in the house makes me feel sick. There are just too many out-of-reach corners and surfaces in a big old place like this. That bloody fly seems to be following me. I hate flies, but they are always too quick to kill so I end up putting up with them. While no-one’s around, I take the opportunity to open my mouth really wide until it stretches at the sides and feels as if it’s going to tear and I can hear that rushing in my ears like when you yawn. I’ve been needing to do that for ages. God, why can’t I just be normal? I know I don’t need to do these things. I know my eyes can’t give people cancer and I know the house isn’t filthy. But even though I know all that, I feel the opposite. And my feelings are stronger than my knowing. I can’t stop myself. As I reach the kitchen, I even have to do the one where I stretch my arms, legs and neck so that all my joints burn and I’m standing on tip-toe until my body feels cleansed. Then I relax, worried that he might have followed me downstairs and seen me doing that. I turn, he hasn’t. The cleansed feeling will only last for a few minutes and I’ll have to do it all over again. I can tell it’s going to be like that today. Probably because of what I did last night, on some sort of deep, psychological level that I’ve never managed to unpick. I put the kettle on and stand in the middle of the kitchen with my arms folded and shoulders hunched up. I can’t quite bear to touch anything unless I have to. In my head, I’m re-living last night, in disjointed, non-chronological chunks: the sex, mostly, but also laughing in the pub with Lisa and Hannah. God knows what happened to them! I do manage to have a laugh sometimes, after a bit of self-medication. Sometimes I manage to forget the weird thoughts and obsessions which fill my head, and just get on and have a laugh, like normal people. I see that fly sitting on the work-top. It must have found a crumb or something. I try not to think about its horrible mouth-parts, but I already know from my GCSE days that they are like enormous red lips on the end of a trunk-like tube, with grooves all the way up inside, lined with little serrated teeth, and as I watch they are puking bile onto the crumb and sucking it up as the crumb is reduced to a bubbling froth by the bile. They vomit in reverse: their bile digests the food before they eat it, then, when it’s all turned to sick, they suck it back up, relishing the taste of their own pre-digested dinner. It makes me want to shriek. I look around for a way to kill it, grab a tea-towel and take a swipe. The towel slaps the work-top but the fly escapes, and settles on the ceiling, looking down at me triumphantly. And now the tea-towel has got fly-puke-dinner on it so I’ll have to boil-wash it. In fact, I might never be able to bring myself to use it again. I might as well just keep it as a fly swat now. Safe safe safe safe. Safe. Eyes-scrunch. Mouth-stretch. The kettle clicks off, the water bubbling inside it like fly-bile on a crumb, and footsteps on the stairs make me turn my head. “Great place,” he says. “I hardly noticed it last night!” The place is actually pretty odd: an old chapel with lots of open-plan spaces and mezzanine floors. Very modern, in an ironic sort of way. In fact, the ironic thing is it was modernised in the early 90s and it’s all looking a bit shabby now. He’s only wearing his boxers, and he’s breathing his breath into the air I have to breathe. He’s grinning laconically, as if we have a shared appreciation for last night’s naughtiness, and I am suddenly frozen by the thought that he might try to kiss me. He’s coming towards me, swaggering as if he’s proud of what he achieved last night, and then the cat-flap clatters and in comes that little tabby cat that seems to think it lives here. I can barely bring myself to touch it, but it gives me a chance to duck away from the encroaching kiss, and I grab the cat, turn it round and shove it straight back out of the flap. I move the bin in front of it so the cat can’t get back in. I feel guilty now, because sometimes I welcome the creature in, and let it sit on my lap while I watch Hollyoaks. I even stroke it sometimes. But I can’t do that today. Now I’ve got cat-lick all over my hands, so I push past the human intruder and run the hot tap. Over my shoulder I say, “I have to go out soon, so you’ll have to go. I’ve got to get ready.” But he comes right up behind me and puts his hands on my waist. He dips his head towards my neck, moving my hair out of the way with his stubbly chin. All I can think about is his skin-cells detaching themselves from his face and losing themselves in my wet hair. I don’t care that the towel I’ve got around me isn’t long enough to cover my cellulite, and his hands are on the fat around my hips. I just care about the air coming out of his lungs, through that mouth and round those teeth that haven’t been cleaned, and the skin-cells he’s shedding onto me. I’ve got cat-lick on my hands and I’m about to have his dirty mouth on my neck and I want to swat him away with the tea-towel. I twist so he can’t quite reach me with his lips, and I start to wash my hands, even though the water isn’t properly hot yet. The water has to be scolding hot, otherwise it won’t kill the germs. He thinks I’m joking though. He can’t believe I can be acting like this when I was so into him last night, but he doesn’t know me. I am fickle in the extreme. I’m scrubbing my hands and he’s trying to kiss my neck and I’m twisting away from him and I’m scrubbing hard even though the bloody water refuses to heat up and he refuses to give up until I elbow him sharply in the ribs. He gasps and backs right off. “What the fuck?” he says. “What was that for?” Still rubbing my hands together, the water finally getting hot and painful, I say to him, “Like I said, I’ve got to go. Sorry.” “Christ, what did I do?” he says as I scrub. He’s still standing there and I can smell his morning breath, and I see it in the air like a yellow gas and I hold my breath for as long as I can. Finally, only breathing out, not in, I manage to say, “Nothing. It’s just me.” I dry my hands on the towel I’m wearing, and walk out of range of his breathing. I open a window, then think about the fly and imagine others coming in to join it. Why is it that flies are only ever capable of flying in through a window, not out? I close it again, and hold my breath. I feel as if I’m going to scream at him if he doesn’t go, and I wish to God I could remember his name, but I can’t. I’m desperate to do the eye-scrunch mouth-stretch thing, and I’m saying safe safe safe safe under my breath, but I can’t do any of it properly because he’s looking at me. He has very pretty, dark eyes. If I wasn’t trapped in this OCD bubble I’d find him very attractive. I did last night. But he’s started to tell I’m a bit mental and he seems reluctant to delve. At least he’s realised we’re probably not going back to bed today. Maybe he’ll go now. Funny, I’d thought he was kind. He does look it. Thank goodness he isn’t. The kind ones always want to make me look at them in the morning even though I can’t, and think they can make me feel better by saying something gentle. They think I’m being shy and embarrassed, when what I’m really thinking is I wish they’d fuck off out of my house. This one though, he seems to realise he’s not wanted, and he doesn’t seem to care that much. He got what he came for, and now he’s going. He smiles one last wry and cheeky smile, then heads back upstairs. I take in a very long breath. I notice the cat is sitting on the windowsill now, looking into the kitchen. I’ve not lived here long, and I think the lady who lived here before me used to feed it. I wonder if the cat even realises I’m not her. Last week it brought a dead mouse in! It left it in the hallway. I was having one of my bad days and when I saw the mouse I couldn’t bring myself to go near it. I couldn’t leave the lounge. All I could think about was rodent-juice seeping from decaying flesh and running into the gullies between the terracotta tiles, and rodent-gas rising into the air. I ended up having to climb out of the window and knock on my neighbour’s door. Safe safe safe safe. Safe. That bloody fly is driving me mad. It’s dive-bombed my head several times as if it’s trying to piss me off. I’m going to have to kill it. I lash out with the tea-towel, slapping several surfaces in quick succession as it darts from place to place, but it’s like they move in a different time-zone to us. No matter how quick I whip the towel through the air, it sees it coming and casually side-steps it. I wish I wasn’t so mental. I wish I wasn’t so paranoid about using fly-spray, but if I release some of that stuff into the air I’ll be breathing it in. How do I know it won’t give me cancer (safe safe safe safe, eye-scrunch, mouth-stretch) or some sort of hideously debilitating nerve disease (safe safe safe safe, eye-scrunch, mouth-stretch)? So the fly lives and I feel a rage rising inside me. “Get out of my house, you fucking little shit!” I yell so violently that it scrapes my throat. “Alright, alright, I’m going,” comes the irritated reply as the man-with-no-name comes down stairs pulling on his T-shirt. I should tell him I didn’t mean him, but instead I just storm past him as if we’ve had a row and I’m not speaking to him. I know I’m being ridiculous, and totally unfair, but he has to go. His presence is making me want to cry. I can feel him looking at me as I head upstairs. He must be completely confused, but at least he’ll have something to laugh about with his mates. Upstairs, I pace, waiting for him to go. I need to clean the house. I need to wash the bed sheets and all of my clothes, even the ones I haven’t worn. I need to scrub the bathroom and hoover the carpets. I can’t start while he’s here because that would defeat the object, so I stand there staring at my bed with its pile of duvet spilling onto the floor, and the used condom leaking onto the rug like a rotting mouse... That fucking fly. It’s followed me upstairs! I can’t believe it. It flies round my head and lands on the bed-side table. I haven’t brought the tea-towel with me. What can I kill it with? I look for my slippers. I find one, and stalk, very slowly, very carefully up to the fly, raising my arm so gently that it’ll never suspect what’s coming... but it flies off before I’ve even begun to bring the slipper down! I swipe and slash the air uselessly and stupidly and the horrible little creature buzzes away. But I’m not giving up. Quickly, I grab the pillow that’s had his head on it, pull the case off, and now I have a better weapon. The fly lands on the curtain. It’s not inside one of the folds, it’s right on the outside of one, quite near the bottom. I have a plan. I used to be great at stinging people with the very end of my towel in the changing rooms at school. If you get it just right, it acts like a whip, the tip of it going so fast it can bring up a red welt on a naked thigh. Just think what it could do to a fly! I control my breathing as I line up the pillow case. I’ll have only one shot at this. I try to clear my head and relax. I do it! The pillowcase snaps at the fly; the curtain recoils; the fly drops to the floor. I am victorious! But, I can’t bring myself to touch it. I crouch down, which is quite hard to do when you are wrapped as tight as I am in a bath towel, and look at it. Is it dead? I get up and look for something to scoop it up with. It has to be something I don’t want, or won’t ever need to touch again. I look at the photos blue-tacked around the outside of my mirror. They’d be perfect, but they are all of people I care about. I couldn’t use one of them to scoop a fly up with! I glance back to make sure it’s still there. I can’t see it at first, so I go back over to where I know it is. The fucking little fucker’s gone! I must have just stunned it. I look around all over the place but I can’t see it. I grab the pillow case, making sure I’m not touching the end that hit the fly. I’m like a hunter now. There’s no way that thing is going to escape. If I have to tear the house apart I’ll find it. The crazy thing is, that isn’t a joke. I have to find it now. I am obsessed. I hear a noise downstairs. What’s he doing? Hasn’t he gone yet? Out on the small, mezzanine landing, I peer over the banister. I can’t see him, but I can hear him in the kitchen, running the tap. He must be getting a drink. God, if someone had yelled “Get out of my house, you fucking little shit!” at me, I wouldn’t be hanging around to get a drink. I clench every muscle in my body now, and try to make every joint hurt. I thump my own head repeatedly, until stars splatter my vision. I know this is mental, but I can’t help it. Why won’t he go? I turn to go back into my bedroom, and I see the fly. At least, I think it’s the same one. I can’t even bring myself to entertain the possibility that there’s another one. It’s on the window, a very tall, wide window that almost runs the full height of the house. The mezzanine landing is about two thirds of the way up it. There’s a gap between the mezzanine and the wall, and the window is sunk even further away into a deep recess, which makes it bloody hard to clean because I can hardly reach it and cobwebs often gather under its arched top. I literally have to risk #life and limb if I want to reach those, standing on the metal banister looking down through the gap between the mezzanine and the window at the tiles on the hall floor way beneath me. I do it though, because I am that mental. It’s alright if I get a chair and hang on to the wall lamp beside the window, and remember that if I’m going to fall, fall backwards, not forwards. Some of the window’s glass panes are coloured. The fly has landed on a little blue one. I think about going and fetching the chair from my bedroom but I hardly dare take my eyes off the fly. Safe safe safe safe. Safe. Eye-scrunch - I hold it for ages so that the blotches get really bright, and I do the mouth-stretch too until it feels as if my jaw is going to break. I’ve stunned the thing, but if I slap it with the pillowcase its foul guts will spread themselves all over the window. The thought literally makes me shudder. If I’m clever, I can get it without making any mess. As quick as I can, I make two hurried journeys back into the bedroom and return first of all with the chair, and secondly, with a tall beaker of water that I’d fetched at some point last night. I tip what’s left of the water into the pot-plant in the corner. I know that the fly is stunned. It’s used its last reserves of energy to get up as high as it can, and that’s where it wants to stay. I hitch up the towel I’m wearing and clamber onto the banister, steadying myself against the wall. Behind me is the landing and in front of me is the window. Between me and the window is the drop. I know how ridiculous it is that I’m more scared of cobwebs and dead flies than I am of a twenty foot drop onto stone tiles, but that’s the way I am. Below me, I can just see him now, the man-with-no-name, just his shoulder and elbow and the side of his head. He’s putting his shoes on I think. He doesn’t know I’m right above him. I look ahead of me at the fly. Its wings move, but only slightly. It isn’t very well. Really slowly, one hand gripping the wall-light next to my bedroom door, I reach forward with the glass, stretching across the gap towards the window. I hear the front door open. Thank God. He’s finally going. But then I hear, “Hello, cat.” He says something else that I don’t catch, and seems to laugh. And the door slams behind him. Through the window’s rippled glass, I can see him walking down the path, and out the gate. I know he’s let the cat in, but at least I haven’t cleaned the house yet, and a cat is much easier to get rid of than a fly, so I put that out of my mind. The beaker is hovering towards the drowsy fly. My arm is stretched as far as it can go and, just as I realise I can’t reach the window, the wall-light snaps off and I fall forwards. The beaker hits the window pane, sliding slightly sideways with a horrible screech, and I find I am a bridge: my feet on the banister rail, my body across the gap, and all my weight pressing hard against the beaker in my hand which in turn is pressing against the little blue glass panel. And trapped inside the beaker is the fly! I would laugh but I’m busy flailing my free hand around desperate to find something to grab onto. There’s no way I can hold this gravity-defying position for long. I never was much good at gymnastics. I adjust my feet, curling my toes to brace them against the sharp edge of the metal banister. My whole body is beginning to shake. My free hand can’t find anything to hold onto so ends up on the beaker with my other hand, all my weight pressing into the beaker and into the window. What the hell am I going to do now? I’ve got the fly. There’s no way I’m going to let it get away. And then I realise three things, all at the same time: 1) I’ve got nothing to slide under the beaker. How could I be so stupid? As soon as I remove the beaker the fly will escape. 2) The cat has come up the stairs and is sitting on the landing, just out of my field of vision. I can feel it watching me. 3) This window, the one almost all of my bodyweight is currently pressing against, is not going to hold. It is made of lots of little panes held together by lead, some sections framed by thin struts of wood. It’s one big sheet of flimsily connected squares and rectangles of glass. I can hear the wood splitting, and can see the lead joins bending outwards. I have to get down from here. But that would mean letting the fly go. And then I notice something on the tiles beneath me that wasn’t there a few moments ago. I stare at it, trying to bring the dark shape into focus. Oh my God. Is that what I think it is? The cat has left me a present: the most enormous rat I have ever seen in my whole #life. It’s laid across several tiles, on its side, its tail curled round and its red eye open. And there is blood coming out of its mouth, and guts hanging out of its stomach. My head spins. The cat sits on the landing, watching me, as if waiting for my delight at this wonderful present. The window creaks, and a popping noise comes from one of the wooden struts. Safe safe safe safe. Safe safe safe safe. But I’m not safe. No matter how many times I say it. I have to get down from here, but I can’t. I can’t bring myself to release the fly. Even if I can, straightening myself up will mean pushing hard against the window. It will break, and then I won’t be going straight downwards through the gap, I will be going forwards, through the window, like an Olympic diver. I already feel as if I am mid-dive. The only thing I can possibly do is to drop straight down through the gap. Right now. Right this second. This is how mental I am: it isn’t the drop that worries me, it’s what I’ll be landing on. The rat just lies there, obliviously rotting its way into my lungs and eyes and hair even from this distance. Horror prickles its way up my body, bores its way into my mind and no amount of eye-scrunching and mouth-stretching can stop it. I have left it too long. I have prevaricated myself into a very nasty dead end. As the window explodes outwards and I find myself plunging forwards, I see the fly seizing its moment, recovered from its concussion. I fall. The fly flies free. ------------ Thanks for reading this Opuss. If you liked it, please consider reposting it for me.