'WHAT AM I doing? More to the point, what am I going to do?'
I was talking to myself. At least I wasn't answering.
'Or was I?' I grinned.
Folk in London were used to nutters chatting away to no one. Nobody even looked at me. Instead, people were shopping or rushing to an appointment on this fine spring day.
'I've got nowhere to go except home, I suppose. Mum will moan again. Shall I try for a new job? Nah, leave it,' I said out loud.
'What about that cow, Jenny? She dumped me last night. Was that the reason I was moody today?'
As I crossed the road, I scuffed my shoes on the curb, flipping an angry finger at a taxi driver. 'He tooted me, cheeky git.'
'Why did I bother to clear my desk? There wasn't much in it. A novel I don't remember reading, at least my favourite book-marker was there.'
My book-marker, I'd had it for years. Ten inches of a steel ruler, stained enough to black out the numbers.
'Can't even use it to measure, but it is good at keeping my place. Even in books, I don't read,' I chuckled. A beggar looked up; at least he noticed me. 'Only because he wants cash,' I flipped him the finger. At least it got me smiling.
I drudged on. My underground station was looming; it would take me away from the affluent West End to the morbid East End, my home. 'Not even my home, my Mum's.'
'Hey, what's this?'
A gang of photographers milled around something or someone. 'What or who?'
I edged closer.
'Do they need their flashes?' I wondered.
'Ahh, it's her. What's her name? I saw her on television.'
A beautiful, petite Asian girl dressed in high-heeled thigh boots over spray-painted jeans. An almost breath-stopping T-shirt in 'look-at-me' Day-Glo colours.
'My God, she's gorgeous,' I panted. My mind was churning, 'What could I do with a friend like that?'
They knocked my plastic bag out of my hand, 'Oi, watch it,' I shouted at a photographer.
After leaving the paperback and other junk on the ground, I grabbed my trusty ruler.
I shoved my way past two grubby journalists. I was swinging my right hand across the K-pop singer's throat.
'You see, ruler, you now have a proper use,' I laughed.
'My God, he's got a knife,' screamed a cameraman.
They stepped backwards but clicked away as if their lives depended on it.
'Now what?' I asked myself.
Someone pinned my arm behind my neck; there was a crack of bone, then a clatter as my steel rule bounced on the pavement.
Someone slapped me across the cheek. An unhappy Korean pop singer glared at me.
'I don't even know your name,' I called as I entered the back seat of a police car.
The END
