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Chapter One – Through Broken Glass
Jack
I’ll be dead by Christmas. Or so they tell me. Understandably, I’m still not ready to accept it, unprepared for the haze of uncertainty suffocating my reality. Dead? Me? The very concept feels alien, ridiculous, the whole thing laughable. I’ve recently turned twenty years old, for God’s sake. I’m tooyoung to die. It’s foolish to admit now, of course, but I always believed myself invincible, immortal, youth on my side, my entire future ahead. Unfortunately, being diagnosed with stage four glioblastoma at a young age is akin to being told you’ll never taste the sweet nectar of life, the rug snatched beneath your feet before you learn the value of your own worth. Can you imagine knowing a deep-rooted brain tumour is set to destroy your world before you begin to live? No. Sadly, neither can I.
That was almost four months ago. Every breath I now take threatens to become my last, every tick of the clock edging me closer to something I find genuinely frightening. I haven’t told anyone how I feel. Even my mother remains mostly oblivious. But my forthcoming death is not something I ever thought I’d express with such flippancy and I’m not even sure I want to know what oblivionwill be like. I guess it doesn’t matter in the scheme of things. None of us are infallible, no one above death.
All I wanted when I awoke this morning was a little space, time away from my daily routine to imagine what my life might have been like, and to breathe fresh air while I still can. Until a moment ago, I was walking along this unassuming canal path, minding my own business, lost in thought, to whatever might now be left of my small, fragile world. However, if there were ever a moment to wish for the ability to go back and do things differently, this would be it. I’m about to do something irrefutably and categorically stupid and there’s no way of turning off my emotions. It’s unfortunate, but what can I do? My path is leading only one way and I’m powerless to divert its course. I guess something profound happens when your life is about to end, the person you could have been swallowed painfully by your own unimagined mortality.
I can confirm nothing significant happened to bring about an imposed wrath I’m wholly unsure where to place. My presence caught a stranger’s eye, that’s all. A single misplaced glance wrongly aimed in my direction. Yet, it has triggered my anger, my irritation, the tiny hairs on the backs of my arms and neck standing now to unwanted attention. Before my diagnosis, such things wouldn’t have bothered me, but inevitably, we find ourselves playing a game of cat and mouse, this fellow and I. He looks at me several times when he assumes I’m not watching, his sideways glares made in not-so-private isolation. I glare back, keeping a much-needed distance at first, my body a cancerous timebomb ticking precious seconds from my existence.
I squeeze the rucksack I’ve recently taken to never leaving home without, its contents almost as unforgiving as my thoughts. No one knows how far my mind has drifted, hovering somewhere between sanity and delirium, this innocent morning offering nothing of value to my struggling breath or irrational thinking. As it is, I’m armed and prepared, understanding enough about the human brain to make this stranger more like me, if I wanted, enough knowledge of the human condition to change his life forever.
I’d love to claim ignorance over the savage ideas screaming violently in my head, delude myself I haven’t somehow planned this moment. But I can’t. I’ve been lost for a while to the false hope of an impossible dream, imagining in secret how I might “help” others view the world from my perspective. Cancer has changed me, and not for the better. It has ensured this impossible trajectory shift, spiralling me towards eternal doom. It’s difficult to explain how I feel about that. But I honestly don’t know how else to convey the fragments of my tainted life, nothing to be done other than follow this path to its end.
I follow the stranger until he turns into Conalton Street, almost losing him to a bush that blocks my view. There are street cameras dotted at incremental positions and I’m cautious to avoid them, my trainers catching misplaced stones and debris as I stumble along in pursuit. The crutches I’m forced to walk with make progress difficult and I struggle to pull my hooded top over my face. It doesn’t matter. I’m fully aware this garment won’t mask my features or hide my shame. I’m wearing gloves. In the lingering summer heat, it must look suspicious.
Although his pace easily outmatches mine, he shuffles slightly, as if his legs ache from the effort. It helps me retain a comfortable distance, and for that, I’m grateful. But I can’t help noticing how his grey hair reflects the late morning sun from patches of exposed skull, his appearance nothing special. He has no right to judge mine. I clench my fists, my teeth, the contents of my rucksack taunting, these streets quiet enough to afford the privacy I genuinely believe I’m searching for. After all, there are no other faces to dissuade mine, no voices to tell me I’m wrong. I suppose it will make my ultimate actions easier to ignore.
Eventually, he turns onto Parkside Lane, a quiet neighbourhood, usually. Yet, I have a feeling I’m about to change all that. My nerves are raw, my uncontrollable anger almost as unforgiving as my mind. When he steps inside a property, I am behind him, upon him, ready to force my way into his home, his life, his nightmares. The poor bastard doesn’t see it coming. To be honest, neither do I. I guess it’s too late to change my mind. I’m merely seeking something that doesn’t exist, pondering thoughts I know aren’t real.
‘What do you want?’ he yells as I lunge towards him, my arms outstretched to shock, that’s all, despite my repulsive appearance and cruel intentions. It’s funny, the way he reacts, the question asked as if he expects me to say.
Unfortunately, there is no coming back from this moment, no honest hope for me now. I am feigned to appreciate how I must look to him, my distorted features offering the illusion of a madman, my silent mouth offering no comfort to anyone. There are few people like me in the world, you see, my appearance not something he will have difficulty explaining. No. Our chance meeting ends things for him, for us.
I discard my crutches against the doorframe and grab him around the throat. He is still yelling, choking vile words I don’t appreciate aimed so readily my way, clawing my arms with desperate fingers. I pick up a vase of wilted flowers and smash it across his head, wanting nothing more than to shut him up while I ponder my next move. I don’t want to kill him. How will he understand mypredicament if he is dead and therefore unable to appreciate his own? He falls silent, thankfully, yet the laboured expenditure of his breath is almost as unforgiving as mine.
This house is a narrow Victorian terrace. The type with two or three small rooms downstairs, a similar number above, a staircase tucked behind an ageing front door that has seen better days. I need to think. Despite everything, I didn’t anticipate this moment and I’ve no idea if he lives alone or if more people will arrive and ruin the plan I haven’t intended to create. I ensure he’s unconscious and compliant before I leave him and go in search of his bathroom, blood far easier to wash down a plughole than it is to wipe from carpets and wood. I find it hidden behind the kitchen at the back of the house, this downstairs space tacked hastily onto the building as an afterthought.
As expected, he is heavy, and I’m forced to drag him an inch at a time, shuffling backwards, out of breath. I stumble several times. I can’t help it. My body is screaming in protest, adrenaline the only thing keeping me going. But although I walk with crutches now and need them for stability, they do not represent who I am, will never define me. I’m far more than my weakened appearance, my strength forged from an underlying anger that endures even when my body cannot. It allows unfailing sustenance when I need it, and complete invisibility when I don’t. Eventually, we make it into his bathroom, neither of us aware of our fate or our future, my wrath called firmly into question. I hoist him unceremoniously into a seated position before manhandling him roughly over the edge of his bath, allowing his heavy legs to slide in after him. He isn’t a large man but he lands hard all the same, slumping awkwardly against cold cast iron, his arms crushed beneath his weight.
There was a time in my life when I might have concluded his earlier glance as fleeting, nothing more, barely a reason for the provocation it has sadly unleashed. But as I reach into my rucksack and pull out a cordless drill, I’m scarcely able to concede what my mind is willing to do. No one knows I carry this item around with me wherever I go. I doubt many would understand why. It has merely become an anchor, if you like, protection from those I can no longer tolerate, a weapon against people like him. I think about the books I’ve read, the hypothetical medical training I’ve given myself in private, grateful my aunt never goes into her basement. I’m not sure she would appreciate what currently resides down there.
I force myself to take a deep breath. Professionals have specialist equipment for such a delicate job, the drills they use stopping the very instant they reach soft tissue. However, I have no such luxury. I don’t assume it matters as long as the outcome remains the same. I simply need to remain calm if I’m to carry out my untimely endeavour. I’m not a psychopath. Or at least, I don’t think I am. However, I’m armed now with a roll of kitchen paper and my nightmares, my aim merely to mop up the blood as I go. I need to be careful. Drill too deeply and he will die, too shallow and nothing will change. I genuinely hope we can one day meet under different circumstances, this man and I. When he can no longer speak, can no longer tell others what I did, when the forthcoming stroke such damage will provoke makes his face look more like mine. I assume onlythenwill he understand what it’s like to beme.As I said, I don’t want to kill him.
I turn his head as best I can, kneeling next to his bath to gain a vantage point I fear might evade us both. It’s not the most comfortable position to find myself. I press cold metal against his skull, hesitate, almost change my mind. My hands are shaking and my lips are dry, but I have to do this. After all, I’m doing him a favour, doing them alla favour. I press the trigger, not expecting the noise to reverberate so violently around the tiny room, my screaming drill biting into soft flesh before I’m ready. It judders wildly as blood sprays into the air, my drill pressed too firmly against bone, too heavy for precision drilling, my unstable hands too weak.
I punch forcefully through his skull, unable to prevent the metal rod from sliding deep inside his brain like a hot knife through butter. He begins to fit, his arms and legs jolting violently, foam spitting from his gagging mouth. I stop immediately and pull the offending item from the hole I’ve created, but it’s too late to prevent blood from spurting across the room like a fountain. I’m genuinely shocked when he bites his tongue clean in half. I try to stem the flow with a fistful of paper towel but it only makes things worse, his body jolting savagely, his head slamming from side to side against his bath. I clamber to my feet, unprepared for so much blood. I don’t want to admit it, but I know he won’t survive. This is not how I wanted this moment to go, not what I had in mind. Yet, he falls silent, already dead, the bath filling readily with blood, much of it over the floor. I don’t want to acknowledge the repulsive substance now coating my hands, my clothes, my hair.
The unbearable summer heat begins to attract flies to an oil slick of crimson that mocks my every breath, his blood-soaked hair glued in places to his damaged skull. My cordless drill is still in my grasp. It’s still warm, sticky blood coating the surface. I recoil in disgust, dropping the offending item to the floor as each blink of my fear-filled eyes provokes slow-returning clarity, my brain replenishing the very holes my memories are keen to retain. I dare not move as I catch my heinous reflection in a nearby mirror, fearful I will see something I dislike, my parched lips unable to confirm anything of value. My shallow breath is beyond painful. I no longer recognise the hollow figure staring back. Even the diffused sunlight from a nearby window offers little comfort. Surely the balance of my mind has not pivoted so violently that I can no longer appreciate my own awareness? Never in my darkest hour did I assume things would come to this.
If I could cast aside the madness, I would, but the noises emerging from my throat add nothing to the churlish nature of my existence. It’s not important. Not in the scheme of things. It matters little how long I have wished to convey to others what it feels like to be me, to prevent strangers like this one from swallowing distasteful behaviour with closed mouths and blind eyes. I have always believed if others could appreciate my affliction the world would be a better place. Only then might they understand what it’s like to be me, what I’m forced to deal with each day. After all, we are more than our exterior, our existence far deeper than skin.
Unfortunately, I do nothing more than glance awkwardly at his blood-splattered bathroom, absorbing this stranger’s blood-soaked features, passing fleeting looks over his hunched body. I don’t stare long, would never wish to become like those who seemingly find it easy to do the same to me. I don’t know how old he is but he’s too old for the game he has unwittingly triggered. I don’t know him. Until today, we’d never met. Sadly, I’m unable to absorb the subtle noises that might calm me if I listened—a ticking clock, an ageing boiler, his unfed cat.
Snippets of a frustrated argument are lodged in my head. It’s not ideal. But of everything occurring today, a one-sided conversation with my mother is the one thing I remember. She didn’t want me venturing out alone, didn’t need the worry. I didn’t intend it to trigger a chain of events I was too incensed to see coming, that moment leading to this. I should have listened, I know, but what’s done is done. I will muse over my actions long after this day has ended, the tide turning me into something I can never take back. My destiny will become my reality soon enough. I don’t need to overthink what that means for me.
The moment has passed, yet my hands grapple with the hot tap in a desperate attempt to revive him, save him, reverse what I’ve done. I swear he is looking right at me, his bloodshot eyes wide, blank, his final moments on this earth imprinted on the glossy surface. I can’t look at his face, can’t find the plughole. His arms are suddenly too heavy, most of his bulk covering the drain. The bath begins to fill with water, making the scene appear worse than it is, nothing left for me to do now but to run. I leave the tap running, accidentally kicking my drill across the floor in haste, my mind a playground of screaming voices all yelling at once.
I turn around briefly to check I haven’t imagined the chaos, unable to find the strength to go back inside the bathroom or locate my drill. I hover, seconds feeling like hours before I grab my crutches and clamber into the street. I dare not look back. All I can hope is that one day when I’m dead and gone, those left behind will understand my motives, my reasons, my pain. After all, I never set out to kill anyone. I hope they appreciate this unfortunate, extremely uncomfortable truth.
Through Broken Glass (Flanigan Files, #3) – Nicky Shearsby
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