CHAPTER ONE: THE CHILD AND THE CAR

I’m not even sure that I’m awake.
I don’t even see the boy as he steps out. This fair haired, pre pubescent lump of bones and flesh. All I know is the screeching of tyres. A thud on the bonnet. A head, leg, backside, whatever, hitting the windscreen, leaving a red spider web where it hit and broke.
All I know is the screeching of tyres. A thud on the bonnet. A head, leg, backside, whatever, hitting the windscreen leaving a red spider web where it hit and broke. From what I can make out through the shattered glass, the kid hits the road pretty hard but I already knew that it wasn’t the landing that did it. I reach up to my forehead to wipe sweat away, realizing as my hand comes back into view that I must have hit my head on the steering wheel, the blood covering my three middle fingers.
By the time the police and paramedics arrive, I am yet to move from the car, my seatbelt still on, the motor running, and me staring at my fingers. I momentarily shift my gaze to the broken windscreen then to the side window as a police officer taps on the glass pulling me from my trance.
Awkwardly I turn the car’s engine off and fumble to release the seatbelt. I open the door as the officer steps back. I step out.
“Ahh?” I can move –barely- but still struggle to form words. A paramedic walks briskly up from behind the police officer carrying a green blanket. She says something to the officer, something I can’t hear, and he replies nodding his head.
I feel the blanket around me and a Styrofoam cup being thrust into my hand.
“I…I…I…I’m so sorry. It was an accident. He just…is he okay?” Police are trying to scatter a gathered crowd holding their arms out to the sides making a shooing motion. As I’m being escorted to the back of an open ambulance I glance over my right shoulder and glimpse a lifeless body on the road a middle aged woman crying like a wounded animal onto her son as paramedics place a blanket over him and carefully transfer him to a stretcher.





















CHAPTER ????: THE CASINO

It’s not like being asleep, yet I can’t say that I’m even awake for sure. All I know is that I’m the only known documented case in this… situation seems to be the right word. I don’t want to call it a disease. Disease sounds dirty, unhealthy. People die from disease I won’t die from this. Not if I can prevent my own death. Life has lost all meaning for me now. There isn’t anything to look forward to anymore. When I was younger there was no better feeling than that to be scared to make you feel alive, to send a rush of excitement through your veins. But now…
There is about $265,000 in chips sitting in front of me on the baccarat table. I’ve known so far what to do, where to place my bet. I’ve been told what to do. Over the last half hour a crowd had formed behind me. People all wanted to get close to money, waitresses all wanting a bigger tip, the broke and addicted begging for a slice of my winnings, perhaps hoping I’ll accidentally drop a few chips and not notice, on the ready to scoop them up.



































CHAPTER ????: THE HOSTILE TAKE-OVER

These things these images that run through me giving me pain and sadness and little else. Why won’t they stop? Why. Won’t. They. Stop! No matter how hard I try I still sense all these bad, terrible things happening to others. Happening to me. I thought that if I tried hard enough to control them I’d be able to see and feel happiness. The birth of my first child, a complete stranger, a street kid, given another chance in life and making something of it. But nothing…
A spurt of blood sprays the seat and two windows given them the appearance of stained glass, although it is now. As the knife is plunged and withdrawn from the abdomen of the man in a business suit, the attacker’s accomplice scrambles to gather the syringe and bottle of water, the train braking violently, both items being hurled down the aisle. People bracing themselves, steadying themselves. Someone had pulled the emergency brake but it wasn’t clear whom.
The attacker, after nicking his left hand with the knife, lets out a “Fuck!” and watches as his mate kicks the businessman in the head. Twice. The suit now lying, bleeding and in pain on the floor of the carriage, commuters looking on in disbelief. A mother cradling her young daughter, five or six, into her breast stroking her hair and making soothing shushes. Half a dozen people frantically calling 000 on their mobile phones some crying hysterically, others acting cool and in control, all wanting to be a hero after the fact. Nobody attempting to restrain the two attackers as they force open the train doors and make their exit









CHAPTER ???: THE BEAUTY

“Don’t go home.” I say.
“Excuse me?” she says looking at me half confused, half scared.
“Don’t. Go. Home.” I say slowly, spacing out the three words that will most likely form the most important single piece of advice she might ever hear. “If you want to live don’t go home tonight.”
The fear in her eyes grows as she slowly backs away from me, bumping into a passerby, dropping her phone. As we both reach down to pick up her phone, my hand reaching it first, I say, “Sarah. Please.” And pass the phone to her, us both still crouching in the street, people passing, neither knowing nor caring of the words we exchange.