Gusts of rain outside. Almost sleet. A smart-ass populated pub right next to ground zero. All idiots with ringing ears watch a breath drain away at the heels of a blast. Only a coal of a cigarette alive, twitching outside the bloody window. Outside, where diesels cry their cold.
Inside a million warm homes, football on channel two. Death feast on channel one, watched as
it were a ballgame. Elsewhere, there is someone holding a medal and blithering two thousand words a minute about guilt. A sort of threat that one too. Which is why his room is soft and round. Which ones of those words, dreams, ghosts are his? Waiting endless hours for the call, for a voice that would say how the bullet meant for the bird had wandered away. But no.
Should his illness spread in the public, things could get serious. Machines might not work if the right buttons are not pushed.
