The Mental Patient

Chapter 10 - Aftermath

Outside, we stand there watching the blaze rape over our home, hand in hand, together we have faced our failing father the formidable foe with fire. I've put my controller down; the boss has been defeated.

Jess holds on to me with dear life, as the new one we have created for ourselves has been childishly crayoned over to blur the lines of right and wrong. The bonfire is beautifully bleak; my ears play tricks on me; can I still hear him scream through the burn of nobility? Am I hoping and wishing he was still in pain? This notarized feeling must be freedom, I bet my life on it. When sanity creates a monster, you bet your arse, he comes for blood. You've all brought this upon yourselves. My monster now lives out the remainder of eternity in a fucking ashtray.

Rubberneckers screech their cars rubber; fire must be new thing to them. Embers embarrass the streets ambience; pyjama parties pilfer their pillowed eyes; their slippers scuff across the rough towards the tough blunder of the smokes bluff.

"Kye, what have we done?" Her eyes are trying to eject the things we have ruined. If in this moment I have become a God, she has evolved into worried wisp. You must set your eyes and goals higher if you want to play at my level, kid.

"Kids! Kids! Oh, my God, is anyone in there? You have a Dad, I've seen him around, is he in there? Don't worry, don't. I will phone the fire response now. Get back, come over here; don't go near the house." My neighbours worry wave's woes.

Our unknown dressing-gowned shady neighbour stands there staggered with Labrador in tow; my heart hurtfully hurtles jumping jacks forcefully into my brain and all I can piece together is beating this guy to death. The rationality runs away from my arms and legs, before my alarm bells chime-out, I grip a brick, quick, which edges our underkept garden path, and with it, I swing as hard as I can, I bring it up and make sure it connects with his face. His fall is drawn out, from the look of horror, to the seer of solar systems and clouds. I don't even notice it; I am branded by his barren blood, the bastard. His pooch sniffs out freedom too and scarpers into the woodland across the way from our family's inferno. I stay in the eye blinding smoke, more residents snoop their way from their comforted safety of their sofas, with their camera phones documenting everything, let them sneak into my bad judgments for just one minute, break the world-wide web with a ruinous solo escapade. 

This is what happens when no one does a-thing, this is what happens when you allow a problem to fracture once it has been manufactured. The vastness of this eternal scorched scenery which waves at the reds with a purple slap and brings forth a yellow rage which ripples as if it was water, eyes thirsty for more; with all this flare, heat bleeds through the brickwork, my memory bank soaks up every smell, crackle and pinch of skin scalded from escaping ember fairies. I made this happen. Scan this man, you have done so for years through the cracks in your curtains and outdoor street-corner chatty endeavours. Life pulls those trapdoor levers and you stand there in terror. This is no shocker, a branch is designed to hold enough until it breaks; close your mouths and doors at me, I am living in this moment and there is nothing you can do to stop me.

I drop the skinned scabbed brick and grab the astonished Jessica's hand and take off running for the sunset and new beginnings which must lie beyond the tree-line, it must; it has too, The Mexican Border, here we come, that's what they say in the movies, I know I live in Britain, but hey, we can dream.

The clouds out colour the night sky itself, built up like angry fists containing Hell in a single punch of wind heading our way, a tempest is brewing. The wind pushes against us, the bulbous trees shake as maracas; its hissy warning for us to turn back is unacknowledged. A pending storm just for us ripples in the sky, spit at our feet in disgust, if you will; I will curse the heavens in time to come, watch me; just you watch me.