Sin (Wattys Winner)

Chapter 01

Sin.

Yep. You heard me right. Sin. Sin-sin-sirree, there's no place for me. Or 'thee' as my dear old father, God rest his weary shade, used to say.

"You're a waste of space, boy!" he'd yell when he was feeling in a good mood. "Sin-sin-sirree, there's no place for thee!"

And he'd laugh. He'd laugh until he cried.

I just cried.

But that was then and this is now. So no matter, eh? Let's be cheery. Let's be happy. Let's be a-smilin' all the love-long day. Why not? Life's too short, so they say.

Weird that. "So they say" is also something 'They' say. So really, I should put it as "Life's too short, so they say, so they say..."

Or not.

Anywho-be-do. Name's Sin. That's me. And, I should coco, me and nobody else. If that's not the case, then my apologies to any other Sins out there. I hope you either changed your name or had big, hard fists. Really I do.

Sin. The kids at school loved me for that one. I wasn't fatter than a turkey three days before Christmas grace, or covered in raging acne as if Vesuvius had decided to dine out on my face, being a right pig in the process by having starter, main course and a big old yummy dessert. I didn't speak like I'd had a hearty meal of helium for breakfast, nor did I wear specs the size of full-fat-full-cream-full-cholesterol milk bottle bottoms. It was just the name.

Sin.

That's worth a punch or two, don't you think? Worth a kick between my legs once a day and twice on Fridays, no? No, but I'm biased. I'd rather be the kicker than the kickee. Well, to be honest, I'd rather be neither, but if it came right down to dancing on the edge of a knife, kicking or being kicked, punching or missing teeth, a choice isn't a choice. Not really.

So. That's me.

I tried to kill myself once. I thought I'd mention that just to keep the mood up. Just to keep us all smiling, you know?

It wasn't with pills, or razor blades, or leaping from tall buildings in a single bound. I used none of those mundane, ordinary, everyday techniques. My method of self-destruction was (drum roll please) teleportation.

Hah. Got you, that one, didn't it? You were expecting, perhaps, that I'd tied myself to a train track like in some old black and white film. Maybe you thought I'd tell you I'd stepped out in front of a truck down on the M180, in the rain, and at night. Better to make sure the truck didn't stop. Better to add a little dash of Craven-esque melodrama to the mix.

I could even have said that I'd had an all-day breakfast (served until 3:00 pm) at that little cafe down the end of Freeman Street. You know the one - next to the shop that sells unusual pets; geckos, tarantulas and the like. Is that shop still there? I can't remember. I've only ever been in there once, just to have a look. They had a komodo dragon in there the size of next door's cat. It was in a case not that much bigger than itself. One long stump of old tree branch for company. No wonder it did little more than sit and stare. Maybe it was eyeing me up for lunch - it obviously wouldn't have fancied the rat-burgers from next door. It's been a while since I was along that way, so maybe it's long gone now. But me and King Komodo agree on one thing - apart from the fact that I'm not on the lunch menu (not even the Chef's Special). The cafe was Alfonso's according to the sign, but Greasy Joe's to everyone else. Their breakfast was not a preferable method of suicide, even though it would no doubt be a successful one. I mean, if one of Joe's homemade hash browns didn't kill you...

Teleportation. There, I said it again. No, before you ask, if you were going to, I'm not crazy. The fact that the teleportation was actually out of a 'loony bin' - a bona fide mental institution - doesn't sign, seal and deliver my certificate of insanity. I just told them that so they'd keep me pumped full of those nice drugs that let me forget. Well, while they worked.