Read Sin for Free Online Page A

There's no place like death". Well, of course I didn't. I
didn't have any red shoes for a start. I only wore these soft black
soled things. We used to wear them at school. What were they
called? No laces, just in case I wanted to do exactly what I wanted
to do. What damage I could manage with a couple of thin bits of
string with plastic ends, I don't really know. I'm not particularly
inventive when it comes to doing myself in. If it's quick and
relatively painless, then yay! Let me at it. If it's slow and the
equivalent of a body wide paper cut? Thanks but you can keep it. No
really, you have it. I'm fine with the death I've got.
    Hey, paper cuts really hurt!
    So what did I do? I didn't have
my trusty little tuppenny sidekick geeing me on. Not that I think
that's a bad thing. Mr Two Pence had caused me a whole load of
trouble and heartache and had then piled on a good wadge more for
the simple pleasure of it. Nice of him, eh? Listen to me.
Heartache. Trouble. ME! I sound like a right selfish arse. Sod all
happened to ME, apart from the ruination of my life, of course, and
the everso slight inconvenience of being stuck in a padded cell.
But at least I had a life! Thanks to me, all those people...
    All those people.
    Deeeeep breath. In through the
nose, out through the mouth. Focus.
    Plimsoles. Crappy little
fall-apart-if-you-sneezed soft shoes for PE. God I hated PE.
Physical Education? My physique was educated enough, thank you very
much. Maybe it would have gotten an F in the mock exams - well,
maybe a C if I was a wee bit vain - but running around a muddy
field in the rain in shorts in September was not something I
thought my body needed to learn. And cross country?
    Can I ask why?
    A group of kids running (and I
use the term about as loosely as the Weightwatchers Slimmer of the
Year's old knickers) around the streets, ducking into alleys for a
crafty ciggy or nipping home for a packet of salt 'n' vinegar
before running across the muddy field, in the rain... You know how
it goes.
    Back to the molecular
transference of my physical atomic structure from one spatial
co-ordinate to an alternative one. Or good old teleportation to
you, me and the lampost.
    I'd built myself up to a grand
old height for the big day. The hour of doom was noon, when the sun
would be high in the sky, birds would be singing, kids would be
playing and the plague that a pair of nice, sweet, stupid parents
had named Sin would be incinerated. Was Justice ever sweeter? I
think not. I had no real ideas about what I was going to do - the
methodology of my madness. Well, you've got to be mad to kill
yourself, haven't you? Mad, but not necessarily crazy, thankee very
much. I was wound tighter than Donald Duck's behind, snip snapping
at anyone who happened by my cell that morning. Not that there were
many. Room W17 didn't get that many visitors under normal
circumstances. It wasn't the local branch of Woolworths, nor was it
the local drugs den. It was just a simple padded cell, or rather
cushioned accommodation, a third of the way along a blazingly white
corridor of similar such rooms.
    I used to like the lights,
recessed into the high ceiling (so, I suppose, I couldn't jump up
and bash my brains in if I was so inclined), fairly subdued to help
keep me calm and equally subdued. It meant that when I ventured out
of my cell, either by choice or by 'request', six inch nails of
light were immediately hammered into the depths of my optic nerves,
at least until I became accustomed to the 600 watt neon strips
they'd decided to install in the corridor. Yes, they probably were
only 60 watt bulbs, but combining white light with white ceilings,
floors and walls, and dressing the staff in the same colour, enough
to make them often look like disembodied heads floating along the
hall, was something of a contrast to the relative duskiness of my
room.
    On this fine morning, however,
no amount of twilight could ease my tension. It was the right thing
to do. Of course it was. End