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it all, and it all ends.
    Such are the plans of mice and
men and me, that not all goes according to said plan. It wasn't my
fault, and yet it was entirely my fault. Pretty much the same as
all this low down stinking pile of doggy doo-doo we call life, in
fact. I had no real control over events, but it didn't stop me
being to blame. The finger of guilt was pointing, Pythonesque,
directly at my bonce. I could feel it close enough to scratch my
head with or to pick my nose. Granted, this finger bore a striking
resemblance to the one on my own right hand - I was the only one
who knew of my particular gift. Dr. Connors, bless him, knew as
well of course, but he only believed the sun rose in the morning
because, as a young boy of only 5, he'd somehow climbed onto his
parents roof at the crack of dawn to see for himself. He'd also
wanted to hear if Dawn actually cracked, but he's yet to confirm
that fact either way. It's a story he never ceases to enjoy
telling, and it's one I and many others never tire of nodding and
smiling and pretending to enjoy hearing. Consequentially, he didn't
give a flying fudge about my claims, they couldn't be true, because
then the sun might actually go to sleep at night, waking up all
refreshed in the morning, ready to face the challenges of the day.
Or the stars might be fairy dust in the night sky, sprinkled by
some wayward Tinkerbell who's lost her way to Neverland.
    Who knows? Maybe they are.
    So. I didn't have any ruby
slippers. Scotty wasn't orbiting in a geo-stationary orbit ready to
beam me up. I didn't even have my lucky two pence piece. I had me.
Just because I'd realised the truth about my relationship with that
coin didn't automatically mean I knew what I had to do. As far as
I'd been aware previously, it was all flip and catch. Flip the
coin. Catch the coin. Kill a few hundred people. It had been that
simple. That direct. Except the coin had nothing to do with any of
it, other than being a catalyst. It had been the coin dropped into
the jukebox of my mind, ready for me to press the right combination
of buttons to play the records of destruction. It was a lot cheaper
than the £1 for three songs that my local pub charged, that was for
sure. Except it was also much, much more expensive. Devastatingly
so.
    Ruminations had been ruminating
around my head all morning. They'd been chased by packs of rabid
doubts which had in turn been pursued by... well, by fact. People
had died. People had died because of me.
    So in the end, it was as simple
as dear Simon.
    How, though? I thought I'd have
to screw up my eyes. Clench my teeth and my fists. Hold my breath.
Squeeze my whole body. But it didn't feel right. No great efforts
had been taken previously, when all had been needed, it seemed, was
an unconscious flick of the hand to send a small coin spinning
through the air. What if that was the case now? But to do something
so big had to take something , didn’t it?
    I didn’t get the chance to find
out. I didn't really even need the deep breath I'd taken. I was
about to say some magic word or other, like "Go," or "Now." Maybe
Houdini or Paul Daniels or even Sooty the Bear would have scorned
those words for not being as theatrical as ‘Abracadabra’ or ‘Izzy
Wizzy Let's Get Bizzy’. This, however, wasn't conjuring. It wasn't
even, to me at least, magic. It just was. So "Go" and "Now" weren't
needed.
    I went, then.
    Just like that, as the wonderful
Mr. Cooper would say.
    I knew exactly where I wanted to
go. I knew just where my crypt, or rather my pyre, would be. Right
on top of a 1000°C, hot as hell, flame.
    So imagine my surprise when I
found myself on a beach, breakers breaking against my cold ankles,
my strait jacket lying folded on the wet sand struggling to avoid
being washed away by the tide.
     
    * * * *
     

Chapter Two
    I was shocked to say the
least.
    The strait jacket had been a
parting gift from the hospital. Because of my supposedly
unwarranted tension that morning, they decided I