By Gavin Salisbury

Artwork by Rabidwire.

The one with the twitching, broken nose decides that a single kick to my midriff will suffice and walks away backwards, watching me carefully still, just in case the blood all over my face is actually fake, or my pitiful whimpering is merely an act. His tattooed friend, whose blue cheek messages I cant make out at all, is more circumspect, and boots me a couple more times in the legs to make sure I’m immobilised.

They mumble to each other, but all I make out is swearing. Their eyes are dark and empty, like their words. They’ve got hold of my wallet, though I dont remember them taking it.” No money, have yuh?” Broken Nose says more loudly. “We’ll have to see about that, won we, boy?” Large, brown teeth in his distended mouth.

My body tells me nothing. I cannot move much, thats all. Their bodies are thin and dirty, their hair matted and patchy. I can hardly bear the thought of their hands and boots touching me. So I concentrate on the physical pain instead.

They look pleased with themselves because they’ve found a tenner in one of the wallet compartments. They throw the rest at my head; luckily it all hangs together in its little parcel. I’m in no state to go around gathering up cash-point cards and miscellaneous bits of paper off the street.

They keep on watching me from the other kerb. I stop moaning in the hope that they’ll go away and leave me alone to lick my wounds.

Of course they don’t understand what they’re dealing with, what they have brought upon themselves. They don’t understand anger, only fear.
And I am beyond fear.

I have time to think now, after the initial shock. I try to concentrate, to take my mind off the blood pouring out of me and to recall instead last weekend, when those kids with the fuck-off ghetto-blaster invaded my space in Regents Park. They forced me to put down my book, and to turn my blackest thoughts against them. A swarm of black-blue, iridescent beetles appeared all around their heads and shoulders and arms. The kids leapt to their feet straight away, and tried to bat the beetles off them, but more and more appeared. The beetles were harmless, and even beautiful on such a sunny day, as they caught the light and twisted it. But they were huge and buzzing, and scary because they came from nowhere.

They drove the kids away, and I could read in peace again.

I can still see the two men out of the corner of my one eye not filmed over with blood. They’re sitting on the bonnet of a parked car now, arguing vociferously about what to do next, as if it mattered.

“Were wastin’ our time hangin round here,” Broken Nose says. “Best move on before someone notices Mr Victim over there.”

“Well as I say I wanna wait ‘n’ see if he dies”, Tattoo answers.

“Why wait? We can make sure now if it means that much to yuh.”

Mustering all my energy, I manage to call up those lovely, disgusting creatures again. Some land on the mens arms and hands, some swarm around their heads, brushing their ears and eyelids.

“I’m not sayin I wan im to die. I jus wanna know if Ive killed someone or not don’t you? Its better to know... Christ, what’s that creepy feeling? Fuckin hell, where’d that lot come from? Fuckin bugs all over me!”

Broken Nose is already busy clawing at himself. They both leap off the car and jump up and down, trying to shake off a mass of beetles they can hardly see, pawing at each arm and hand in turn. The iridescence is lost to them: the vague streetlights dull everything to sickly oranges and yellows. And blackness. The men are almost covered in blackness.

I bring up bats next fluttering pipistrelles and the larger horseshoes.(Theyre the only ones I know.) They too are harmless, but intimidating in large numbers. The mens swatting motions get more desperate.

I can’t even move my mouth to smile. And meanwhile I’m already moving on to slightly bigger and slightly more vicious things, in the shape of weasels (small, stumpy-tailed), stoats (bigger, black-tip tailed), and mink (bigger still, darker, most vicious). They’re agile buggers, these mustelids: under my guidance, they can really jump and leap and claw and nip, hissing and yelping all the while. Only a few of each, but theyre a veritable sharp-storm. The men cant get real words out now, all they can produce is swearing so pure (so dirty) that I cant pick out individual obscenities.

I leave the beetles there too, of course, but they’ve rather lost their headline status.

Blood is oozing out of my side. Did they actually stab me? I feel sticky all over. And what pains me the most is the dirtiness. Im lying in a back street, after all. The road must be absolutely filthy.

Tattoo and Broken Nose are on their knees now, being dive-bombed by common terns and black-headed gulls. A truly beautiful sight, Im sure, though the birds do tend to turn on each other at the slightest provocation.

Not enough. More power. I want the mens eyes. And I remember the peregrine falcon, which I saw dive-bomb a hapless pigeon last winter. The fastest bird in the world stunned the poor creature in mid-air and carried it off to an electricity pylon, where he started to pluck it while it was still wriggling.

A black shape, wings folded tightly to its side; just the white face pattern visible in terms of colour. Over and over again it dives; this bird has so much energy! As it rises after each sally it calls, and I can hear it clearly over the harsh cries of the terns and gulls, over the hissing of the mustelids, over the buzzing of the beetles wing cases.

And over the rasping of my own breathing. But I can’t hear the two men any more, though that doesn’t stop our attack on them. I can’t see them any more either. In fact I can’t see anything at all.

I feel another kick in my legs: more of a prod, perhaps. Or is it the nose of a rat, testing me and tasting me prior to calling for backup, when it sees I’m helpless?

For rats come unbidden, always. They follow us humans wherever we go, and are just as dirty as we are. Untold millions of them, living in darkness. Living off us.

I feel a sensation like tickling on my side. It swarms all over me.

I bid my creatures return to me, to leave those dirty bastards to die their own way, in their own sordid time, if they havent done so already. No need to think about them any more. I need the wild energy, the colours, the living, moving shapes inside me again. I have none of my own any more: Im curled up like a foetus in the dark.
The tickling over my body turns into pain.

I cannot summon any more hope. Even my blood feels black and cold.