Ripples
It's amazing just how much mess a shotgun makes. The blast had taken Karen's face away, her torso peppered with lead shot. I'm not embarrassed to say I emptied my stomach on the floor. I identified Karen by her brand new engagement ring, the installments finished a week before. The police caught the killer. A desperate crack addict. He took away a nineteen year old girl's life for £40 and a handful of loose change. No understanding of the ripples that cloud of buck shot sent through a community. Fifteen years he got. We got a life sentence. Her mother committed suicide soon after the trial. Handfuls of pills and a cheap bottle of gin. Her dad eventually killed himself with vodka, cheap lager and cirrhosis of the liver.
You get older and think the memories will fade, but even now I wake up screaming, Karen's voice begging me for help, her voice muffled by the puddle of flesh that remained of her face. I had to pull my life together and move on, eventually meeting a new girl and starting a family. but never forgetting.
*****
The man who walks out of the prison towards the taxi looks greyer, but don't we all. I last saw him at the trial, showing no remorse as the judge condemned him for a wicked crime. He taps on the driver's window.
“Taxi for Carlton Stewart mate?”
I nod and he opens the back door, throwing in a bag filled with clothes out of fashion for fifteen years. I had to bribe the other taxi drivers to get this job. The engine starts first turn of the key. I glance down at the passenger seat, the two blue gun metal barrels visible underneath. I've not forgotten just how much mess a shotgun makes.
(c) Steve Toase 2010