Wayne Sharrocks

He wished that he could just walk away from his troubles but wasn't sure if there even existed a place that far. As a result, at night he would take a handful of his Grandmother's sleeping pills to aid his slumber and to dream that he was invisible. Although he could not find the courage to actually put an end to all of his suffering he just hoped that one day his eyes would close, never to re-open. Much as he yearned to believe that he would be rewarded in the next dimension, he suspected that the only Earth that the meek were to inherit was likely to be six feet deep.

As William sat upon his bed he swept his fingers through his long chestnut mane, pushing it back to reveal his cat like emerald eyes, lined with kohl and features that looked as if they could have been chiseled from the finest marble. He stared at his reflection in the wardrobe mirror but the image that was reflected back to him was far from the reality. He felt ugly and worthless.

Reaching over to his bedside cabinet he slid open the top drawer (which was lined with felt), parted his carefully rolled socks and underwear and removed the razor blade from its place of hiding. He then unbuckled his trousers and slid them down to his ankles before methodically slicing at the young and tender flesh of his thigh. As he did so, rivulets of vivid crimson trickled from the fresh wounds, seeping over faded scars from previous out lettings and as it did so he felt the tension ease and the by now well worn escape route from his emptiness, depression and unreality kick in, his mind validating his inner pain with an outer expression, thus avoiding the yearning for suicide. This was his way of coping, his gift for survival in a world full of ignorance, intolerance and pain.
He was alone in the world, so as words were not an option this was the only way that he could find to express emotion and maintain a sense of connection and self worth. His own coping mechanism honed from years of practice and necessity.
Alas as the years passed the victimization both at school and outside the school gates had only intensified, so he became increasingly unable to peel the scars from his fractured mind. Consumed by hate and a yearning for vengeance, he vowed that everything his tormentors held dear would one day be taken away from them and that all the pain and anguish that he had experienced would be relieved...

CHAPTER ONE
THE BEDSIT

William's room, (or Billy as he now preferred to be known as) was one
of three in an inconspicuous lodging house, just off Eardley Road in Streatham Common, London, in which he shared both bathroom and kitchen facilities. The tenants of the other rooms worked for a living, so that thankfully he was on his own for the majority of the day, but even when they were home their paths rarely crossed. He liked it that way, as although his childhood lisp and stutter had all but been eradicated, thanks to a great many speech therapy lessons, he had remained very much a loner.
He had realised very early on in life that social interaction for him rarely ended with a positive or healthy outcome. There always had to be winners and losers and sadly for Billy he seemed to constantly find himself in the latter category, well for the moment at least. For if all his dreams and visions came to fruition all that would change and he would finally be somebody.

Billy's room had a radiator but the landlord had vowed that the central heating bills had become too expensive, so had taken to setting the timer for just an hour or two a day, then padlocking the heater cupboard, so that the dial could not be tampered with by unauthorized hands. As a result of these somewhat Draconian measures, Billy had taken to sitting in the kitchen area with the oven and hobs lit for warmth or lazing idly steeping in a hot bath and topping up the water at regular intervals. He realised he could have always tried to seek out a job, but as he held no qualifications and a somewhat chequered school attendance record, (due to the many sessions of therapy and later the flagrant truancy) he realised that the chances of gainful employment were quite slim to say the least. Anyhow, what with his lack of people skills (hadn't that been how his therapist had phrased it?) and his lack of experience in the work arena, he couldn't see how he could possibly compete for a vacant position, even in the unskilled sector, what with an immigrant workforce on tap who, due to family necessity, where willing to toil long hours for a meagre salary, no questions asked.
For the aforementioned reasons (and many others beside...) Billy now found himself living in the crumbling bedsit with a trickle of state cash for provisions and sustenance, dreaming of a day when all that would change, but for the moment he had to content himself with purchasing the London Evening Standard to begin the search for somewhere better to live. The bedsit was fine for now, but he needed somewhere that he could be alone. He had things to plan, work to do, and although he had yet to formulate quite how, wrongs to be put right...