Sixty Seconds Read Online Free PDF Page A

over and he slips his payment onto his
tongue. The sacrifice feeds the apparitions who carry him back into
his room and kneel at his feet in the darkness. A dark God. One who
inflicts pain and takes tiny blue and white pills to stay in his
Kingdom.
    When the
world is dead and gone, he will be safe in his dark room,
surrounded by his soulless guardians.
     

 
Searching

    Jean
sang along with Sinead O’Connor as the iron hissed and steamed
under her hand. Ironing had to be done, even if her back ached
after working two shifts in one day. It was the stairs in the
office building that hurt - hauling a heavy vacuum cleaner up and
down so many times in a week wasn’t good for her spine. But they
needed the money. If they had money then Jamie wouldn’t need to
mess about with the likes of Graeme Moore. Besides, Gemma needed
all the help she could get, with a baby on the way.
    Jean
tutted and ironed out wrinkles in one of Jamie’s shirts. It felt
like she was fixing the world with each stroke of the iron. She
couldn’t fix Jamie though. No matter how hard she tried. It wasn’t
the flats or the fact he didn’t have a father. It wasn’t that he’d
left school early or that she hadn’t been around when he came home
from school because she worked so much and couldn’t afford a
babysitter. It wasn’t any of those things. He could have risen
above all of it if he tried.
    The
problem was, he didn’t try. He was a good kid at first. Never a bad
word. Smart, polite, respectful. Then he got drawn in by what other
people had, things he wanted too. Nothing was enough after that.
Not even Gemma. Sweet, sweet girl. Naive but sweet. Good for Jamie.
Clean, hard-working – she would keep him on the right track. If he
let her.
    She
glanced at the clock. The real reason she decided to take on the
mounds of laundry that seemed to multiply overnight. She hadn’t
seen Jamie for days. The last time he came home, she knew something
had gone wrong. His face was slick with sweat and his eyes were
wild. He had brushed past her without a word, showered, left –
hadn’t come back.
    Her
stomach had turned when she picked up the dirty clothes he left
behind. Even now, her stomach ached at the memory. The clothes had
been covered in rusty red stains. No matter how many times she
washed them, the stains only faded – never quite disappeared.
Mistakes always faded but still managed to stick around. Even her
own. She burned the clothes, threw them in the incinerator – but
she couldn’t burn the image from her mind, her baby was in
trouble.
    The
clock kept ticking but nothing happened. The song ended and Jean
pulled another shirt from the pile. The love she had for her son
soaked into her chores. “Please, God. Please, protect him.” She
didn’t hear herself mutter the words but they kept slipping from
her mouth in time with the movements of the iron. Side to side,
smoothing out creases, wiping away the problems.
    Somewhere, deep inside, was the knowledge she wouldn’t see
him again, that it was too late to save him from himself. His eyes;
sweet Jesus, she had never seen him look as scared. Not even the
time he had accidentally smashed the tiny china doll her mother had
left her. He was only a little thing himself at the time but even
he knew how important it was to her.
    She had
wanted to scream at him, slap his face, break his toys, but she
calmly picked up the pieces, one broken chip of a memory at a time.
She threw the only thing she had to remind her of her mother in the
bin and moved on. She couldn’t do that for Jamie. She couldn’t move
on, no matter how chipped and broken he was.
    She gave
up on the ironing and made a cup of tea, pulling out the chocolate
biscuits she kept hidden in the back of the press. She took a sip
of the scalding hot tea and decided she had been off the cigarettes
for long enough. Standing on a shaking chair, she delved into the
emergency supply on top of the wardrobe. Two cigarettes and a cheap
green lighter.