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Prologue It was New Years Eve. The one night of the year when restrictions were lifted and curfew set aside. The whole country was alight, shining like a beacon to the space monkey's orbiting the Earth, checking and analysing the chemicals and poison. Were we undoing all our hard work for this one night of the year? I wasn't sure and wasn't about to broach the topic. On New Years Eve no one wants to talk about the state of the planet - or our lives by consequence. The pub owner had not exactly gone all-out on the decorations. Not even a Christmas tree left over from the festive period. A banner draped from one side of the room to the next, announcing the end of two thousand and twenty and the beginning of year twenty-one. I didn't really think there was much to celebrate. This was just some inane ritual we kept because our parents always had. Those were the same parents who had self-indulged and over-excessed to the point where our planet was barely habitable anymore. God bless the elder generation. The rest of the room was just the same as it always was, though I had to admit I hadn't seen it so brightly lit before. Perhaps the owner thought the overhead lights were more than enough decoration. Perhaps he had a point. I didn't know where he was. He wasn't known for keeping his place behind the bar. Usually he preferred to wander the two rooms that sat on either of the bar, chatting to his clientele. He was an average man in every sense of the word - average in height, weight, looks, even his hair was plain old mousy-brown. His name was Terrence. I didn't know his last name and had never had need to learn it. He ran the pub I frequented on bad nights. For the last four months every night had been a bad one and that was the only reason I had come to know his name. After a while he got to know my face and later my name, too. My father didn't like the man. My father didn't like anyone I did. Even if that person were the Pope, Dad would still think he was terrible as soon as I said I knew him. Was that over-protective parentage or was he just a control freak? I couldn't decide and had spent the best part of my teenage years trying to find the answer. Dad was somewhere in the |
room. Up the back, keeping out of my way, as if he and Mum believed I would meet a delightful stranger who could snap me out of my dark mood. My parents were dreamers. They were of the old generation. They were the ones who couldn't adapt to change. One of those who had protested at the gates of Downing Street when the restrictions had first been enforced. Like it had done any good. Thankfully the government had not given in to the pressure. And now there was a chance that we might save the planet long enough to breed some new children who didn't develop asthma and emphysema from the depleted ozone layer and CO2 gases in the air.
I pushed aside thoughts about their past mistakes and looked through the crowds, down to the back of the room. I could just make out Mum and Dad, standing with their arms around one and other's waist. A stab of jealousy crippled me for a moment. Jealous of my own parents? That's how pathetically lonely I was now. So desperate to turn the clock back and do things differently. The stupidity of innocence had cost me everything. No, that wasn't right. Not everything but - Stop it! It was an order and one I listened to. It was a New Year and as much as I didn't want to say goodbye to the misery of the last or welcome in the pain of a new one, I had to at least stop tormenting myself. Just for tonight, I compromised with myself. For me that was a big compromise to make. I turned away from Dad's shaved head - his attempt to hide the fact that he was going bald - and Mum's blonde bouncing head of curls and stared back into the faceless crowd. They were mostly my age, some older, others younger. They were all drunk. Terrence didn't mind who he served alcohol to as long as he was making money. What did I care? I wasn't a parent and did not ever plan to become one so let Terrence poison the youth of Havensbridge. The alcohol had given everyone a glazed expression. Oily skin and drooping eyelids, dopey smiles and a crazy, frenzied look to their faces. It was as if they thought this was the last night on Earth. Maybe it was and I simply hadn't been given the message. Just lately I hadn't really been connected to the rest of the world. Wasn't there rumours about |