Short story

The memory is a funny thing. You can go through years, decades of your life without thinking about something, then something catches your eye and bam! It all comes back to you, leaving you spinning and staggering like a cartoon character who’s just been clipped by a bus. Except it’s all much more painful than that.

Kevin Ssali was a pain in the ass. Not in the bad kind of way. He was a joker, a prankster. If you were one of his victims you’d be cursing him to hell and back again for weeks, but if you weren’t then the antics of Kevin Ssali were the best form of entertainment around. Unfortunately, back then, I didn’t really appreciate his ability to make other people laugh. I didn’t appreciate him at all, too stuck in my own head to enjoy his talents. I wonder if Ssali ever made his killer laugh, or should I say killers? It all depends on your perspective really. Was the man who called his brother because he couldn’t handle a fourteen year old boy’s jokes just as guilty as the man who plunged his knife into Ssali’s chest? Who knows? I certainly don’t. Anyway, it’s too late to ask that question, the Cox family fled London just a month after Roree was convicted and back then I didn’t give a damn. Kevin Ssali was just another stupid kid who said the wrong thing at the wrong time and paid for it. I didn’t care, true, killing him was taking things a bit too far, but when Roree brought out the knife I thought Kevin was going to get what he deserved. But that was back then, this is now.

Now I’m sitting on the same bus that Kevin died in, the wall’s, floor and seats scrubbed clean of the blood that sprayed like a kid squirting ketchup out of a bottle. I think I might be sitting in the same seat that Kevin was in before he decided to have some fun with the guy reading a gardening magazine. It’s ridiculous but now I feel as if I’m sitting on top of a ghost. I hop off the seat and move to another one. No, no good, this was the seat I sat in when….when I committed the most shameful act of my life. When I just sat there when Roree Cox charged in with a knife and brought it down, up, down, up, down, up, quickly, efficiently and furiously.

I was two seats away, hypnotised by the blade as it moved in and out of Ssali’s chest. I don’t even remember crying out at the open display of violence. The man sitting behind me did, and so did the driver once he realised that something was wrong and came upstairs to investigate. They screamed and screamed and screamed like they were in a horror movie. I suppose they were.

The Cox brothers were not stopped when they exited the bus. I suppose the driver thought that if he tried anything his blood would be added to the dark stain adorning Roree’s shirt. The witness, the man behind me, went after them, down as far as the bus doors, tripping over Ssali’s body as he went, gibbering about murderer’s and common criminals and for heaven’s sake someone call the police! It was a while before anyone did. It was me. I was the only one calm enough. Once I’d done that I left the bus, not wanting to be around a stinking dead body and a pair of howling men any longer than I had to.

Published 6th October 2018