Watch the News

Haven't enjoyed writing something this long in a while. Hope you like it


Watch the News


He pulled up the zipper on his hooded jacket. He typed a small message on the laptop that sat on his desk under the Saw2 poster, hit ‘enter’ and shut it down. Pulling the note out of his back pocket he grabbed his bulky backpack and headed out of his dark bedroom. He didn’t try to step quietly down the stairs, his parents wouldn’t care what time it was, where he was going, or what time he’d be back. As he passed the door to the living room he could hear the TV blasting out some soap opera drama crap. Pausing by the front door, he leant the note against the vase that stood on a small table under the coat rack. There was a few letters already there from this morning. More bills piling up. He wondered how long it would be before they were all homeless. Not that it mattered to him any more.
“Going out” he ventured. No response. Probably too caught up in the fraught emotional drama of fictional characters to care about their own son.

Heaving the backpack over one shoulder he closed the front door behind him. It was quite heavy, not surprising really, with what it contained. He considered taking a bus into the city, but decided against it. Those 7/7 idiots screwed up that way. Too many security cameras these days. He wanted to stay off the radar if he could help it.
The gravel in the driveway crunched underfoot as he turned left and proceeded in a due-easterly direction. Maybe they were following him already. ‘Shouldn’t have had too many chatrooms conversations about this. You never know who’s snooping in on those things. Mind you, I can look after myself on the internet. I know about proxy servers, IP blockers, all that’. He reassured himself as he walked on, the BT tower just visible in the distance.
“Dave!” Shit.
A portly teenager, about the same age caught up with him, huffing as he fought for breath, having run only a short distance.
“Dave, hold up…” He caught up and leant heavily on his shoulder as he seemed to cough up what could very well have been a vital organ. “Ah shit, I gotta quit smoking. Nice backpack, new? You going into town?” Great, Like he needed this.
“Uh.. Yeah, no, well, yeah. No reason, just gonna hang out in the square, y’know” The fat kid leant over backwards, his balled fists on his kidneys. He relaxed, exhaling heavily, in that bloody irritating way he always does.
“Oh, cool. I’ve got to get some stuff from Forbidden Planet then I’m meeting up with Alice and Melvyn in the Trocadero. They’ve got a new machine in and Melv reckons he played it already when he went to Universal last year with his parents. Mind if I walk with you? It gets boring walking on my own”.
“Greg, breathe, please.” He started walking again, Greg falling into step beside him.
“Oh, yeah, ok. So you seen the trailer for the new Transformers movie? Looks awesome. The first one totally rocked so anything Michael Bay does to outdo himself should be fuckin unbelievable man…’ Dave listened without listening. This is what Greg was like. He’d spend an hour an evening on the internet, that was all his parents allowed him to do. They weren’t that strict, but they rationed his online time to an hour of fun per evening, so he spent that hour mainly browsing movie websites, star wars, aicn, all those. Sites that claimed exclusives but borrowed from each other. The exclusive was only beheld by the site you visited first. He also regarded bay movies as the pinnacle of Blockbuster entertainment. As long as shit blows up and a black guy or two shout a lot, that’s award-worthy in his opinion.

They walked the length of Shaftsbury avenue, Greg breaking off at the store adorned with Doctor Who and Watchmen paraphernalia, continued down the road and hung a left on Charing cross road to Leicester square. The park in the middle was quiet at the moment. Coming here a lot earlier would have meant trying to complete his task during lunchtime, when hundreds of people tried to eat their lunch while sitting in each others lunchboxes. He walked past the Odeon and grabbed something to eat from the Subway on the corner. The trick was always to spell out what you wanted when you ordered, or they tried to sell you double everything.
He found a quiet spot on the grass under a tree. Heaving his backpack off his shoulder he placed it gently on the grass and started to eat his sandwich. He always found it amazing that in the middle of a craphole like London you could actually find pockets of peace. It was approaching 4pm and given the time of year dusk was falling rapidly, which also meant the starlings went nuts about this time. The continuous chirping was actually quite pleasant, while also being irritating as hell.
He opened the top of his backpack and fiddled around with the contents inside while simultaneously pressing the keys on his mobile phone, looking from one to the other. Closing the top of the backpack he heaved it to beside the trunk of the nearby tree and stood up. Having a look around for anyone taking an interest in him, and set off empty-handed south towards Trafalgar square.


Greg sat in the huge arcade machine, the grin on his face actually making his cheeks hurt. He jiggled on the seat like a schoolboy on a trip to the beach.
“Sorry mate, I can’t let you play this game”. The grin evaporated.
“What? Why?” Greg rolled himself out of the hydraulically-mounted bucket seat, ending up on all fours, before hauling himself upright. Sweating profusely, he pushed his glasses back up his nose before facing the tall Trocadero machine attendant. The attendant simply pointed to a large sign on the cage surrounding the machine.
‘No-one over 18 stones in weight can use this machine’. Greg started going pink.
“How dare you? I might be a little overweight, but I’m not 18 stones” The attendant shrugged.
“I’m sorry, but the weight is actually a guideline, the real issue is your… size.” Greg looked down at himself.
“Size?”
“Look mate, this machine turns you upside down as you get into the third level. The fact is, this thing needs to hold you down, and because of your… size, the harness won’t get over your… it won’t go over you. I’m sorry, it’s just unsafe.”
Greg tried to respond, but he seemed lost for words, and was barged out of the way by the next customer, laughing openly in Greg’s face as he took his seat and smugly pulled the harness over himself. Dejected, he turned to his friends who were waiting in the queue. They seemed to be rather attached to each other, emotionally and literally.
“Come on, let’s go”. There was a sucking sound as Melvyn and Alice separated themselves from each other’s face.
“What? Why? We want to have a go on this thing, then I promised Alice we’d have a dodgem marathon later”.
“This place sucks, I wanna go”, Alice’s giggles weren’t filling him with hope.
“You go man. We’re gonna stick around here. Look, I’ve been promising Alice this for ages.” Greg picked up his Forbidden Planet carrier bag from the floor beside the machine and gave a hateful look at his ‘friends‘.
“Fine, thanks for nothing, have fun”. He stormed off, tripping slightly over a step on the way out.

Stepping out onto Piccadilly Circus, he leant up against the railings and breathed heavily. He hated days like these. It wasn’t his fault he was fat, his parents were big, his sister was just a bit smaller than him. His older brother was as thin as a rake, but he didn’t even look like the rest of the family, so Greg never considered him to be from the same gene pool. He looked up and felt his eyes stinging. No, he wasn’t going to start crying. He cried enough when the bullies picked on him during his school years. Standing up straight and sniffing loudly, he set off to where he knew his one true friend would be, always willing to have a chat.


Trafalgar Square was always busy at around 5. The offices and schools were out, tourists stood around in bunches, looking straight up at the admiral, taking out of focus and badly-angled pictures on their digital cameras. David strolled by the empty plinth at the back of the square. He wondered what abomination they’d finally lump on there. The naked amputee statue was interesting, but you’d get bored of staring at those tits all day. He walked down the steps at the rear of the square, over to the column and sat down on one of the steps. Unzipping his top, he finally took down his hood and pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket. Immediately it vibrated and Linkin Park sounded tinnily from the speakers. The caller ID told him Greg was calling. Why the hell he ever gave him his number he couldn’t remember why. He sighed heavily and hit the button.
“Greg, what’s up? I thought you were meeting Aly and Mervin. Alice and.. Yeah, them. Oh, right. Well, I was going to head back now anyway. No, don’t worry, my dad’s coming to pick me up. No, I’m in Trafalgar square, he’s picking me up near the road”. Dave’s phone suddenly beeped. “Ah shit. Sorry Greg, my battery’s going. Nah, I need to make another call quickly. I’ll catch you soon, Ok?”. He hurriedly pressed the ‘end’ button and looked at the screen. The screen promptly went blank.

Shit.


Greg trudged down Coventry street and into Leicester Square. He’d been on his way here when he called Dave and couldn’t be arsed to change direction. He was feeling bloody miserable. He’d inadvertently selected the short walk to reflect on his life. He was 17, overweight, but not obese, oh lord no. His weight was losing him friends. If they actually were his friends in the first place. He’d tried calling them but he couldn’t hear anything over the sounds of all that awesome fun they were having. He was even getting out of breath walking short distances, and it was even slightly downhill to here from the Circus.
He staggered slightly as he walked towards the railings surrounding the park. Looking around his eyes rested on a tree at the far end, and a backpack that was resting against the trunk.


Damn damn damn! Dave pressed the power button on his phone again, in the vain hope of squeezing one iota of power out of the battery. No joy. Looking around frantically, he spotted a Mobile Phone shop just off the square and broke into a sprint towards it.


Greg’s fingers scrolled through his contact list and found Dave. He was sure this was Dave’s backpack. Picking it up he held the phone to his ear. Straight to voicemail. Luckily, Greg knew exactly where Dave was.


“Can you charge my battery for me? I’m expecting a really important phone call, it’s an emergency”. The mobile phone shop assistant took the Phone out of Dave’s hands.
“Yeah, I think we can do that”. She opened a drawer and took out a charging plug for his phone. “How much charge do you need?”
Dave tried to sound relaxed. “Just enough for one call. I’m… I need to call my dad to pick me up. I’ve been to the Trocadero… There’s a new machine in there…” He was rambling, but an extra alibi can’t hurt. The girl connected the charger to the bottom of Dave’s phone.
“Oh yeah, I heard about that one. Is it true you get strapped in and it turns you upside down?” Dave was wringing his hands slightly.
“Er..? Yeah, I think so. I didn’t really get that far up. Just hung around the dodgems, you know… “ He looked at the clock behind the counter, this was cutting it fine. Bloody Greg. If he hadn’t called he’d have enough charge left. A few minutes passed. “Will that give me one phone call?”. The girl unplugged the phone.
“Yeah, you’ll get a minute or so. But you really have to let the batteries run right down or it shortens the life, you know. I can give you….” But Dave was already leaving with a hasty ‘thanks…’


“David? Are you still up there? Dinner’s on the table.” Dave’s mother stood at the foot of the stairs. He spent all his time up there on that computer, she often lamented to him that spending that amount of time wasn’t healthy, and given his recent exam grades if he didn’t actually get out there into the workplace he’d never get anywhere. Start early. That’s how her father got where he was, but you couldn’t tell kids that these days. They sit there expecting life to hand itself to them on a plate.
She noticed the letters on the table, and the note that wasn’t there earlier. It was in David’s handwriting. She opened the envelope and read the note, which simply said.

‘Out of here
Getting paid
Watch the news
Bye’.


Standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square, Dave scrolled through his contact list, until ‘Payday’ was highlighted. He’d probably hear it from here. He didn’t care about who it affected. Or who got hurt. He just cared about the money. Keep telling yourself that. He hit the call button just as a heavy hand landed on his shoulder and an out of breath Greg held up his backpack.

“Caught ya”.



All characters and situations are fictitious. This work is the property of Peter Morris-Kelso and cannot be reproduced or altered without the owner's permission