Life Beyond… Part 1

[This story was originally written in 2004. I updated it in 2010 and again in 2014 and yet again in 2016 so I thought that it was time it got posted.]

Many of us have seen the people selling the Big Issue plying their magazine outside the Tube stations and other prime locations. They come and go over the years. They sell a copy and pocket a bit of money from the sale. They work hard and for most of them it is the first step in their return to some form of normality from whatever deep dark place that have been.

A lot of people who buy their copies don’t read them but still continue do make their purchases just so that they can feel good about helping someone out.
I usually buy a copy not that I read much of it but at least these Guys (And a few Girls) were trying to get themselves and their lives out of the gutter. You never know when it might be you who finds themselves out of a job and homeless.

Town Princess

Almost every town probably has its rituals.

You know, the stuff that brings the neighbors together, have a bit of fun, remember the important stuff the past or celebrate the future.

My town’s ritual is a bit ... different.

It all started about ten years ago.

We had two stunning revelations that shook us to the core.

The first was the suicide of a teen named Brett Markson. He’d been popular, involved in local charities, always the first to step up when called upon, so his death came out of the blue to all of us.

CHAPTER 46
Susie was annoying for some weeks after that, as she fretted for what she clearly saw as vindication of her status. I had spent quite a while trying to straighten out the tax people for her PAYE and that, but no matter how many times she saw her name on a payslip she still didn’t seem to find my recognition ‘official’ enough. The Saturday it finally came, she went missing for an evening, returning home in the small hours in a very well-oiled state. I said nothing as she came in, just made her a cup of tea and saw her safely up the stairs.