Acid Rain by R.D Rhodes (ebook reader txt) 📕

was a dumping ground of nappies, carpets, torn-up settees, food tins, bottles, coke cans; just shit everywhere, all discarded in one colossal patch. Some weeds grew out from the cracks in the broken cement and were swaying grimly in the breeze. Only the part I was standing at was fenced off though, and as I looked over towards a grey housing block, I saw kids with schoolbags trudging a path between the rubbish.

I turned away down the street, going under the bare black trees that were rooted in the pavement, their branches strangled by black bin-bags, and I followed the direction of the schoolkids. Most of them were on their own but a few of the smallest ones were with their mothers, holding hands. The road curved around a corner and everyone crossed over in front of me. I did too. I was almost at the other side when a little girl, no older than five, went running past on the pavement, her mother- a fat, sweating whale of a thing- pounding the ground behind her, “BEYONCE! BEYONCE! HEY, YOU WEE SHIT! GET BACK HERE!”

The girl, cute and red-haired, kept skipping ahead, lost in her own world and taking no notice. “BEYONCE! BEYONCE!” Her mum kept barking, “GET BACK HERE!”

The girl skipped down off the pavement and onto the road but misjudged her footing. It seemed to go in slow motion as one leg came across the other and she keeled over, her out-thrown hands scraping the ground as she smacked down onto the concrete. A few parents gasped.

“WHAT THE FUCK DID AH JIST TELL YOU?” the mum screeched. With one of her hands she grabbed Beyonce, pulled her up into the air, and skelped her ass with her other hand. The girl had been silent before, startled by her fall, now wailed in anguished tears.

“YOU FUCKIN LISTEN TAE ME WHEN AH TELL YOU, RIGHT?” The woman yanked the girl to her feet.

The girl kept howling. She rubbed her eyes and nodded.

“RIGHT, C’MOAN, YOU’LL BE LATE FIR SCHOOL!”

The other parents stalled, watching her uncomfortably, some visibly squirming. But nobody did anything. They turned away as she dragged her girl past them towards the sign for Possil school.

My blood was boiling. I wanted to thump her, but I held back. What would that do? I thought, as they disappeared into the grounds. And this is just one parent, I thought, one little girl. What about the millions of others? What could I really do? I knew the reaction I’d get if I’d said something. I’d just get told to fuck off. It made me sick. The other parents went on in their own little worlds. Nobody ever did anything about this, that’s what really got to me. But then I hadn’t either.

I crossed over onto the other pavement, waiting for her to come back through the gates. A few impoverished-looking kids walked by me. Then, out of nowhere, an image of those businessmen in London popped into my head, swinging their arms with that despicable air of self-importance as they strode through the park. Where were they now? They weren’t here anyway. They were a billion miles from a place like this. They were coasting up a big stairway supported on the backs of these souls- stepping on their heads, pushing them down with their big feet. It was the same in the tuna factories in the Philippines and the sweatshop factories in India and China. All these poor souls were being crushed. It was capitalism at its most brutal; in order for one to go up, others must stay down.

I actually felt sick. Everything in the world suddenly depressed me. Some of the kids that passed me looked happy, were smiling, but the parents definitely weren’t. I could see the inevitable cycles before my eyes. I stood there another minute. The mother didn’t appear. I walked away.

What could I do about it? What could I really do?

I kept walking, ignoring Gary’s advice to stick to the busy streets. I didn’t care anymore. I left the road and passed through whole streets of semi-derelict buildings, and beyond those streets yet more unused buildings, but instead of all the windows being covered up with cardboard many had been welded up with steel. I felt so low I didn’t even feel like running away anymore. I didn’t want to do anything. A forest or a nature reserve were the last things on my mind, I didn’t give a shit. Everything seemed so lost. What was the point in my life? What could I really do about all this? All around me was a vast hole of empty nothingness. I imagined that they had boarded up those windows with steel to keep out squatters or junkies. And now more than ever I sympathized with them. I wanted to escape. I wanted to get away from this miserable existence, and if drugs helped them, then I understood. All we are doing is trying to escape from life. I wanted to go to sleep and sleep forever.

I kept looking in at the windows of the rooms that weren’t boarded. Here and there a curtain twitched or a hollow face stared back at me. I passed by a porch where a middle-aged man stood dragging on a cigarette. He kept watching me through sunken eyes as I walked down the street.

But the people were few. Most of the flats were empty. But there’s a “HOUSING SHORTAGE CRISIS!” said the media. There didn’t look like a lack of housing to me.

I was walking to escape myself, escape my own thoughts. I kept going at a fast pace, not knowing where, I just had to keep on walking. I needed to see all this, I had to see it all. It was like a secret underworld hell on earth. Why was this not in the papers or the news, why were