Although I do not know what it means - or why it even happened - it happened whilst I was sitting in a dreary, secluded bar somewhere on the outskirts of town, violent blasts of wind and rain whip-lashing against small, square windows.  The tepid lights - cat's eyes in a long, flat roof - kept blinking, making my wineglass vanish and re-appear.  The dull and grainy music was further ruined by random periods of silence, during which the various conversations being held in each corner of the room grew loud with coughing and laughter.
    I had recently suffered the death of my sister in a car crash, the drunken driver of which had survived, if only just; and the atmosphere conjured up by the hostile weather and tides of jumbled talk reflected, almost perfectly, my present state of mind.
    When the lights flickered for perhaps the tenth time and the music went dead, the voices of two new, rain-soaked arrivals increased in volume, to the extent that I could hear them clearly without making any effort. They were young, male, sitting more or less opposite, sipping fat glasses of beer and talking about a film that they had been to see at the cinema; more specifically, about an apparently amazing punch or kick the heroic star had dished out to an evil and wholly deserving bad-guy.
    "See him though," exclaimed one of them breathlessly, as if he'd taken a jog around the block and was struggling to keep bringing out the words. "He just went like that... Twisted himself round, then BANG! Smacked him in the side of the head."
     Glancing, grinning, around the room, the boy then flicked his short, wet hair, reclaimed his chair, clapped his hands with delight and laughed. 
    The music returned, as if on cue.  I picked up my wine and took a sip.

    A waitress came into my field of view, wiping down a table, sliding ashtrays back and forth.  Ginger-hair, slim, late-teens perhaps, she caught my glance, smiled, altered her pace.  Again, the lights blinked, and the girl, for a moment, became a shadow.  Thunder rumbled; the music cut off.  Talk and laughter swarmed the dimly lit room.
    "...Just went like that - SMACK!  And all blood just like, gushed over the wall..."
    Two more seconds; music reclaimed the air.  But now the boy, the great performer, noticed my stare, and his grin curled slowly down.  He mimed something to his companion and pointed in my direction. The other, who had his back to me and was wearing a bright red baseball cap, looked over his shoulder, met my eyes...  Then nodded and turned back round.
    "Do you mind if I wipe your table?" I barely heard these gently spoken words.  Indeed, I thought I'd imagined them.  "Excuse me sir, do you mind if I wipe-"
    "Oh.  Yes, of course, I'm sorry," I picked up my drink.
    The waitress maintained eye contact with me for a moment, looking as if she might say something... And then began to wipe my table down with a bright yellow sponge.
    I watched her.  She worked in slow, delicate smears, wore a small silver watch around a thin white wrist, had a dozen beauty spots dotted up her arm.  Soap-sud patterns swept in half-moons across the varnish, as if my table were being sprinkled with tiny, evaporating jewels. 
    Tears melted my vision.  The waitress stopped.
    "Are you alright, sir?"
    I had been required to identify my sister's body, and now, at this of all times, her flesh-torn face was staring back at me.  I swallowed and sighed.  Let the tears descend my cheeks.  Nodded firmly.  "Oh, yes, yes I'm just fine.  How are you?"
    "Fine," She picked up her sponge and looked at it.  Then at me.  "Are you allergic to disinfectant?"
    "What?" I dabbed my face with my shirt sleeves. 
    "Disinfectant, sir.  I thought maybe-"
    "Don't be silly, I'm not allergic to anything.  You just carry on."
    "But you're crying, sir,"
    "Of course I'm not crying!" I half-laughed, nearly choked on stifled pain.  "Look," Anger, bitterness.  "I've-I've had a bad week, and… And I'd like to be left alone.  Would that be possible?"
    The waitress glared at me.  She cuddled the sponge to her chest, apologised under her breath and walked briskly along to the next table.
    I was left with a worthless apology on my tongue and blurry view of the two boisterous, rain-soaked youths.  The one in the red baseball cap, I noticed (not without a shiver of surprise), was beckoning me over to their table.  "Oi," he was miming, showing me his small, even teeth. "Oi you, come here, come on.  Come over here."  Rain sizzled away at the glass.  I glanced at the waitress; tried to send her telepathic apologies.  "Oi, pssst, mister," Faced forwards again, frowning; anger, bitterness re-building.  "Come here a sec, will you?  We just want to talk to you, alright?  Just for a minute."
    I hissed breath, stood up and began to walk unsteadily around my table. The two boys - confident eyes and harsh whispers - nudged their chairs together, reached out and pulled a third one up.  I got there quickly, slumped down; found myself staring into the pale, wet faces of my opponents.
    "What do you want," I said.
    "Look mate," said the red-hatted boy, leaning casually towards me. "Can I just ask you something, right.  Are you gay?"
    "What?"
    "I said are you gay.  You know, are you queer."
    "No."
    "Then what the hell are you staring at us for.  Eh?  What's your problem?"
    "Nothing," I said.  They didn't hear.  "Nothing, nothing's my problem, okay?"
    "Then why were you gawping at us like a fish you sad get?"  The boy in the red hat jabbed his finger at me and crinkled up his face.  "People like you, right, you don't know what you're on about.  We were just talking about a film, okay, what's wrong with that?  Eh?  You think we're gonna turn into serial killers, don'tcha.  Too much exposure to violence," He laughed, and threw his arms up in the air.  "Take a look around, pal.  Watch the news.  Violence is everywhere, right, it's just part of everyday life.  If you can't teck it man, you're screwed; you're living in Barbie Land."  He glanced at his companion, who'd been nodding and grinning like a pair of wind-up teeth.  "He can't teck it, can he?  What'd you reckon?"
    "Nah way man," The other boy shrugged and dipped his finger into his beer.  "It's just prejudice innit.  We were just talking about a film, weren't we - I mean, what's wrong with that?  Nowt, that's what.  It's just prejudice."
    They each picked up their drinks and took big mouthfuls evidently satisfied with what had passed between us so far.
    Oddly, I could not find it within myself to directly respond to any of their accusations.  I was, in fact, preoccupied with the strangeness of my own thoughts, for, on the one hand, I could not shake the bruised and blood-stained face of my dead sister, and on the other, I was unable to drop the manner in which these two boys had summoned me to their table in order to justify their apparently harmless banter.
    The resulting position was rather awkward; perhaps comparable to that of a young child who was been presented with two very different plastic shapes, and told - not by a teacher, but by a ghostly voice in the back of his head - that they can in fact be slotted together to create an entirely new shape.  But the more I struggled to make sense of my thoughts, the more foggy and meaningless they became.  Sometimes, I would go so far as to formulate the first few words in a sentence - think I'd cracked the puzzle, as it were...  But then the rest of it would hide away in the shadows of my uncertainty, perhaps making my lips tremble, or my hand to reach down to scratch my leg. I couldn't understand these two boys - just as they could not really understand themselves...  And yet, somehow, I knew that there was harm in their conduct - some high-riding flag, perhaps, promoting what ought to be condemned - but chasing these thoughts was like trying to focus on coloured blobs after staring at the sun.  At last, after too long a silence, I gave up, and spat out one single, summarising word:
    "Why?"
    The two boys glanced at one another, then looked back at me.  "What - are you winding us up, or something?  What're you on about 'why` - why what?"
    The other one cracked out laughing.  "Look at his face, I don't think he knows, does he.  He's lost it."  He leaned over the table and said in a sarcastic voice:  "Have you lost your thread?  Eh?  Do you even know what you're on about?"
    They began to take it in turns to ask me patronising questions.
    "Do you know what your name is?"
    "Do you know where you are?"
    "Have you ever had a date?"
    "Do you know what a condom is?"
    "Do you know what a woman is?  Eh?  Hello-o?  Anyone ho-ome?"
    (Couldn't catch it.  Couldn't speak.  Couldn't.)
    "Ah, come on, Jase, let's get out of here.  He's just brain-dead."
    "Have you ever looked in the mirror and thought what an ugly bastard you are?"
    "Look, come on, leave him man.  He might be a psycho."
    "Are you a psycho?  Eh?  You gonna leap over the table and smack my head in?"
    (Don't speak - can't speak - don't speak - can't speak.)
    "Nah...  You're just a sad little tramp, aren't you. Little peasant, little scrubber," This one - the one in the bright red cap - was, I realised, on a roll.  He pushed back his chair, came forwards and slapped me, hard, across the face.  Shock and pain tinted my vision; I clung onto the table, desperate to keep my balance, to fight the rage, to bottle the anger.  Through narrowed eyes I caught the phantom of my attacker, standing close, pointing, shouting, "DON'T STARE, RIGHT?  YOU GET THAT YOU SCABBY OLD TWAT? DON'T FUCKING STARE."
    They ran, laughing, shrieking further abuse to everyone in the bar. Staff poked their heads out of doors, sprang up from tables, came over to see if I was alright.  Thunder groaned; lightening winced.  People touched my face, my shoulders, eased me out of the chair, took me back - back across the room - back to where this memory began...  Alone with the wine, a prisoner in time, clinging like a climber to my thoughts. "Shouldn't have gone over there, fella," They said, "Shouldn't have gone near them, they're known trouble-makers around here - stay away next time, alright, stay away."
    Through all the moving bodies, I caught sight of the waitress standing nearby.  She was tittering with some of the onlookers, shaking her head and miming words like "what a poor, sad guy."

    I do not know why this memory lingers so powerfully in my mind, but ever since that day - ever since the boy in the red cap whacked me across the face - I have dreamt the same scenario every night.
    I dream of a man walking down an alleyway towards a steaming, lidless dustbin - a refuse heap of thrown-away human beliefs.  His hands are out of pockets; his footsteps, graceful and silent.  Around him: brickwork, graffiti and paper-white sky; a freeze frame of urban back street.  Upon reaching this hot, smoking barrel of the forgotten and wasted, the man stops and stares at it.  Then, pulling back his sleeves, he nudges closer to the smoke and bends at the knees as if about to salvage for some breathtaking treasure.  His naked arm, blue with tattoos, tears curls through the mist as he plunges it deep into the contents of the canister.  He winces, covers his nostrils, clenches teeth, jerks and pulls back, foul liquid sloshing, bubbling, painting skin.  Moving away, still crouched, he extracts his discovery; holds it high like a crimson lantern.  What he drags, dripping, from the bin, is always, every night, the same thing: a torn out human heart, plastic red and still pumping.

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