My Writer’s Block Drained Away
In seven weeks I have been unable to create anything new, then suddenly this morning ideas began bubbling in my head.
I. There is hope for Palestine and Israel
When I moved to Edinburgh at the turn of the century, I walked into the nearest newsagent on Bruntsfield Road, and discovered that he was not only from my home country of Mauritius, but also recognised him as being in a year or two above me at the Royal College. I spoke to him in our language and he responded in English. I tried to engage him in conversation, but he responded in mono-syllables.
I kept going there every morning that week, but he was not any more forthcoming. I gave up and picked another newsagent. When we crossed each other on the streets he looked straight past me, or simply the other way. After a while I stopped registering his presence, and he must have sold his shop a year or two later, and moved away, for I cannot recall seeing him, until this morning, over twenty years later.
He was queuing up for a bus, and so was I. As in the past, we ignored each other. We both happened to be going to Aldi’s in Oxgang, and on an impulse, as we were waiting for the door of the bus to open, I beamed a smile at him, and said, in twenty years you haven’t aged a single day. He smiled broadly and said, Neither have you. There is hope yet for Israelis and Palestinians, I thought. We both directed our steps to the supermarket, although at a distance of about ten metres apart.
Unsurprisingly, our shopping done, we found ourselves waiting for the same bus. I climbed on it first, and when he came in, he came and sat by my side.
‘So it was twenty years ago we last met,’ he said, and I nodded.
‘I remember,’ he said, ‘because my wife had just died.’ And he produced a bar of Roth chocolate which he had just bought, and shared it with me.
II. The Commons Strangler
There had been six stranglings on the Commons of Edinburgh in the current year. The Meadows in Bruntsfield, Dalkeith Park, Inverleith, Pilrig Park, Prices Street Gardens, and Harrison Park. They all followed the same pattern, always after midnight, always homeless tramps attacked in their sleeping bags, knocked on the head, possibly with a bottle, and finally strangled. It was clear that it was the work of one perpetrator. Nobody had witnessed any of this, but a few people who happened to be about at that time, and in the area, had almost unanimously identified a tall well-built, luxuriantly bearded six-footer, with a rucksack on his back, walking about with great self-assurance.
Then a seventh homeless victim was murdered, this time again in Dalkeith Park, and a man fitting the descriptions the police had was apprehended, and taken in for questioning. Obviously the man was completely innocent. I know, because I am that serial killer, and I would never do two stranglings in the same place. My agenda is one, and only killing for every park in the city. I aim to stop after thirty eight.
I naturally hate to see an innocent man pay for my crimes, but my first thought was to let him rot in jail, for blotting my copy-book by killing a second fellow in Dalkeith Park. However, it soon becomes obvious that the stupid police have convinced themselves that the suspect is indeed their man. Then there is a small matter of pride. I wouldn’t want to have committed those acts and see another man reap the recognition for them. I need to get that innocent man freed, so tonight I am carrying out my seventh mission.
