The Malevolent Man
Everything pissed him off. He hated having to get out of bed in the morning. What the fuck for? The milk would gave gone bad. He’d pull his jeans over his pyjama trousers, and would make for the shop in his slippers. To the newsagent at the Bus Stop. The newspaper was just a habit. He had bought The Mirror for forty-seven years and wasn’t gonna stop now. Reading it was another matter. Why bother? It would be the same old shit. America selling arms to fascist regimes. Israeli soldiers shooting dead Palestinian stone-throwers, China threatening Taiwan, Russian troops executing Ukrainian pow’s, the Ayatollah tightening the screw on Iranian women. More boats arriving at Dover, inflation rising…
Look at that idiot in his shirt sleeves! It’s midwinter for fuck’s sake. Just to show his calf muscles. There’s father of the year with a baby in his pouch and a brat on his shoulders. That man making his dog shit on the pavement, when there is a field three minutes away. That woman with too much make-up with her fat baby in his panzer pram pushing everybody else to climb on the bus. Why do they even allow that thing on the bus? Haya, the Roma beggar says. Bet she makes more money sitting on her arse than I did toiling at the chalk face. Aren’t there laws against vagrancy and begging? Whoever allowed them in the country?
Oh kids going to school- obese little pricks. After having shoplifted sweets from the newsagent’s. That Paki man can’t even speak English but he’s got a Mercedes. He sells everything, papers, sweets, milk, chocolates… the shop must be some sort of front. Have always hated kids. Whatever made me choose teaching? No wonder the kids hated me back. Look at this one, all ten stones of him … only nine or ten … a chocolate bar in one hand and an Irn Bru in the other. What the fuck does he want to cross the road for? Eh, kid, mind where you’re going, can’t you see the bus_
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“Retired teacher killed by number 11 bus on the Brunstfield Road after saving school kid’s life by pushing him away from oncoming bus.” Edinburgh Evening News
