There was a bridge in my hometown that towered over an abandoned train track. In my teenage years, I buried a broken computer console beneath it near the base of a tree so my parents wouldn’t find out that the birthday present they gifted me had met a grisly end at the hands of another of my temper tantrums. I thought it was never to be discovered. That in a thousand years, it would remain hidden, like the corpse of Christ, or Shergar. Not long after, while I was studying at college, they dug the whole place up and built a bus pass stretching for miles in either direction. I take the same bus pass to work every day—Tuesday through to Saturday. Unless I’m lazy, that is, and decide to take an Uber. Near the artificial turf behind the bowling alley, they once found the body of a young woman. Raped, murdered and disposed of as if she were trash. She’s been dead for years now. I may have mentioned it before. They put a plaque up on a tree to remember her. I haven’t seen it since I was a kid; neither the plaque nor the tree. It might still be there; I’m not sure. I tried reading up about it on the internet, but there was nothing. Perhaps I typed it in wrong, or maybe the world has forgotten and moved on. There’s a library near the spot now. They knocked down the old one and built it anew a few hundred yards away. Beside it, there’s a pub named after a famous American actor who lived around these parts back in the olden days. When I worked nights, I would sit in the smoking shelter before the start of my shift, smoking cigarettes and watching the pretty girls making their way inside from the opposite side of the road. This was back when Honey the cat used to hang around, scrounging for food and affection. I still have photos of him on my phone, a reminder of a time that now forever taunts me with its ageless beauty along with everything else.

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon UK

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon US