This Was England

Yesterday I was working at my restaurant in Soho, about a 10 minute walk from Leicester Square. It was a very quiet day, as is any Monday, with barely any guests. I'd go as far as to say it was a morgue, complete with a cold grey floor and the constant flow of cold air from our broken air conditoners. I suppose it set the tone for what was to happen. At around 2pm an 11 year-old girl was stabbed 8 times by a man in Leicester Square. No reason has been given. If you're British, of course, you'll remember that a little over a week ago 3 other litte girls were stabbed to death in their dance class by a 17 year-old known to the police. 5 days ago a man was shot by 3 boys on the estate that I grew up on with my grandmother.

As a child things like murder were exceptionally rare. They were something that happened decades ago but still spoken about with hushed tones, often family secrets, or a stranger's sporadic act of violence so barbaric it was better left abandoned in the ashes of time. Now it seems that everyday somebody off the streets meets their end at the bitter blade of a looney just because you looked at him funny; of course the police knew he would do this kind of thing, he's done it before, but there's at least a few more hospital beds than prison cells so they'd rather let him get to you first. 

London was always the place where I expected these things to happen. No matter where I lived, after long nights at work, I always walked briskly with my housekeys in my knuckles. When the few stragglers wandered around like zombies in daylight, their heads full of ket or spice or whatever they do now, I always swerved out of their way and avoided eye-contact. I never did that at home. Now, when I do visit home though, and I finish visiting some relative or friend and leave the dimming light of the pub we convened in I plunge my hand in my bag and grab my keys. Tight in my knuckles. Go for the eyes.

I think there's a dark cloud looming over all of England now. The bureacracy is struggling to patch up the leaks as they trickle down onto the people and we are left at the mercy of society's most dangerous outcasts. I won't stay to see it. When I finish my degree, God willing, I will leave this land.