In the second of Words By Me’s guest fiction series, we have a micro-story about love, honour, destiny and how one man defeated the empire with his inspirational poetry. Not really – it’s about London Road, an area of Brighton that has a drug problem.

London Road is Burning Down

By Hibert Sturmond

In the park, shirtless men kick chunks out of their legs, flailing at footballs, swigging at beers, leering at girls; goals; chugging lager; swill, swallow, hack. I’m reading Kerouac. Sitting on the grass, watching the animals braying – the basic apes playing children’s games; the tame ape taunts his mates.

On the way here: every kind of train wreck, car crash, junkie staggering across my path. Beer carrying tramps, the littlest hobo, a charming junkie, smacking his habit, ripping ribbons of red running rivers rampant with heroin. Calling dealers, stood waiting on corners – conspiring groups making group deals, savings in numbers, discount clubs for junkies – the enterprising, entrepreneurial spirit lives on; spirit, the spirit, where has it gone?

Smoking a cigarette in the sunshine – red hot smoke dries my insides, cleansing my soft tissue with scalding choking dry fumes, burning germs, killing the fug, hot fog enters my lungs, burning up bacteria. I’m fumigated.

Girl walks past. Girl walks past. Girl walks past. So what? Every girl mindless in the heat; skin, skirts, flesh parading past the boys. Girls, boys; frolic in the park. Big dumb jubilation; God in the details, Devil in the heat – stoking passions, burning calories, firing glands; secretions, ablutions; the day before the night – the decadent gambol of corrupted youth.

Sophie said ‘no’.

Guilty; thinking of Jesus, thinking of his Father, our Father? – the Big Daddy of all cremation. Brain fades in the flash of sun – melting like cheap cheese on burgers, flopping over the sides, super-naturally yellow – cheese-food with soya, rusk, ash, ground up parrot beaks and amoebic dysentery.

Sophie gagged on her breakfast bagel. Laughing, saying no. Spitting bagel, bacon, egg and phlegm – ahem – amen, Jesus saw this one coming. He’s the great predictor. Ruby sees all. Jesus wrote a blank cheque – check: was Jesus black?

Park: green grass, bottle glass, the slender under-class, dole cheat, benefit fraud lunging goal-ward, diving header, the diving morality, plunging standards, decline, depress, deny, destroy – when will something be done?  Sophie balked. My suggestion was earnest; honest! Mother tutting, Jesus sighing – angels dying – archangels flipping loops last lifetime. I haven’t paid my TV licence. Would I still be eligible if I removed the buttons for one and two?

Over the road; public house, enchanted hell-pit, spewing bile; the bilious milieu – bumbling, blocking the path, sick and tired – I’ve signed the petition. Something must be done…Ants wander stupid across my leg. Sun roasting my pale skin; melanoma; crispy skin; pricked by Satan – Jesus saves – Jesus saves by shopping wisely; price comparison, discount vouchers, clipped coupons, miracles in planning; forethought, budgets. Jesus, save us.