Sin by Shaun Allan Read Free Book Online Page A

A couple of quid for every pill popped and every tonic
taken. Nice little earner. He certainly believed that preventing,
or downright suffocating, a problem was better than a cure. So a
daily dose was an essential part of everyone's diet. What doesn't
kill you, it seemed, makes you number. Not a number, like 3487,
just more numb. Something like that anyway.
    For some reason, this time, he'd
forgotten to top up my levels. Sometimes I felt the patients,
residents, grunts, whatever we were, were like cars. You had to
keep up our levels of oil and water and olanzapine to keep us
running smoothly. Otherwise we'd break down and need towing back to
the garage to be worked on. It was as unpleasant as it sounded.
Perhaps this time he'd met his monthly quota and had earned a nice
fat bonus into the bargain, because the strait jacket was all I
seemed to warrant. Strange how I could be happy to be wrapped up
and buckled down like some reject from escapology school.
    Maybe I am crazy?
    Or maybe Bender Benny was the
only sane one amongst us, and we were the manifestation, or
infestation, of his ramblings? What if we were all in his head and
this was simply a story what he wrote, guv'nor.
    And maybe the moon really is
made of cheese and Wallace and Gromit's day out really was as grand
as it seemed.
    The first thing I thought of -
the first question that came to me - was how my strait jacket had
managed to not be securely fastened around my torso and was,
instead, on the verge of floating away on a whim and a tide. And
how come it was so neatly folded, straps tucked in, arms carefully
creased across the top. OK, so that was two questions, but my first
instinct was not to ask why I wasn't a cloud of ash floating about
on the thermal updrafts of my favourite hydrogen-sulphide furnace.
Nor was it "Where the hell am I?"
    That would have been a good one
for Houdini. How to escape a locked room whilst wearing the
prerequisite strait jacket, in less than one second, removing
yourself and the jacket with both arms tied behind your back, one
eye closed and whilst singing God Save the Queen. Granted I was
doing none of the latter, but it would still have been a good one
for Houdini.
    I stared at the jacket for a
long moment. It bobbed on the waves, threatening to let itself be
washed away if I didn't quickly rescue it. I thought about picking
it up because it seemed part of me. It linked me to who I was. And
that's why I left it. It linked me to who I was. I nudged it with
my toe, helping it on its way. The breakers broke and the waves
took it. I watched its colour darken as the fabric soaked up the
water enough to weigh it down and drag it under. As it sank, the
arms drifted off the top, either waving to me or beseeching me to
save it. I waved back.
    Bye.
    I watched my cosy little strait
jacket, arms flailing, disappear beneath the surface. It struck me
that I could easily have used this watery grave for my own benefit.
Rather than turning myself into the Sunday roast, I could quite
happily have become shark bait - brunch for Moby Dick while he was
waiting for Roy Scheider to stick a gas cylinder down his throat.
The bottom of the deep blue sea was a definite alternative to a
smelly old furnace. If the weight of tonnes of briny water slapped
right on top of my head didn't kill me, the distinct lack of gills
surely would have.
    Hello Hindsight, and
goodbye.
    Finally my brain seemed to click
into gear and I realised I was actually still alive. I hadn't
drowned, nor had I been flame-grilled for that extra succulent
taste. No sesame seed bun wrapped me up and Flipper wasn't likely
to happen by and tell me Little Johnny had fallen down a cliff. I
was still a one and only, walking, talking, living freak. I wasn't
happy about that at all.
    Turning, I looked around at the
beach. The sea was one thing - I had always loved to listen to its
whispering heartbeat as it danced its perpetual waltz with Sweet
Sister Moon. The beach was quite another kettle of