Youth In Revolt... Or Revolting Youth?

This is not a "revolt".

It isn't a "protest".

It isn't even "mindless thuggery".

I don't often write about current affairs, but I'm not sure how I can ignore the fact that, here in the UK, our towns and cities are being burnt to the ground, looted and pillaged by The Young People.

One of the reasons I usually choose not to comment on such things is that I'm an (un?)apologetic middle-class Guardian-reading leftie pinko liberal who always wants to look for the root causes and underlying problems that ultimately shape our society.

Another reason is that, as a writer, I always try to see things from other people's points of view. I'm interested in what makes people tick and what drives them to behave the way they do. I can't help but play devil's advocate in my own mind in even the most despicable of circumstances.

To complicate matters (because like most human beings, I'm a ball of confusion), I'm also - as anyone who's read this blog for any amount of time will know - thoroughly misanthropic. I have an angry reactionary inside me who dreams of leaving the human race to destroy itself and going off to live on an island with puffins. (Because puffins are COOL.)

With all this going on inside my head at any one time, how can I write about the sort of scenes we've witnessed in this country over the last few nights with any kind of objectivity? Simple answer: I can't. But thankfully I don't have to.

Because these are not "riots".

The people involved are not protesting the police shooting a young man in Tottenham last week.

Neither are they rebelling over the fact that the council closed down their youth club. (And if I see one more interviewed yoof say "no one respects us", I'll smash something myself. Respect yourself first, morons!)

They're certainly not "mindless thugs" either. They know exactly what they're doing. They just don't care.

They're bullies. They're thieves. They're vandals. They're arrogant and selfish and opportunistic... and all the traits I deplore most about humanity at its lowest.

So excuse me if I don't believe this is time for rooting out the underlying social problems. Excuse me if I'd just rather send in Jack Bauer to deal with the lot of them. Call me when that's been done. In the meantime, you'll find me hanging out with the puffins...

Friday Flash - Yolanda (Part 2)

Read Part 1 here...

Last week's #fridayflash story came with not only a 'To Be Continued...' but also a challenge to its readers - could they guess where it was going? It was an experiment to see if the seeds I'd laid in preparation for the twist were subtle or obvious... and when Steve G. saw through my cunning plan, I was forced to think a little smarter. Which, I think, leads to a better conclusion. Sometimes the first idea you come up with is the best... other times, a little brainstorming can be of great value. And as the best plot comes from character, I let the protagonist's character guide him towards a more apt fate...

I hope you enjoy how it all turns out...

(Image by -Kj.)





Yolanda (Part 2)


Do I really expect her to come? I suppose it depends how desperate she is. From her text, I’d say pretty damned desperate. But I don’t know anything about her beyond her name and what she looks like. She might live all the way over the other side of town. She might have responsibilities – god, a kid or something – meaning she can’t leave the house, only entertain visitors at home. Course, if that was the case, I find myself reasoning, surely she’d have texted back by now. The longer I sit there in silence, the greater the chance Yolanda is actually on her way… and then what will I do?

I finish my second coffee and think seriously about getting a third. I’m not going to sleep tonight anyway, whatever happens. The cafe closes in ten minutes, so if I don’t order now I won’t have time to drink it. I’ve pretty much given up on her walking through the door when she does just that.

She’s wearing a purple top with some kind of Muppet on the front (not one I recognise), a long black jacket, and stripy stockings that stop just below her black A-line skirt. Some kind of weird fishbone necklace and earrings shaped like tiny little cassette tapes. Is she even old enough to have ever owned a cassette tape, I wonder. As I try to stop myself staring.

She looks around the shop and scrunches up her face. As she turns in my direction, my eyes dash out into the street. I watch her reflection in the window instead. Thank god for big windows. Then I see her go for her phone.

Shit! Why didn’t I think? When Guy isn’t where he said he’d be, what’s the first thing Yolanda’s going to do? Call him up and ask why. But if she calls now, she’ll hear his phone in my pocket. I can’t even go to turn it off because she’s still looking in my direction. Then she’ll know. I’m a thief. And a liar. And… what? Some scary guy who pretends to be someone he’s not to lure young girls away from the safety of their home in the middle of the night and…? Oh, god, no, that’s not what I am. That’s not why I did this. That’s not—

“What can I get you?” says the bloke behind the counter and Yolanda pauses from making her call, turns to consider the menu on the board above his head, and shrugs.

“Guess I better have an expresso,” she says. Under normal circumstances she’d lose thousands of points for thinking there’s an ‘x’ in the spelling, but in that moment I really don’t care. I’m just glad of the distraction that gives me time to fish Guy’s iPhone from my pocket and hold my thumb against the off button.

Yolanda turns back in my direction while waiting for her drink and puts the phone to her ear. I stare at my empty cup and take a long, deep breath. I know I’ve blown it now. I couldn’t make a move even if I had the guts. What on earth was I thinking? That she’d come all the way down here and be so… what? Pissed off? Heartbroken? Horny? So fucking vulnerable that she’d just fall into my arms and I wouldn’t even have to try? What sort of idiot am I? Really?

“Guy?” she says to his voicemail, though she pronounces it ‘Gui’, and I hate him even more for that. “Guy, you utter shitheel, where are you?” Her voice is low, but direct. It’s anything but the voice of the shy, sensitive ingénue I’d been imagining. People with confidence scare me. “I can’t believe you’d drag me all the way down here and not even… This isn’t funny, Guy… you’ve got five minutes to get your arse back down here, or I swear to Leviathan you’re going to regret it.”

She swears to Leviathan? Riiight... so, turns out the weird goth shit goes further than just her fashion sense. And I’m glad, in a way, because that makes it easier to get up and walk out of there. That and the fact that this is the sort of woman who’d obviously eat me alive, despite my advantage in age. But then again, what did I expect? U know what I need. And I need it bad. There’s a good reason no one’s ever said anything like that to me. Because the sort of woman who’d be that confident, that direct… I’d never be able to approach them in the first place. No, women like that, girls like Yolanda… they get the conceited arseholes they deserve. Guys like ‘Gui’. It doesn’t matter that I’d treat her with more respect and kindness and love than he ever would. It doesn’t matter than I’m better than a box full of Guis. That’s just the way the world always works. Good guys finish last... bad Guis get all the girls.

“Where do you think you’re going…?”

I’m almost out the door when I hear her. At first I think she must be talking to someone else, but as Robert De Niro might say, I’m the only one here. I want to keep going, but I want to turn back more. Look at her. Talk to her. Defy the way the world always works.

I watch her knock back the espresso in one. Only just poured, it must still be molten. If it is, she shows no sign of it.

“M-me…?” I say, and curse myself for the hesitation.

“You,” she says, wetting her lips as she steps towards me. The bloke behind the counter gives me a look, surprise stirred in with jealousy, and that’s the last I ever see of the world as it was. From that moment on, everything is Yolanda.

“Come with me,” she purrs, taking my hand and leading me out the door. She smells of jasmine and old things, her skin on mine feels like the crawling and tickling of a thousand ants. “I think you have something I need… and fuck me, mate, I need it bad.”

And then we’re outside, where I couldn’t tell you, but there’s rain on my face and brickwork against my back. She’s pressing her body against mine, breathing coffee and liquorice, and her eyes are impossible. Somewhere a radio plays Reet Petite. Woah oh oh oh. Woah oh oh oh.

“Tell me,” she says, her voice little more than a whisper, “tell me how much I deserve a man like you. Tell me, how much better you are than the boys I’ve had before. Tell me how I’ll never be happy with a conceited ape like Gui, and only you - only you can satisfy my need."

And that’s how I ended up in thrall to the demon, Y’olan’da, archduchess in the church of Leviathan. That’s how I ended up fodder for an infernal beast that sustains itself on the arrogance and envy of others.

I thought myself better than this.