Stabby stabby bang bang: God & violence

My name is James. 5 years ago today I was involved in ‘an incident’ as the police call these things. When I think about it now it seems such a silly thing to happen, but I can’t laugh about it.

I was 19 years old and had a bit of a reputation around my area. I had got into a few fights, but nothing like what people thought. Anyway I was a couple of streets away from home when it happened. This kid was coming at me fists flying and I was totally bewildered why. He was a couple of years younger than me and about 4 inches shorter. He landed a couple of weak punches but he was mainly just irritating, like a mosquito buzzing about. When he swung at me again I avoided his punch easily and floored him – it was really a warning shot that he’d bitten off more than he could chew, but when he got up he went in his pocket and pulled out this little knife. I just looked at him; he had such a look of terror in his eyes, but he wasn’t me he was scared of, it was the knife in his hand. He kind of stared at me through the knife and shuffled nervously. I didn’t really know what to do, I had nothing against the kid, but here he was threatening to stab me. If I’d known how he would have reacted I wouldn’t have got my knife out. I held it out in a way that I hoped showed I wasn’t going to use it, but had it if I needed it and he just lunged at me. He caught me just below the ribs and if I’d thought he looked scared before this was something else. I felt warm and wet and then I fell over.

Have you ever watched a film with your eyes closed and a pillow over your ears? That’s what the next few minutes were like. I heard the muffled sound of him running away, I heard screams and I heard sirens and felt hands on me, but it was all happening to someone else. Then I died.

5 years ago to this very day I died. I was stabbed. I was killed – murdered even – by a kid with a piddley little knife.

Let me just set things straight a second. I am dead. I’m not a ghost, and I still can’t tell you whether there’s an afterlife. But I know that I’m on ‘the other side’. I’ve spent a lot of the last 5 years watching. I’ve spent my time watching the people who were in my life, I’ve had to watch those nearest to me get over my death and try to pick up the pieces - and let me tell you, it hasn’t been pretty.

I’ve watched my Mum fall to pieces. She took my death really hard. I was her eldest son. She was proud of me. I’d not long left college and got a job. I’d not long met a girl and was getting quite serious about her. Mum was proud. Then I got taken away. I will never forget when the police went round to the house to tell Mum & Dad what had happened. Mum made the most awful wailing screaming kind of noise. Dad went white and tried to hug Mum, but she just went wild screaming and punching anything that came within her reach. It took both policemen to restrain her. The doctor came and sedated her; he may as well have administered a lethal dose. 5 years later and she’s a shell of who she was. Her life ended the day mine did. She’s never been back to work, she never goes a day without crying inconsolably and she’s so debilitated and listless. As I watch her I cry. I wish above all else that I were ghost, and then I could appear to her: but I don’t know what I’d tell her, I could tell her that I’m alright, but I don’t know if I am. I could tell her that Heaven is wonderful, but I don’t know if it is. I wish I had supernatural powers so I could take the power out of her valium, but I can’t so I have to sit here helplessly and watch her ebb slowly towards lifelessness.

Dad was torn to pieces too by my death, but he’s dealt with it differently. He mourned, he took care of my kid brother because my Mum couldn’t cope. He spoke to the police, the media and everyone else who came to call, he gave a eulogy at my funeral and broke down crying in the middle of it. Then he went back to work and tried to pretend that nothing had happened. He did what most blokes do; he hid away his feelings, tried to be strong and did his best to take care of his family. Everyone says he’s been amazing. But I’ve seen him when he’s alone. He still occasionally locks himself in the bathroom and turns the shower on to cover the sounds of his crying. He still drinks a little bit more than he used to as well. Sometimes I see him just sitting staring into the middle distance. He has a strange melancholy smile on his face and I know he’s imagining he things we should have done together – trips to the pub or the football, him helping me fix my car, buy my first house and so on. He needs someone to take care of him for a while, but he’ll never let on.

Once upon a time I had a great kid brother. He was called Paul and when I died he was 10 years old. He was a great kid, happy and outgoing and he did what he was told. When I got killed he got really scared and refused to leave the house for weeks. He would scream and fight whenever anyone tried to get him out of the door. Over time his fear turned to anger. Now I have a 15 year old brother that you wouldn’t recognise if you knew him when he was 10. He fights. A lot. He takes my murder out on anyone who crosses his path. And he carries a blade - a big one. I hope and pray that he never uses it, I kind of hope he doesn’t get picked up by the police with it on him as it would land him in some serious trouble; but maybe that’s what he needs. Dad can’t cope with him, Mum doesn’t try. He’s the kid you always avoid at school. I’d do anything to get my kid brother back.

My girlfriend was there when I was killed. She watched me die. She held my hand and mixed her tears with my blood as I lost consciousness. I loved her. She had nightmares in the following days and had to relive the incident over and over again for the police and then had to give evidence at the trial of the kid who killed me. When all that was done she had to pick herself up and get on with her life. She had to re-sit a year of college as she’s missed so much work. She’s beautiful. She’s had a couple of boyfriends since me, but the relationships don’t last long. She has this idealised image of me that she expects them to live up to, and they just can’t do it. I wanted to be the one to make her happy, instead of which I’ve become the one to prevent her from finding happiness. I want her to forget about me. I want her to move on. I want her to find someone to give her everything I can’t but until she leaves me behind she won’t.

But you know who I pray for most of all? The stupid kid who stabbed me, I feel sorry for him. Straight after he stabbed me he just ran home. He was petrified. He hid in his room for a couple of days too numb to do anything, He knew he should turn himself in but he was too scared, so when the police came to arrest him they found him huddled up shaking in his room, his knife still covered in my blood sitting on his desk. One trial later and he’s locked up with some real nasty pieces of work. Forced to room with people his mother would have grounded him just for talking to, but now he’s trapped with them. He used to be a nice kid. What he had against me I still don’t know, but his life was irrevocably altered by that incident. He’s had to learn a whole different set of values to get through his time kept at her majesty’s leisure. He’s learned to fight, to lie to steal. He’s learned to distrust authority and everyone around him. He’s missed out on everything he should have experienced in his young adult life – he can’t drive, he’s never voted, never had a proper girlfriend or a proper job. His Mum & Dad are suffering for his mistake too. They were mortified to think that their Son was even carrying a knife let alone willing to use one. They were in denial for a long time - until he pleaded guilty at his trial. They felt all the times people nudged and whispered in the supermarket as they shopped, saw all the cars slow down and the stares as people drove past their house. They moved but it wasn’t long before the truth caught up with them and they felt the eyes again. The dumb kid’s getting out of prison soon. He’s going to struggle.

A few months before I died I was walking down the road near where I live and this squirrel just ran into the road. It got across the near side, but the road was really busy and I could tell that it was on a collision course with a BMW. It ran straight into the side of the wheel of the moving car: one second bouncing along happily, the next snuffed out, lifeless, a shell, carrion. The image of the squirrel has stayed with me. There’s lots in there about the fragility of life and stuff like that, but what struck me was the stupidity of the animal, it’s obliviousness, the lack of awareness it had to the impending danger. Lately when I’ve thought of that scene the squirrel has the face of the stupid kid who killed me.