I knew Jeremy from the care home where I did my community service. The magistrate gave me one hundred hours.
Jeremy was a miserable git who sat in bed all day stinking out his room. It was my job to clean him up. When I could I left him festering in his own mess.
His legs didn’t work; he couldn’t walk. Or so he said. I reckoned he could walk if he tried, at least with sticks or something. He was just lazy, wanting us to wait on him hand and foot.
No way I was going to do his walking for him.
The young nurse – big tits, no brain – thought she was an ‘angel.’ She’d been watching too many soaps on TV. She said she liked people, wanted to understands them, wanted to know what made them tick. Nosey cow.
She told me that Jeremy has been a cripple for decades. That’d explain why he was so fat.
It was because of his brother, she said. There was a bombsite near where they grew up and stables where the coal merchants kept horses; something like that, I wasn’t really listening.
Jeremy, sixteen; his brother, about twelve. There was something about a hand grenade. His brother found one among the rubble. He must’ve watched too many war films.
‘Take that you Japs.’ He yells, takes out the pin, and throws it at Jeremy.
Bang! The legs may still be at the stables for all I know: or care. Brothers eh!
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Words: Richard Rooney
Illustration: A.I.
Flash Fiction 250
Flash Fiction 250 