Then the oddest thing happens.
Perhaps it is the churn of high emotions that I almost never allow myself to indulge in, or perhaps it is the shock of seeing her again, but I am no longer standing on Kilburn High Street with badly dressed strangers shuffling around me.
I am five years old and alone and terrified in a room lit only by a naked light blub. I look down at my hands and they are covered in blood. My shirt, my shorts, my legs, even the floor around me has turned red. The blood is not fresh: my fingers are stuck to the knife. The knife is not mine. The blood is not mine. I rip the knife from my hand and let it clatter on the floor noisily. I pull my eyes away from the glinting blade, and thought I don’t want to, I let them travel along the cement floor. Until…
I come upon what I have done.
I did that!
No. It cannot be.
I open my mouth and scream for my Mommy, but no sound will come out. I scream and scream, but no one comes. No one can hear me.
No one.