Part 1

POISON

One

It was a fine June morning when I finally decided to kill Carl Harper.

I recall blue tits pecking at the bacon rind that my mother left by the garden pond. In fact there was something completely Snow White about that day.  The sun had been shining more successfully than earlier that season and when you opened the window the sweet aroma of honeysuckle met your nose.  Ours was quite a small garden, but you would have been surprised by the wildlife if you bothered to look as closely as I did.  I am, or rather was a naturalist and not a day went by when I didn’t picture myself giving a lecture about mosquito larvae or something like that at a Cambridge college.

Instead I now lie in a hospital bed on a cold ward with tubes in every orifice just thinking about what I stupidly chose to do, what the mind thing made me do…

Of course, and I’m making no excuses here, it was because that I considered myself a naturalist that I had to kill Carl.  He had killed something very precious to me and the thing in my head wanted to do something about it, even if I didn’t.  It was revenge.

I had noticed the sudden and welcome appearance of Pieris Brassicae, more commonly known as the cabbage white butterfly and thought I would count them.

One interesting fact about the cabbage white is that it doesn’t always eat cabbages.  Later in its life it changes its diet, having suddenly gained a sweet tooth and fancying a change from all the bitter leaves it switches to nectar.

One interesting fact about Carl is that he would be dead soon.

Bliss, I stepped out of the back door and turned sharp left… Resisting the temptation to kick his bike over for all of the times he had flicked my bare arse with a wet towel in the school changing rooms.  Shuffling in my bare feet through the overgrown nasturtiums I made my way up the path to the pond to examine the wildlife.  I knew Carl was watching me, I could feel his eyes burning into the back of my head and I just knew he would be sniggering.

‘Jeez you’re such a geek,’ he would tell me as that was supposed to be some kind of insult, and I would smile and nod.

When I observed life I pretended that I was David Attenborough.  He is my hero and I wished he were my dad.  Instead, I got a mum’s boyfriend and a garage mechanic at that.  One not very interesting fact is that garage mechanics don’t like nature at all.  That is why they are constantly trying to make vehicles run faster and more efficiently, so that they can kill things quicker and with more precision.

Remembering to put it back afterwards I carefully lifted one of the broken paving slabs on the lawn to reveal pale, moist, yellow grass and scuttling about over this like confused commuters, insect life and spiders.

I must point out that spiders aren’t actually insects; they are arachnids, a common mistake made by most non-naturalists.

A small battalion of ants ran over a large Arion ater, or black slug, with ignorance of my size treating it as a hillock and then disappeared into forest like grass.  There was a centipede of a kind I hadn’t noticed before.  It was quite orange as if it had been in the sun too long and faded.

The lines between the segments were highly defined.  I picked it up and placed it in my other palm, then took out my trusty magnifying glass to inspect it further.  No, it was my over-keen eyes playing tricks on me.  This was quite a common genus.  I put it carefully back where I found it, no fascinating discoveries today.  No Darwinesque naming of species.

The blue tits hadn’t moved.  There was something about me that they trusted.  Nature must do its thing.  I was, after all just an observer, just another species. There to observe, take notes and wonder at it all like a child.

I noticed Frosty, our long-haired white tom cat lying under the hedge like a lump of snow in the shade.  If he had decided to pounce on them then I wouldn’t have been able to react, at least not physically anyway.  Then as if he had heard my thoughts he woke up and raised his head at gazed at his potential breakfast with baited interest. I realised I would have to do my mind thing again. I had this ability to project images and scenarios into people’s heads and make them see things and places, which aren’t there, to project someone into their wildest dream or their darkest nightmare.

I never did find out where it came from…

Staring in his general direction I thought of night and thought of a heavy supper and a long day of chasing things, and he settled back down again like something tired and hot.

‘What are you doing weirdo?’  I turned around and there he is possessing the same mocking face six inches above mine. The one he only turns on when there is only the two of us occupying the same space.

‘Observing!’ I said with a modicum of pride in what I do.

‘Really?’ he said.  The ignoramus was looking around which worried me. ‘I’ll give you something to observe.’

I thought he was going to hit me again.  Carl liked to build things up with a comic effect and the sight of me lying on the floor clutching my genitals screaming was obviously the funniest thing ever.  At least it made him laugh.

‘I don’t know what you’ve got planned Carl but stop it now!’

He ignored me of course.  Now he was plodding around by mother’s yellow rose bush.  His hands were now crossed one over the other behind his back like a Nazi commandant. ‘Ve-ry interesting!’ he said suddenly snatching at something and turning abruptly

‘What have you got in your hand? Tell me!’ I insisted weakly.

Instead of the direct answer I had hoped for he gave me the same old lecture.

‘You know you aren’t my real brother?’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘My dad died a year ago and she got me a new one.  Only there was you as well.  Mum says it is called ‘baggage!”’

‘Baggage?’ he spun around on the grey stone path like a ballerina. ‘Baggage?  I’ll tell you who’s baggage.’

‘Show me what you’ve got in your hands?’ I asked more politely this time, he ignored me again.

.’Things were fine until you moved in with your crack head of a mother!’

‘That’s not true,’ I said. ‘She smokes dope but it’s for her bad back.’

‘Crap!’ said Carl. ‘She’s a drug addict, and do you want to know why?’

I shook my head but he continued anyway.

‘You!’ he said. ‘That’s why.  You’re a pissing geek you are, you and your books and your glasses.  You think you’re so clever don’t you?’

It was tempting to retort.  After all, he wasn’t telling the truth at all.  I didn’t think I was more intelligent than him, I knew I was.  This fact had been proven on many occasions.

‘But you’re not.  You parade around with your fancy microscope and your poncey laptop.’ Then he did something really annoying. He imitated me. ‘How many legs does a butterfly have today? Has it still got eight? Let me just get my stupid microscope and see! ’

Six you imbecile, I thought, six, it’s an insect not an arachnid.  Carl was picking at whatever it was he had in his hand, carelessly flicking bits onto the lawn.  His face had been invaded by the most twisted of expressions.

‘There!’ he said holding his hand out to me.  There it was, it’s sail-like wings flapping frantically.

The Pieris Brassicae.

‘What have you done?’

‘Made it into a friend for you,’ I didn’t like the tone of his voice at all, or what I was thinking as he dropped it into my waiting cupped hands.

‘What do you mean made it into a friend for me?’ I asked nervously.

‘I’ve in-capacitated it,’ he said.  Then, ‘Yeah, I think it’s what it’s called.  ‘Either way it’s a friend for you,’ He made his way back to the house.  When he was by the door he yelled. ‘Freak? Meet freak!’

I examined the cabbage white closely with my magnifier, this time more out of concern than passionate interest.  I quickly realised why it had been so alarmed in that idiot’s hand having its legs pulled off and flicked on the ground.  The poor creature had been in pain, cruelly treated by something that has no reason to fear them or no need to prey on them, man.

For this I wanted to kill him, but he was to do worse, far worse.

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