This one is totally different from normal stuff I write. But a change is good they say now and then!
Lamentably Defective
“Look at you, for God’s sake!” His wife snorted, in disbelief.
Harold looked in the mirror and tried to see what upset his wife in the reflection there. He had dressed in his usual clothes ready for work, tired worn dark suit, whitish shirt, safe dark mottled tie. He had put on a lot of weight, he observed, and the suit was pulled around the middle by his spreading paunch. His feet looked tiny, his head looked small and his middle looked barrel shaped. He did look ridiculous, he reckoned. He tapped his stomach and admitted, “I have put on quite a bit of weight recently”. He looked apologetically at his wife. She replied in harsh tones, “You’ve gone to seed, Harold. I see you; I mean I really see what you are now. Can’t you?” She tapped the mirror in front of them. “You’re a fat failure, and the only thing I am asking myself is why I didn’t see it twenty years ago.” Harold turned and grabbed his briefcase. Time to go to work before things turned nasty. Her tone now was vindictive, “That’s it. Run rabbit run.” The TV was blaring in their front room and the news announcer was bringing breaking news of another suicide bombing in the capital. Harold’s heart sank. Not another one. He drew closer to the TV to hear more. The announcer was saying that a suicide bomber had tried to explode a bomb on the seventh floor of a conference centre packed with people. Irene began clearing the table, clicking her teeth in annoyance at him. It seemed a permanent backdrop to their lives, like the TV blasting in the corner. Harold heard the broadcaster explain that deaths had been reduced because one of the counter terrorist movement agents of a group called Engaged had grabbed the terrorist and plunged out a nearby window, saving many lives. A grainy photograph of the agent who had died with the terrorist clasped in her arms showed a bulky middle aged woman smiling at the camera.
There followed a discussion panel about this new group, their aims and members. One specialist said they had started operating after the Olympic bombing. After four hundred people died in a plaza, there had been much evidence that the loss of life could have been curtailed greatly, had security agents tackled the bombers instantly, instead of negotiating or hesitating. There had now been fourteen occasions when bombers had been foiled by Engage in their attempts, and every time more theories had grown up over this group. Did they have training camps, who funded them? What nationality, to whom were they loyal? How did they manage to be in the right place at the right time, when national Special Forces couldn’t. How did they know where the terrorist would strike? Harold had to go to work or Mr Johnston would be furious. His life seemed penned in by either his wife’s anger or his boss’s. Grabbing his bag, he hurried to the door. “Goodbye Irene”, he shouted as he fled. She replied with a dismissive grunt.
He raced down the stairwell and into the street, moving quite fast for a large man. As he rounded the corner, the bus was just pulling into the stop and he had to put on another burst of speed to catch it. Hauling himself on board he could feel the sweat already. The bus conductor smiled, “Well Harold, another day another dollar?” as he took Harold’s monthly ticket and stamped it. Harold smiled back, “Yes, though I saw a hawk this weekend.” The conductor was interested; he shared Harold’s interest in bird watching and replied, “That’s brilliant, it always gives me a lift to see something so beautiful.” Harold nodded and they looked at each other with warmth and understanding - a shared hobby that brought both so much pleasure. Harold listened as the bus conductor talked of his weekend. Just a few words and then he was on to get others’ tickets, but the kindness fuelled them both. Harold began to relax; he didn’t need much to get through the day. Just the odd civil exchange made him feel okay about himself again, despite Irene’s barbs. As he sat relaxing on the long journey to London city centre, he noticed a young man clamber onto the bus. He looked anxious and was sweating more than Harold. Harold knew instantly. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did. This was a bomber. Drawing himself to his feet, Harold approached the young man from behind. Squeezing past the bus conductor, Harold drew closer. Sensing danger, the young man looked nervously in Harold’s direction. Immediately, he reached under his vest and began to pull a cord attached to packages there. Harold threw his considerable weight on top of the young man and hugged him close in a huge embrace, as if he were holding the most precious package in the world. The young man wriggled to get free but Harold had him firmly pinned to the ground and was calling out in a loud voice, “Engaged, Engaged.” The rest of the bus erupted in screams and there was a surge to the exits. But barely half had left the bus before the bomb detonated. The young baby in the pushchair three seats behind Harold survived, against the odds. As did an elderly woman, unable to get to her feet in time to escape. There were four casualties apart from the terrorist and Harold, but the death toll would have been much, much higher.
That night there was more speculation as to the roots of this effective organisation Engaged, and a tearful Irene was interviewed on TV. Distraught, she described her husband as a wonderful man, who would not hurt a fly. When pushed as to his connection to the anti terrorist group Engaged, she professed ignorance. At one point the interviewer said, “But you must have suspected something?” To this Irene replied, “He just seemed ordinary, I never saw anything special.” When the interviewer pointed out how many lives had been saved by her husband’s actions, Irene looked at him - perplexed and sullen- shrugged her shoulders and muttered, “He was just ordinary. Fat and ordinary.” Two tears ran down her thin bitter face.
