I’m sitting on a rock at the bottom of the garden, in a hard frost, hearing voices, as you do, with my gloved hands cupped over my ears, trying to shut them out. Does no good, as it turns out, the voices being internal. Or so the medics say, nagging voices all of them, doctors too, I reckon.

We learn our own strategies to deal with these things, though, don’t we? Me, I try to find a person to lay the voices on. That’s why when they start I go and sit in the garden, with the leprechauns, and nymphs and elves. I particularly like the nymphs, but they don’t come that often. Mostly it’s the bloody leprechauns looking up at me from the grass, and shouting in my head. And they’re always up to no good. Getting me to do bad things, or upsetting me till I get in a mood and need restraining.

Anyway, there’s this one, who seems to act as a spokesman for all the rest, the one with the rich, deep voice, sounds just like that announcer who does the programme links on Radio 3, and he’s always there in my head, nagging, you know, when I’m having one of my ‘moments’. Moments! Some joke. They can go on for days. Sitting in the garden. Lying in bed at night, wound up like a foetus with my fingers in my ears, shouting shut up, shut up, shut up, silently, to myself, as loudly as I can internalise a silence. Put me in hospital, they have, in the past, and who gets the blame, every time? Yeah. That’s right. Me. Every time. You don’t see them whacking the injections into any bloody leprechauns to calm them down, do you? Four nurses holding them down by the arms on an unmade bed?

Thing is, way I see it, after a good while thinking about how it works, is, there’s not much point hearing voices if you don’t listen to them, is there? Know what I mean? Just common sense, I’d say. Can’t work out why no one else seems to get it.

Little sod is full of it today. Zip, zip, zip, flying round my eustachian tubes, meddling with the pressure in my head. And that damned unctuous voice belying the content of what he’s saying. I know what he’s up to. Just can’t resist it.

Brendan says, he begins. But I interrupt him, beating myself heavily around the ears with my gloved hands. I know Brendan, little man in green, crazy ideas about the world. Last time I listened to him, it was six months in the waiting-room to hell, tied in a chair.

Brendan says….. He’s nothing if not insistent. What does he say? Come on then, I dare you, tell me. You’re not going to let up. Let’s get on with it.

Says…..you’re Guy Fawkes, get down the Houses of Parliament with the gunpowder and get it right this time. They’re exploiting the old, and the crippled and the women, and everybody else. They need sorting out. And I’m hearing it, and there’s a beautiful logic to it, but I’m resisting it too. We don’t just give in to the voices because they’re there. It’s a fight every time, some we win, some we lose. Nobody buys us a celebration drink for the ones we win, do they? So I’m shouting no, no, no, silently, inside myself, as loud as I can, I’m clinging to my rock, not letting go, and the voice in my ear keeps on, over and over again, Brendan says, Brendan says, but I can feel it, I’ve got the better of that pernicious little bastard this time, I’m not playing your game, however much fun it might be.

But there’s no let up. A high-pitched tone chips in, and is quickly slapped down by the leprechaun from Radio 3 who translates through a funnel of oil, Shaun has a task for you, of utmost importance, nobody else can do it, it needs you. He has got my attention with this, making me feel special, needed, doesn’t happen often, I’m half-way over to the dark side already, I even ask, what is it? He wants you to strap bombs to your belt and go into a public place to set them off. Well, he’s bloody mental, I say, because hearing this voice from inside doesn’t make me stupid. I’m not doing that, it might hurt. He needs you to do it, it’s for all of us, comes the answer, you need to do this thing, get in there first, before some foreigner from Bradford does it and starts a war. And I’m half bitten by it, but it has no logic, two wrongs and all that, I’m not evil, just possessed. I rub my wrists on my rock till they bleed, to distract me, I start to cry, from the strain of it, but I resist and begin to fill up with pride, but it is far too soon, because it is not over yet.

This one’s for me, he says, and the sound of him is so deep and warm that I begin to weaken, my eyes start to droop, it is like a waking sleep, and I know he is winning. You must find the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and warn them. Am I hearing this? Can this be real? Warn them of what? I muse, sceptically. Warn them of the danger. What danger? From the Railway Children. Ah! The Railway Children. Those nameless bastards. And I want you to hang those brats’ skins in the wardrobe to dry, so they will never do any harm again. Weakened as I am, I nod, and stand up to attend to my task. And he doesn’t see through the power of my acting. Doesn’t see that this time I have won. Because I know you shouldn’t blame the Railway Children for the ills of the world. It’s the Fat Controller makes them do it.

*****

Despite that, I remain here, on my rock, trapped in sorrow, like a wasp in a glass of sugar water. All around I can see where I want to be, but I am stuck in heaven drowning, and it no longer seems so sweet. This is the final buzzing of my wings. I may never fly again.

Give me that bomb. Are the Houses of Parliament public enough?