Apex Predator:

In my dreams, I am always running.  The smell of burning wood is in my nostrils.  People are screaming for help and water, in equal measure.  I reach the corner of the lane. Within seconds, he is on me and I am no longer human.  It’s appropriate that the last human emotion I should feel is the smallest, weakest one. 

This is of course, a reverie of sorts.  A house full of packed boxes and a removal van booked for the following day; always fills one with memories.  This is not the best house I have lived in.  A Victorian mansion, overlooking the park. At night, I can hear the mice chewing through the skirting boards.  The first few years, after my death that sort of thing annoyed me.  The preternatural sense of hearing is hard to switch off at first.  It’s only later, you realise it’s a skill: part of that thing that makes you an apex predator. 

My name is Howard Palmer Grimes.  In my life (if you could call it that) I have been a chandler, socialite, diplomat, businessman (several times), novelist (moderately successful), and captain in the British army and most recently funeral director.  The business is closed and I am moving elsewhere.  Where elsewhere is at the moment, I don’t know.  The complexion of this country has changed.  A different, purple flag is flying and the time has come to tie mine own, in a different country. 

One step ahead of Goodchurch is always a good idea. 

Until recently, I felt safe here.  I voted Leave (of course), because I knew it would give me licence to operate with impunity.  Lawlessness, instability, mild anarchy suits me.  It is the sea I swim in.  However, when the water gets too bloodied, I tend to leave.  I always remember being in Chile in the 1970’s.  Pinochet. Charming man.  He invited me to afternoon tea, on occasion.  On occasion, he invited me to torture sessions.  I stood there, bored shitless as a child and his Mother was tortured together.  Smoking a Sobranie as the electricity travelled up and down, down and up the metal frame of the bunk bed they were both strapped into.

Up and down, down and up.  I went back to my hotel room and read a Graham Greene novel.  Ironic, really.         

My life, as much as you could call it that has been one long, infinitely complicated, cosmic joke. I remember a Priest, trying to convince me (once, he knew what I was – clever boy, Father Michael) that ‘The resurrection was proof of God’s love for man’.  I replied, looking over my sunglasses, putting down the acceptable - but not outstanding - glass of red:

‘Father’, I said.  ‘This may be the case.  But war is proof of his hatred, also.  There may be ‘no atheists in foxholes’, but Satan digs the trenches’ 

Touché. 

I attract attention, sometimes.  Most attention can be dealt with.  I walk the streets of South Liverpool, in a trench coat (my own), a top hat (again, my own) dark lounge suit and sunglasses (see the above) and British Army boots (World War One Ammo Boots).  On reflection, I do not walk: I glide.  I do not fit in, because I choose not to.  Under Marxist principles (Groucho, not Karl) I am not a member of any club.  The other day, an arrogant young pup said to me: ‘Were ya goin’ lid? Goth fancy dress party?’

I seized him by the throat and pulled him into a piss-stinking back alley.  A rat scattered by, looked at me in admiration.  ‘Your funeral, little boy’.  I dropped my sunglasses and let my pupils roll back, glow red.  ‘Insult me again and I will rip your throat out like a paper bag’.  I threw this arrogant young pup against the refuse bins. The same rat, scattered back looked at him in disgust and went elsewhere. 

During daylight hours, I may be like a smartphone in low power mode.  But I can still threaten.  I can still wound.  I can still feed (if necessary).  I can still kill, out of honour (or boredom). Living opposite a park, is akin to that of a gourmand living next to a restaurant.  As the sun goes down, I become myself.  My power rises, the senses become heightened. I shall walk through the gates and I shall feed.  Dog walkers.  Joggers.  Lost children.  Lost adults.  There is no difference in the quality, or quantity of the source; it is the existence and availability that is more important. And that is why, over many years I have drifted into different jobs.  By charm, rather than skill.  The dead are always with us.  And those of us, who need the dead to live, will always know where they are. 

However, I sense this country changing.  Its statehood and leaders have changed, but there is something imperceptible, blurred at the edges of the frame.  Whilst anthems are chosen and flags are stitched; the supernatural is edging in.  Take my last business for example, a decent respectable funeral business.  Reasonably priced and adequate if not spectacular job done.  Until Coffin Supermarket opened in the next street.  The business closed within weeks, due to a tawdry, chiselling bunch of little shits. 

I digress.  The boy who worked for me, Croxteth.  A decent young man.  Indecipeherable, yes.  But trustworthy enough to do a good job.  Once I announced I was closing the business, he disappeared.  I mean, I can hardly blame him.  But every time I looked at him, I saw something behind the eyes.  And I could never really, completely work out what it was.  Something eldritch, something undefinably alien. 

I do not think I have met him before, but he seems of the same genus as me.  I have a feeling we will meet again. 

At the end of the day, it is all about connections.  In the small amount of time I recognised him as a fish out of water, he had dived back into it.  Sometimes, it is the second fish that is the most useful.  His friend, Cheesy Carl.  A shifty youth, of uncertain employment informed me that he had a ‘man and a van’ business.  I gave this slippery eel a bundle of cash for services rendered.  And then, I recognised another koan of my long, long life.  It is the least remarkable, whom prove the most useful.

The noble have their place: with statesmanship, works of charity or art.  But the same fate awaits us all.  Austen may have written a handful of delicately crafted satires of English society.  But in the end, when she was dying: she knew the truth. ‘Why is life so delicate and savage at the same time, Mr Grimes?’ she said, on the last time I saw her.  Clinging to the edge of precipice and wishing against gravity. 

Churchill is a hero to some, but not to me.  A bigot, a man haunted by his own dark thoughts and the viscous hatred of his own soul.  A slow, painful death was what he deserved.  Both that of the soul and his own ambition.  I had vague, unformed ideas of killing him.  When I saw the slaughter at Normandy, with children bobbing in the waves behind me: I planned it.  I considered a sudden, savage death.  By the time I reached the bocage, the death that came to him was the one I had planned.

Who says God isn’t listening?

So, as I finish this last cup of Earl Grey; as I lie in the coffin and pull the latches on the inside; I will wait.  I will wait for ‘Cheesy Carl’ to pick me up and deliver me to the docks.  If you think as life as an ocean, mine is endless, deep, rolling, eternal. 

The deepest, darkest sea swims in me.  Always empty, always stormy.