James

In the weeks after I ran that kid over I was a bit of a mess.
Friends came round sometimes to see how I was coping, but from the smell and the state of the place they could tell that I wasn’t coping well.
“Are you eating?”, “Have you been out much?” Everyone sounded like my mother during those weeks.
James, his name was. The little boy.
I saw his photo a few times in the newspaper. He had green eyes, he had brown hair that seemed to curl up at the ends and he was smiling. Maybe he smiled a lot, maybe it was just for his mother when she took the picture?
When I used to look at the photo of him I would imagine being in the room too, looking around the edges of the frame, seeing if his family were there too. Was this an occasion? His birthday, perhaps?
Sometimes I would have to slap myself hard to stop looking at his damned dimples.
On the night that it happened I hadn’t had anything to drink. Nobody would believe me afterwards but, honestly, I was dry.
At the inquest I looked over at his poor mother. I swear she sobbed the whole way through. Poor thing. Poor both of them - James and her.
I cried too. I still do. But who cares about me? Penitence is useless when you have a three foot coffin on your conscience.
So now, here I am, living on the second floor and spending all day gazing out of the window at the cars going by in the street below.
I’m still able to drive. All a horrible accident, so the judge said. Could have happened to anyone.
But that judge never saw a small boy with curls in his hair disappear under the bonnet of the car he was driving.
I can’t go out now. I can’t get in that car. James is with me and he’ll always be here.
That little boy, always smiling and laughing. James, with the brown hair and the green eyes. Always smiling.
James.