Friday Flash

Friday Flash: Villainy

There was only one thing to do. He called the first speed dial number and rested his head against the wall, trying to ease the pain in his shoulders.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“I was just thinking about you!”

“How are you?”

“Fine, you?”

He tried to think of something good to say. “I’m fine Nana.”

“Settling into that job at the office?”

He picked at a flake of paint.

“Sam?”

“I’m here. It’s not that great actually. There’s a bloke there, Tommy…”

“What’s he been doing?”

He closed his eyes, seeing his desk again, hearing the quiet sniggering as he walked up to it. “Stupid jokes,” he said. When she didn’t reply immediately, he let out a heavy sigh. “He filled my desk drawers with sand this morning.”

“Oh dear.”

“Last week he glued all my stuff to the desk and loosened the bolt on my chair so it collapsed when I sat down. And he swapped the sugar for salt in the staff kitchen. He told everyone except me.”

He hadn’t meant to list it all, but once he started, he couldn’t stop.

“He sounds like an unpleasant man.”

“He’s a dick. Sorry Nana.”

He heard the creak of her kitchen chair over the line. The biscuit tin would be on the shelf to her left, the same one he’d loved as a child, with a picture of the Queen on it.

“Men like that,” his grandmother said gently, “are very sad, lonely people.”

“He seems to have loads of friends at the office.”

“They’re just scared of him,” she replied. “They want to keep on his good side so he doesn’t make a fool of them.”

“Yeah.”

“This is upsetting you, isn’t it?”

He grunted as a large chunk of plaster came away and clattered onto the floor, showering the grotty lino with dust.

“The next time he does something childish, just remember how special you are.”

He resented the lump in his throat. “I just didn’t think it would be like this.”

“Don’t let a small man ruin your big dream Sam.”

“Maybe it was a dumb dream. Maybe I should just come home. Maybe I’m not cut out for this.”

“Samuel Hartley,” she said, in the same voice as when she’d discovered him stealing Jammy Dodgers from that biscuit tin in the middle of the night. “I have never heard such nonsense in my life. For years you wanted to go to the big city and make a difference. It’s just hard, that’s all. I told you it would be, didn’t I?”

“Yes Nana.”

“Are you still wearing your work clothes?”

He tugged at his tie. “Yeah.”

“I think you need to get changed and go out and see what the city offers up. A change of scenery will do you good.”

He looked at the boot poking out of the wardrobe. “You’re right.”


He went to his favourite spot, a fire escape overlooking a nearby alley from where he could see the main street as well as the dingy dustbins and shadowy corners below.

Feeling better now he was out of the tie, he tried to work out what to do about Tommy, but all he could imagine was throwing him out of the window.

A movement below took him from his dark fantasy. Two men were lurking at the end of the alley. He shifted into a crouch, feeling a prickling on the back of his neck.

The one on the left lurched forwards and then dragged a man into the alley. Before Sam had a chance to move, he recognised the red hair of the man being assaulted and a thrill pulsed through him.

Tommy.

He was punched in the stomach and once in the face.

“Where’s the wallet?”

“Oh God!” Tommy wailed and got a solid punch in the jaw. A smile spread slowly across Sam’s face.

The one on the right frisked him and plucked out his wallet and keys. Tommy managed to kick him, his adrenalin surging, knocking the wallet from his hand.

Swearing, scuffling, then a flash of streetlight amber on metal.

Sam launched himself from the fire escape, cape snapping in the wind behind him as he flew at the mugger’s knife hand. The impact of boot on wrist knocked the man to the ground and sent the knife skittering into the shadows.

“It’s him!” the one holding Tommy yelled, shoving him aside and running off. Sam punched the mugger he’d already struck into unconsciousness but let the other one go, knowing the place he was likely to hide.

“Thank you!” Tommy sobbed.

Sam lifted him into the air until his face was level with his own, light as a rag doll.

“How does it feel to be the victim?” he hissed through his mask.

Tommy just snivelled, blood and snot running out of his nose.

Sam dropped him like a bag of groceries at his feet. He felt sick, panicky. “I’ll be watching you,” he pointed his gloved hand at Tommy, and then flew up, the alley shrinking away below him.

The wind whistled at the edges of his mask. He landed on the roof of a nearby building, frightened for the second time in his whole life.

He pulled his mobile from his pocket, dialled the number.

“Hello?”

“Nana, I… I watched a guy get beaten up before I helped him. Does that make me a villain?”

Waiting for her to speak took him back to that night, his fear as the light switched on and she found him mid-crime and mid-air, his hand in the biscuit tin as he floated above the table.

“Why didn’t you jump straight in?”

“It was Tommy, from the office,” he said. “I wanted him to be hurt.”

“That doesn’t make you a villain darling,” she soothed. “I put over two hundred behind bars, so I should know. Fly over, I’ll brew a pot of tea.”

“Got any biscuits?”

“Jammy Dodgers, darling. Come home.”