Stay polite if you must stay at all

You give up knocking with polite raps and pound hard. The rafters shake. A neighbour’s curtain shifts to the left and then rights itself. You don’t care enough to just walk away. You can hear the loud music indoors. Miserable teens with no consideration for others.

But think about it for a second.

It snowed every day since last month. The eaves are frozen with thick slabs of shiny white. The front steps are wet, and you could slip and turn an ankle.  You almost did turn both ankles shuffling through the snow to reach this house. You had felt like a hero for bringing the parcels. You imagined that they were important and might save a life. Head held high you had ploughed on. Your nose burning in the thin dry air, as red as your postal van.

You pound the door again.

And again.

And again.

Your anger and physical exertions put some warmth in your body. They encourage you in this madness. Then it hit you.


The music indoor stops. Someone opens the door. Screams. Curtains down the street shift to the left and the right and go up.

You can’t hear the gasps, the running feet or the emergency calls. You can’t see your bloodied head, or the indignity of you sprawled across the doorway. You can’t hear them say on the phones that you have been killed.

The police arrive. The investigators too. The coroner and his wagon on their heels. They do their thing - look around, examine you, and talk to everyone. No one saw how it happened but all had heard you plenty. The coroner is satisfied. He carts your body away.

People mill around, forgetting the cold for a while. They tweet and blog. One or two are distraught and ask for empathy from strangers on Facebook.

An officer stands beside the yellow caution tape. He kicks absently at one of the thousands of ice chips scattered where you’d lain. He forgets for a moment that this is what remains of the murder weapon – that great icicle that you had dislodged from the eaves when you pounded.