He could hear them again. He walked to the
wall and pressed the glass against his wallpaper listened to the familiar
routine.
His slightly raised voice, hers a quiet
murmur. The male voice rising followed by a higher pitched response. Then the
escalation, his shouting, screaming hysterical voice. Hers now lost in the
tirade as the noise becomes scary. Then the sound of something breaking, a
feint thud and the silence. The awful, awful silence.
He takes the glass from the wall and turns
away. He doesn’t know what to do. Doesn’t know how to help, who to talk to.
He goes back to the table and looks at the
press cuttings. Yellowed with age they record the awful incident when a gas
explosion destroyed the house next door killing the young bride and her baby.
The husband returning home from the pub to complete destruction. The subsequent
investigation recording accidental death.
He steps outside his front door and walks
down to his gate turning to see the gap where number 46 had been. Never rebuilt
in over twenty years now a missing monument to a tragedy few knew about and
even fewer cared.
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