Richard Dohammond felt his knuckles slamming against cartilage as he swooped his arm to punch the street chav in the face.
It all happened so quickly - but then again, twenty seconds was pretty fast. Richard had been walking home in the damp, dripping early-morning alleyways of London, awkwardly gripping his paper McDonald's bag. It was then he saw the gang of chavs. They were about his age, probably went to the same university as he did, and were dead-arsed drunk. One of them, a long-chinned fellow with a blue beret and mole on his cheek, stumbled on the slippery concrete and smote a lamppost with his skull, much to the raucous amusement of his fellow compatriots.
Richard averted his eyes, gripped his paper bag and kept walking, trying to hide his disgust. Idiots like them could spend the night productively like him, studying and attempting to make something out of this gutter of a life, but they were the ones who had cash funneled to them from Ma and Da. Bloody cockheads couldn't a change a tire if they could. So Richard marched ahead, his sneakers splashing against the puddles in the pavement and wetting the bottoms of his trousers, pushing the passers-by out of his life.
Suddenly, he felt two large hands shove him to the ground. Richard grimaced as his hands, which involuntarily swung in place to prevent him from hitting the ground, smashed into spiky, rough concrete. He turned and saw the gang of chavs drunkenly laughing and snorting, their reddened upturned noses shining in the streetlights.
It was then he prepared his arm to swing.
If he could turn back time, Richard would have gotten up, loudly cursed as he flipped them off, and called it a day. But his mind would not follow his body. It was the rage that overtook him again, the rage of being trampled and spat on for all of his life that took control of his every limb and directed him towards one purpose - to retaliate. It was a feeling at the front of his brain that urged - no, commanded action. And he would not be at peace if that action, whether it be to go to college or to punch someone in the face, was not completed in
These were thus his feelings as he was quickly restrained by two of the drunken youths, now suddenly half-sober.
"Bloody hell, mate."
"FUCK OFF!"
Richard roughly elbowed the pair and turned to face them. He saw the two of them more clearly - one of them had a Nike hoodie and long, shaggy hair that probably hadn't been washed in a week, and the other had tousled curly blonde hair and blue eyes that stuck out from behind a scarf.
"Right. Andrew's sorry. He's sorry. Come on, Andrew, get up. He says sorry."
Richard looked, and was still in a groaning heap on the pavement as his buddy attempted to lift him up.
Blondie was trying to fish out his cellphone. "Look, his parents are dumbarses. He'll sue. He'll bloody sue. Come on, what's your num-"
Richard did not hear the rest of his sentence as he pushed him aside and made for his apartment. He heard something drop. He hoped it was Blondie's phone.
The rest of a journey was a blur - the dingy reception with jarring fluorescent lights, the lonesome elevator ride up, and his stumbling into the room and collapsing on his bed.
He heard something buzz. He checked his phone. He wanted to hurl it out a window.
It was that piece of shite Employer.
Andrew did not know whether to love him or hate him. As he sat in his mother's house stressing out over his rejection letter, his short message was one of hope. But now, it was a message of unpredictability, of uncertainty, of possible danger. This was the last thing Richard needed, especially so close to the end of his third semester.
With a seething diligence, Richard packed his things.
He threw in his toothbrush and shaving kit in a Ziploc plastic bag, and packed an extra pair of jeans and two shirts. He would, of course, sneak in a portable charger for his phone. All of this he stuffed inside his grey sports backpack. He closed his laptop with a heavy heart, the first and only indulgence he had for the duration of his college life up to now. He dusted off his hoodie, now wet and with bits of pavement sticking to it.
The thought clicked in like a forgotten piece - his breakfast. But when Richard hurried over and tore into his prize, the old rage returned again as he saw his Big Mac box was soggy. He dug into it anyway, trying not to imagine what was in the rainwater that had (hopefully not) slightly wet his burger.
He left his keys with the receptionist. For what could be the last time of his life, Richard left his apartment for the dark streets of London. He arrived at the station at 5:27, quietly taking note of his fellow arrivals.
RisingSun
