Human Remains

transform as the others had. It is her misfortune, and it is a shame considering how she has served me so well today. And I will miss out on watching this one, too, observing and documenting the transformation. But it had to be done, and, after all, I will be enjoying other benefits this time.
     
     
    With all the excitement earlier this evening I am too distracted at the gym to put in any serious effort towards my goals. Thirty minutes on each of the machines, my usual routine, but my thirty laps of the pool take nearly twenty-three minutes. In the gym I manage to tune out the thoughts with the thumping beat from the loudspeakers and the hypnotic rhythm of the woman’s arse on the treadmill in front of me, but now, in the pool, all I can think about is Sam Everett and whether he has done anything with the information I’ve given him. It’s tempting, so tempting, to detour via that dingy little two-up , two-down at the wrong end of Hawthorn Crescent, but instead I finish my swim and go home.
    Before I’ve even unpacked the groceries I find myself overcome with it all. My hands are shaking, pulling the newspaper out of the plastic carrier bag. I’ve never been so aroused in my life. The thrill of leaving someone behind to transform has been completely eclipsed by the thrill of letting someone in on the secret, even if it wasn’t the whole secret, even if I’ve not done the telling myself.
    I want to shout it to the whole world, but then the secret would not thrill me any more – and I would probably be locked up. They would lock me up forever for what I’ve done. Or would they? I’ve done nothing to these people, other than help them escape from the terrible drudgery of the lives they were living up to now. If anything, my input is cathartic; it’s a merciful release. They would have killed themselves sooner or later, and my method is infinitely neater, less painful and possibly less messy. I haven’t harmed anyone. I merely crystallised their thoughts, prompted them into action that might otherwise have been a long time coming, during which time they would have suffered and lingered and probably taken several other people down with them. And I anaesthetised them too, so that from the moment their decision was made, they felt no pain, suffered no trauma, no anguish. It was perfect.
    I take the newspaper upstairs with me, take off my trousers and fold them neatly over the same hanger from which I removed them this morning. My underwear, too, into the laundry basket. I’m shivering with the anticipation of it. I open the newspaper out on to the double page spread that I wanked over in the disabled toilets at lunchtime yesterday, smooth it out on the bed.
    I turn on the television and press play on the DVD remote, sparking the thing to life with a whirr and a click. The porn I watched last weekend, some American tripe with two fat whores going at each other like starving dogs. A few seconds later I turn it off. It isn’t doing it for me; it’s distracting. The newspaper, on the other hand, is doing it. Those faces – all the smiling faces, happy at weddings, the other people in the pictures, the people who were there in past times, neatly clipped away from their lives, neatly put aside – and my penis is so hard it’s painful, still bruised from the beating I gave it yesterday and last night and the night before and yet so delicious, such a relief to take hold of it again.
    This time, when I come a few moments later, I am careful to use tissues, leaving the newspaper clean and undamaged for another day.

Annabel
     
     
    I was in bed but not asleep when the phone started ringing.
    I listened to it ringing in the stillness of the house, wondering who would be calling me at this time of night and whether it was worth getting up to find out. I only had one handset, downstairs, because the phone didn’t ring often enough to warrant getting another one in the bedroom.
    After the sixth ring I got out of bed, shoved my feet into my slippers, pulled on my towelling dressing gown and padded down the stairs. I thought it would probably stop right at the very moment that I put my hand on the receiver.
    ‘Hello?’
    ‘Is that Annabel? Annabel Hayer?’ It was a man’s voice, elderly. A bit uncertain.
    ‘Speaking.’
    ‘This is Len from next door. It’s about your mum.’
    For a moment I couldn’t place him. From next door? I didn’t have a Len next door. Then I realised exactly who he was – the old