Write a paragraph using each word in this sentence as the first word for each of your sentences.
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‘Write your name here please.’
A cross marked the spot she indicated. I scrawled my name hurriedly across the page, glancing over my shoulder, the boat was pulling out of the dock but she didn’t seem to be concerned, instead she took her time to process my paper work.
Paragraph after paragraph, she read aloud the warnings, rules and regulations that I must adhere to if and when I finally got across the border.
Using her stamp she secured my passport and waved me through, I sprinted for the dock but it was a wasted effort, the boat was long gone and it was the last one of the day, twelve hours, fourteen minutes and 32 seconds until the next boat; a night spent in the derelict terminal loomed ahead of me.
Each passing minute made it harder to relax, the hands on the big dirty clock face ticked off my crimes, ticked off the penalties I would pay, ticked off the time I would spend behind bars if caught.
Word of the day toilet paper, this morning before I left the secure pod, and ventured across the city to the docks, to make the last attempt at escape, the word I smeared with my crap was ‘impending’.
In and out, that’s what he promised: the job was supposed to be clean, leave no trace of suspicion and I should have been sitting pretty.
This, it turns out, is what he meant by clean: I had to get my arse of the platform and clear of authority before day break.
Sentence me they would, to a life of hard labour and grovelling, I could not, no actually I would not go down: I promised the kid I would be there to collect her, and god damn it to this god forsaken hell, I would get there: I had the money and the means, I just had to keep the smarts.
As the sun rose over the towers across the bay an alarm rang and suddenly everyone was on their feet, sleep crusting their eyelids and backs rigid with incrimination: no one is innocent here, we’re all running to or from some demon or another.
The heavies burst through the glass doors, red pin pricks of light trained on every forehead in the place: no one dared move a muscle; the slightest twitch could set off a massacre.
First they interrogated the women, so typical; always assume it is the women that will lead them to their prey: what the numbskulls didn’t get was that in this day and age, we women are the first to learn about self defence.
Word to the wise ones, teach your heavies to think outside the box; I dropped to the floor, tore the outer wrapper off the explosive device he had me hide inside my boot, just in case he said, and hurled it into the face of the nearest thug.
For a split second the terminal appeared to hang in mid air, and then an almighty roar tore the place apart, metal and glass flew everywhere, the thugs dove for cover and everyone else that had something to run from, well they ran.
Each time something like this happens to me I immediately think of my nice quiet childhood, I grew up in such a mild mannered family, my poor mother must be turning in her grave seeing how her good little girl turned out.
Of all the times I have blown something up, for me to blow up the dock, this time I couldn’t have picked a better time; the boat cruised into the harbour just moments before the whole place caught alight. I threw myself on board and screamed at the captain to get the hell out of there; he hesitated for only a second, then the flames burst into the sky and he gunned away from the dock as fast he could, which was pretty damned fast, these speed cats nowadays shit all over the ferries of my childhood.
Your blood pumped through my veins thick and fast, as we crossed the bay the captain threw a thousand questions at me and I answered them as best I could but my mind was elsewhere, all I could think of was getting to you, making sure you didn’t have to spend another minute of your time out there alone, you saved me once, now it was my turn to repay the favour.
Sentence, it’s a funny term really, we all serve a sentence in some way or another, mine was served waiting for you, for most of my life I didn’t even know I was waiting, but now that you exist, I can’t imagine life without you; and you, over there at that school, safe from the military and chaos we call the earth, serving a sentence of your own, half of your blood living inside of me, poured into me the day of your birth, keeping me alive through this hell that separates us, but now, as promised, one last job for the government, the cash is in our hands and I’m coming, I’m finally coming to get you, my beautiful daughter.
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