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Mercy Killing

The night was a bitter pill not easily swallowed, and detective inspector Keith Garrety thought that he might just puke it back. He sat in the front seat of his patrol car, his head against the wheel, beads of sweat clinging to his neck and face. He was only numbly aware of his immediate surroundings, the only thing he could feel was the jackhammer of his heart beat fighting to break out of his chest. Garrety pounded the wheel with his fist and received a sharp blast of the horn almost in retaliation to his outburst.

'Christ!'

His single utterance both hollow and empty went unanswered by the night. A short silence followed.. A silence which cut into Garrety like tiny shards of glass, he felt like he needed to, no correction.. Had to scream out, but instead settled on:-

Holy christ!'

For in front of his car, approximately five or six metres ahead, illuminated by the orange glow of the patrol cars arc-sodium head lights was a body.

The crazy kid had came out of nowhere. The front of Garrety's patrol car had physically buckled from the force in which the kid had slammed into it. Damn if he didn't hear the spine crack as he came up onto the bonnet. The image of him bucking and twisting as he was knocked into the air was torture alone, he had come to land sprawled on his back, with his arms and legs jutting out at odd angles. Garrety ran the incident through his mind once more, as if by doing this it would reveal to him some missing link or detail he may of overlooked in the chaos. It all played out like a low budget flicker film, but this particular film was rated 18 and contained scenes of a disturbing nature. He came to the conclusion that it had all come down to the barrier of transience. late recognition of a very living breathing obstacle, and slow application of brakes led to mow down city. The kid had been walking in the middle of the road in a dark jacket and navy blue jeans, and Garrety had only realised there was a person at all because of the kids white converse shoes, but this spark of knowledge came too late. And now, as of a minute ago, those shoes have walked their last mile.

Garrety had no concept of time as he sat there with his head against the wheel, he could of just sat there forever he just kept going over and over it from every conceivable angle, but always coming out with the same inescapable conclusion, like a terrible philosophical truththere was no way he could of stopped in time, there was just no way

'NO CONCIEVABLE WAY!'

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