Blueeyedboy Read Online Free Page B

that nothing is ever truly over. It just works its way slyly into the centre, like yarn in a ball. Round and round and round it goes, crossing and re-crossing, until eventually it is almost hidden beneath the tangle of years. But just to be hidden is not enough. Someone will always find you out. Someone is always lying in wait. Drop your guard for even a second and – wham! That’s when it all blows up in your face.
    Take that girl in the duffel coat. The one who looks like Red Riding Hood, with her rosy cheeks and her blameless air. Would you believe that she is not what she seems? That beneath that cloak of innocence beats the heart of a predator? Looking at her, would you ever think that she could take a person’s life?
    You wouldn’t, would you? Well, think again.
    But nothing’s going to happen to me. I’ve thought this out too carefully. And when it does go up – as we know it must – blueeyedboy will be half a world away, sitting in the shade by a beach, listening to the sound of the surf and watching the seagulls overhead –
    Still, that’s for tomorrow, isn’t it? Right now I have other things on my mind. Time for another fic, I think. I like myself better as a fictional character. The third-person voice adds distance, says Clair; gives me the power to say what I like. And it’s nice to have an audience. Even a murderer loves praise. Maybe that’s why I write these things. It certainly isn’t a need to confess. But I do admit to a leap of the heart every time someone posts a comment, even someone like Chryssie or Cap, who wouldn’t know genius if it poked them in the eye.
    I sometimes feel like a king of cats, presiding over an army of mice – half-predatory, half in need of those worshipful voices. It’s all about approval, you see, and when I log on in the morning and see the list of messages waiting for me I feel absurdly comforted –
    Losers, victims, parasites – and yet I can’t stop myself from collecting them, as I do my orchids; as I once collected scuttling things in my blue bucket on the beach; as I was once collected.
    Yes, it’s time for another murder. A public post on my WeJay, to balance these private reflections of mine. Better still, a murderer . Because, although I say he –
    You and I know this is all about me .

5
    You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy posting on :
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    Posted at : 03:56 on Tuesday, January 29
    Status : public
    Mood : sick
    Listening to : Nick Lowe : ‘The Beast In Me’
    Most accidents occur in the home. He knows this only too well; has spent much of his childhood avoiding those things that might potentially do him harm. The playground with its swings and roundabouts, and the litter of needles along the edge. The fishpond with its muddy banks on which a small boy might so easily slip, to be dragged to his death in the weedy depths. Bikes that might spill him on to the tarmac to skin his knees and hands – or worse, under the wheels of a bus, to be skinned all over like an orange and left in segments on the road. Other children, who might not understand how special he is, how susceptible – nasty boys who might bloody his nose, nasty girls who might break his heart –
    Accidents happen so easily.
    That’s why, if there’s anything he should know by now, it’s how to create an accident. Maybe a car accident, he thinks, or a fall down a flight of stairs, or a simple, homely electrical fire. But how do you cause an accident – a fatal accident, of course – to happen to someone who doesn’t drive, who doesn’t indulge in dangerous sports, and whose idea of a wild night out is popping into town with her friends (they always pop , they never just go ), for gossip and a glass of wine?
    It isn’t that he fears the act. What he fears are the consequences. He knows the police will call him in. He knows he will be a suspect, however accidental the deed, and he will have to answer to them, to plead his innocence, to convince