NOW AND THEN by Matt Oliver (1st place, Flash May25)

I’ve never told anyone this before.

I’m not sure why I’m telling you now, to be honest. I suppose I feel I’ve got nothing to lose anymore. What with – you know – the diagnosis.

It happened exactly forty years ago.

I was walking along the corridor to my form room, to teach my next class. The school was a Victorian building; three stories high, built in a square surrounding a quad. Stone stairways in each corner of the building, the steps worn down in the middle by a century of footfall. Drab, grey corridors, lined with old-fashioned radiators wide enough to sit on. It had been a Grammar School when I attended as a pupil. You had to pass your 11-Plus to gain entry. But now, by the time I was teaching there, it was just an average comprehensive.

I could see two boys at the end of the corridor – the older boy clearly menacing a first-year.

“What’s going on?” I shouted. The aggressor loosened his grip and the first-year took his opportunity to escape. The older boy turned, and I saw his posture transform into an aggressive, provocative pose which I recognised immediately.

Jimmy Williams.

“More trouble with you, Williams?” I said approaching him.

The fifth-year stood his ground, lifting his chin in defiance and staring his cold eyes into mine. “What’s it got to do with you, sir?” he snorted.

I don’t mind saying it: Williams was a vile child. The family were renowned – his father had done time for GBH, and this apple certainly hadn’t fallen far from the tree. He’d broken another pupil’s arm last year in an unprovoked attack, and there was even rumour of some kind of sexual harassment towards a fourth-year girl. He was a thug and a bully and proud of it. A real Oggy Moxon.

“You should be in class,” I said, standing my ground.

“What you gonna do about it?” He looked around pointedly, menacingly. “No headmaster with his cane here to back you up this time, is there?”

“Move, Williams. Now.”

His face was intimidatingly close, as he murmured, “Make me.” The tip of his nose actually touched mine.

That’s when I snapped.

With one huge, instinctive reaction, I shoved him hard. It obviously took him by surprise; I witnessed a momentary expression of confusion and disbelief in his face, as he flailed backwards and tumbled like a ragdoll down the stone stairs.

The crack of his skull echoed round the stairwell as it bounced off the floor, before a lake of deep red blood seeped out from under him.

~

No-one really asked questions in those days. Well, we weren’t questioned, were we? Teachers.

I said I’d found him like that, on my way to class. Didn’t know how long he’d been there. Terrible accident.

Now, there’d be all sorts of procedure and form-filling and questions to deal with. Not then, though. Then, I got away with it.

Did the world a favour too, if you ask me.