Bonded by Blood

His life began as many others have expelled into the sterility of a hospital delivery room, covered in blood and screaming as his new body hit the uncontaminated air on that cold December morning.
His mother was alone in the delivery room no expectant father pacing anxiously outside no family to comfort her, The baby’s father had long since disappeared into places unknown not that it concerned him at this precise moment.

His life, from information, gleaned, later on, was uneventful, the usual childhood ailments occurred as they do in the millions of children born every year. He was named Byron after the much maligned and celebrated romantic English poet whom apparently his mother was very fond of... .This in later life he found both to be untrue and totally incredulous.

The first clear memory he recalled was of the traditional first day at school the majority of the other children were crying and clinging to their mothers in some kind of separation based anxiety dance. He himself took no part in this ritualised separation and instead walked towards the Victorian school entrance without looking back his face free from tears, even at this young age he felt different he felt calm and a look of contentment was just visible to anyone who was watching.

No one was.

His first teacher at Cotton End school was a lady by the name of Miss Sheridan a plump woman whose penchant for flowery dresses and mismatched cardigans was to him mildly irritating even at this young age, she smelt of Lavender oil which given her liking for flowery garb was he thought rather quite apt.

The days at Cotton End were spent doing very little really, of course, he had the usual activities one endures as a 5-year-old child, finger painting, drawing, biting scratching wishing other pupils DEAD.

The person he most wanted dead was a fellow classmate by the name of Abigail Atkins an annoying brat of a girl with freckles, ginger hair and a scratchy whining voice like fingernails on Miss Sheridan’s blackboard, from his first day he was instructed to sit alongside this child this thing of freckled gingerness.

At first, he was civil and kind to Abigail but in less than a week the thought of removing her numerous freckles with the point of a sharp knife grew ever more appealing.
One day in the vast school playground which in reality was just a large open concrete space with various shapes and diagrams painted onto the floor for learning and playing apparently.,He preferred the solitude of the outer regions of the playground where he was free to think of ways to torture Abigail Atkins, In the distance, he heard a loud scream and a multitude of voices were shouting “quick quick get the Nurse”.As he watched the crowd thinned and he could see Abigail her face covered in blood that was erupting from both her nose and a gash on her forehead, the blood was gushing now and the sight made him smile inwardly.

The nurse arrived and made an effort to stem the blood from the head wound whilst the obviously broken nose continued to bleed a mixture of blood and mucus. He reasoned that she had been running in the playground and had tripped in some fashion and ended up face first in the unforgiving concrete. The familiar wail of an Ambulance siren could be heard in the distance getting nearer to the school on a mission to attend to the broken and bloody mess that was now Abigail Atkins face.

He silently wished for delays in its journey.

Abigail returned after a month or so her freckles were less now and her skin had a smoothness where the old skin had been ripped away by the unforgiving concrete floor of the playground, a large scar occupied her forehead where the hospital had inserted 18 stitches and her nose now had a distinct lump due to the broken bone it now contained.

She retained her scratchy whining voice but he figured you can’t have everything:
The ensuing years were mostly uneventful with the exception of the day Miss Sheridan died in front of the whole school having a massive heart attack on the stage of the school assembly.

If it wasn’t so very tragic it would have been comical no sound came from her mouth just a strange pained look as she was gripped by the sudden crippling pain inside her chest as her heart went into full-blown shutdown. Gasping for air she crashed to the floor of the stage whilst the other teachers rushed around in a rare show of energy.

The children were ushered out of the hall and made to line up in the playground whilst medics and assorted amateur doctors made up of the Head, Deputy Head and school nurse fought to save Miss Sheridan.
They fought in vain and all that remained was the faint scent of Lavender that sometimes drifted through the hall at assembly time.

Byron felt no sorrow,

No emotion

He felt nothing