Monday
School. Phil didn’t hate school but it had become progressively more and more pointless to him. What use was learning how to solve equations in maths? When would you ever be asked to solve a quadratic equation in real life? Come on, get real! Physics and chemistry he had already cast aside when planning which GCSEs to do, biology did at least have some small relevance in human biology, but the rest of it, who gave a toss what went on inside a plant? He drifted through the classes, paying just enough attention to take a few notes, otherwise he kept quiet and let the knuckleheads stir the trouble. The subjects might be useless shite but he knew that the piece of paper was what employers wanted to see, no GCSEs, no job worth having. At the breaks he looked around for Al but he wasn’t in school that day.
“Prob’ly skivvin’.” Shaun said in answer to Phil’s enquiry. “Gettin’ wasted on ‘pops. Dunno why tha hangs wi’ ‘im, he’s a rait looser that wun.”
Their conversation switched to the match and the very real need for a better manager and some hard cash to buy better players or they’d be relegated and that would be too much to face, the Owls fans would never let them forget it.
The day ended and Phil went home having forgotten all about his faulty shades, only as he stepped out of the house after tea and put them on in the still bright sunshine was he reminded, everything had that doubled look and worse there were constant flashes of movement on the road. Cars were zooming past, he lived on a busy road, but all these flashes distracted him and only a loud horn and louder obscenity from the driver saved him from injury.
“Fat git.” Phil groused as the car sped off.

But he took off the glasses before attempting to cross the road and heading for the park where he hoped to find his mate. The grassy bank where they had sat and got wasted on Saturday was empty, the bottles they had discarded still littered the ground. He kicked one aside and slumped down to brood over Al’s behaviour, he had been well gloomy on Saturday, banging on about fading and everything going to hell. Phil wondered if his mate was starting to take drugs and they were messing with his head. He was still staring vacantly at the city centre with all its construction cranes when Al dropped down beside him panting heavily.
“I foun’ it Phil!” He said in breathless excitement.
“Foun’ what? Ere, where’s tha bin all day?”
“Bin lookin’ stupid, lookin’ everywhere, an’ I foun’ it.” Al retorted.
This wasn’t making any sense to Phil as he didn’t even know what Al had been looking for.
“Tha tekkin’ drugs or summat?” He queried his friend tersely.
“Drugs? Nah, them’s nobut crap t’make tha fall in line. Same as alkies, s’all shite to blind tha.”
“Stop talkin’ crap, wass tha foun’?” Phil interrupted him a little angrily.
“T’way owt.” Al said as if it was self evident.
“Yuh what?”
“T’way owt tha dozy bugger. Owt of all this shite.” He said animatedly flinging his arms wide.
“Tha’s not still on abaht this shades crap?”
“S’not crap shithead! It’s comin’. Nex’ weekend, all goes t’hell.”
“Tha’s so full o’ shite!” Phil said properly angry this time. “I’m away.”
He left Al still sitting on the grass and stormed off in search of somebody else, anybody else, who wasn’t banging on about the world ending.

The park was strangely empty of kids, normally there’d be a group of them playing footer or maybe cricket but not tonight, despite it being a fine warm evening. He hooked up with Danny and Jo and Beth and just talked until it was time to go home.
He didn’t know quite why but he went via the grassy bank just to see if Al was there, but there was no sign of him, just empty grass and empty bottles. As he left the park there was a sudden screech of brakes and then a very loud crunch. Phil looked back towards the end of the road to see that one car had run into the back of another, dozy prat.
“What the hell are you doing?!” The driver of the second car yelled at the first as he got out. “Clear road and you just slam on your brakes, you stupid old fart!”
“But there was a car, I swear, just pulled out in front of me.” The older man replied in a shaken voice.
“You see one now?” The second man asked sarcastically. “You’ve trashed my car.”
“Now see here, if you hadn’t been driving so close behind…”
The argument faded in Phil’s ears as he walked away, don’t get involved, he hadn’t seen anything anyway, just walk away, the world was mad enough without being sucked into someone else’s piece of insanity.