Fater's corner

I admit I made many mistakes in the past, more than I can remember. One of them is the simple fault of my aim a few minutes ago, when instead of hitting the window my hands slipped a meter to the right. Maybe the fact that I really wanted to hit the wooden construction frames instead of the concrete caused this subconsciously. Anyways, accidentally setting fire a nice building in the middle of the city is not favored at all by others. If it’s me, I love fire, I’d love to see the whole world on fire, sadly that’s impossible. Molotov cocktails and gas is not enough to achieve that. Back to my previous thoughts, I’m running away from angry looking men in blue clothes now. They are probably from the police. Hah, this place is my turf, don’t even dream of catching me!

 

In the middle of the concrete jungle where you can freely travel by any imaginable ways, there is no way I could get caught. I’m 17 years old, old enough to go jail? Why was that a question? Because I have no idea. It’s not like I’m dumb or anything, I finished elementary school with good grades. I’m told I’m a very intelligent person. I suppose so, I ranked first in the competency tests in the school and I was in the best 5% in the country. But these things can be told later, since I ran into a dead end alley.

 

It wasn’t accidental at all. The bulky blue man behind me smirks, at least it seems that way. Maybe he’s just tired… He is at least 15 meters away, there is no way I could see his facial expression. My stamina is better than a full grown man, so it seems. Good to know- no it’s sad that the police can’t run faster than a girl. I’m not even that quick. Maybe it’s because I’m light?

 

I jump over a few trash containers to cut the path and use a ledge on a brick building to throw myself upwards. In the next second I extend my prepared left hand and grab the end of the fire ladder three meters above ground and using the momentum I flip my body. It’s an uncomfortable technique since I get upside down this way, but my leg got out of the way quickly and the blue hand failed to catch it. Putting strength in my arms I push my body up and start to climb to the roof.

 

“Stop right there! I’ll shoot!” Shouts the blue man. That was the first thing he said. I’m not that knowledgeable but shouldn’t there be more than two warnings before that? And who’s going to believe that he will shoot a young and innocent girl in the back because he is useless. Well, I did set on fire a building… In this country if you shoot someone who threatens you with a knife is crime. Actually I heard that a burglar sued a person because he failed to climb over the electric fence and almost died. He even got a lot of money for it, so I don’t really fear the reaper.

 

I let out a forced evil laugh to piss him off, before running away using the roof. In these parts the buildings are close to each other and you can easily jump from one to another. There are many dangerous paths that only crazy runners take, like me now, since they are very risky to use. Climbing on a small ledge where you have to jump one and a half storey down and three meters away, only to end up  on a slippery slope… These uselessly modern rain repelling tiles are almost impossible to stand on. If I didn’t have my climbing shoes reinforced with rubber and metal, I would have fallen off by now.

 

Making a cool parkour style landing I continue running a few block away where I’m only a single storey high, but instead of climbing down I use a hidden roof-door to enter the building. I close it from the inside and secure the latch, then let out a sigh.

 

“Are you home? Did you finish the job without a problem?” A weak and old voice can be heard from behind me. I turn around to get a glimpse of an old woman who is by far closer to death then youth.

 

“I’m home, Granny! It went ok, here is the money and your pills. How’s the shop?” I simply put a dark paperbag that was made to store food on the table.

 

Even though Granny is very old, she is the only family I have. Parent’s gone from as far as I remember, and I never asked. I never really cared. If they are alive then that’s all well, but nothing more than that. We own a small tobacco shop, and since the stupid laws the you can only buy it from these special shops, we have a bit of stable income. We are not poor, but not wealthy either. It’s questionable that how can such a store not have great profit, but the smuggled tobacco is at the third of the store price because the tax is literally around three times the real one. This takes away most of the customers this is why even at such a designated place for safety, minors can simply go in and buy anything.

 

Granny manages it since she doesn’t have to move a lot here, and I help out. I also make deals under the table and accep smaller jobs from the local underground organizations. This way not only we have no problem for money and security, I even have some influence and reputation. I have a few titles in the neighbourhood, but I ignore them. And I can pay for the expensive medicines for Granny with no problem.

 

“The Steve child sent this package over. He says its a thanks for all the work.”

 

The “Steve child” person he talks about is some sort of gang leader, most of the normal citizens fear this name. Since Granny knows him since his birth our circumstances are complicated, but mostly friendly.

 

I take the small carton paper and tear it open, finding a strangle shaped wooden box in it. While thinking about the strange thing, I open it and find a pair of glasses in a sport frame. It’s probably for me. The design seems good as it won’t hinder me or fall off while running or jumping. The reason why I don’t wear contact lenses is because my eyesight is so bad that the they can’t be made that thick.

 

Yep. I probably won’t wear this, but having it in my pocket is possible. No matter how well it was made, it restricts my field of view and it’s dangerous.

 

I realise that I’m very tired, so instead of wasting time I go down and help restock the shop. Nothing much, I just have to refill the shelves from the storage room. I send away the kid who’s name I somehow don’t know even though he is working part time here then close the shop. Let’s call him Part-timer. It sounds awful, not like I care. Using the back door I enter my home again and decide to end the day here.  A good shower and my favorite nightgown is all I need to relax my tired muscles.

 

Today I delivered some kind of suspicious package, ran 30 kilometers, lit a construction site on fire, ran away and finished the work at the store. A full day of mine that I’m quite happy with. My pyromania is a bit troublesome, but I can’t do anything against it. The flames are so pretty and warm, they beg for me to show their beauty to everyone. I fall onto my mattress I use as a bed and let my head fall into slumber.

 

Yeah. It was a good day. Good night.