More gulls hovered around Owen but being weary as if he would spring back to life any moment. Michael wiped his face with a clenched fist only then to realise that his nails were cutting his palm. Seawater and sand stung the cuts but Michael totally ignored the pain when he had noticed an elderly couple getting out off their car carrying a picnic basket and rug. Michael ran towards Owens body and crouched down to pick him up. He stared at Owens face, pale and lifeless but once filled with redness and laughter sometimes pain. Never the less he lifted Owen care fully as if he was still alive, making sure not to hurt him. Michael ran haphazardly towards a cave under a cliff and set Owen down gently onto some dry rocks. Praying, he then kept a look out of the elderly couple, which thankfully went in the other direction.
Michael glanced at Owen. His motionless body lay there, on the rocks no life left in him. Michael took his jacket from the pile of clothes left up in the sand dunes and wrapped Owens small body in it. He then left Owen and walked back up to his car. Michael clambered into his car and started the ignition. Driving along, aimlessly, Michael thought what to do next. Maybe he would turn himself in, maybe suicide is the answer. He did not know. He had tried the latter already to no degree of success, so maybe he could let his conscience rest in the arms of the law. A flock of gulls flew in front of him as if to show the direction in which his mind was set He took a left at the next junction, then a right, right again then left. Michael was totally lost now, with no sense of direction whatsoever.
At last he found himself in a quaint little village and decided to find the nearest pub were he could get washed up. He found a small inn called ‘The Deer Inn’. Michael entered the bar to be greeted by three staring faces. He said Hi and asked for the use of the toilets.
‘Sure sonny, there over there.’ remarked the bartender. The toilets dingy and smelled like sewers. Michael washed his face in the wash hand basin and stared at himself in the mirror. His eyes were blood shot accompanied with bags under his eyelids. He waved at the bartender and said thanks. Now it was time, time to face the facts. He had killed a boy, no one else would under stand why, why he had done it. If he tried to explain it to a policeman he would think him as loony. Michael asked a passer by the directions to the nearest police station. Sure enough, it was just a few miles from here.
Swearing, Michael started the ignition. Minutes passed like hours. Sweat broke upon Michael’s face. He thought about Owen lying there, on the rocks. To calm him down he turned on the radio.
‘A boy has been found on a beach in Ireland by retired couple. Presumed dead.’ The newsreader went on ‘Reports suggest that he has not been dead for very long. Forensic scientists’ say that the cause of death was from drowning, Police ask the public for any suspicious activity around the area. Now for the weather….’. He turned the radio off. Cursing again he pulled up outside the police station in a nearby town, instructed by the passer by.
For ten minutes he contemplated what to say to the police and how he was going to explain himself. For brief minutes he thought of driving away but it was getting dark and his guilty conscience would destroy him from the inside. Anxious, he thought about his story but what’s a story when u have killed an innocent boy?
Michael got out of his car, forgetting about the engine still being on, and staggered up the steps of the garda station. He walked through two swinging doors to be greeted by a very busy work place. Police every were walking to and fro from filing cabinet’s.
‘Can I help you?’ a policeman asked him, nearly shouting over the noise of telephones ringing.
‘I DID IT OK, I KILLED OWEN, I KILLED HIM’. Every thing stopped. His eyes started getting blurry, he felt hot and sweaty. Michael fell frontward with a loud crash onto a desk. He had fainted.
Michael woke up to find himself in a cell, cold and damp lying onto of a bare mattress. ‘Yes’ he thought ‘I’ve done it’. A policeman entered his cell and closed the large steel door behind him with a loud bang.
‘So what were you saying earlier?’ he said towards Michael.
‘I killed the boy you found, I killed him.’
