This is my best description of the area to date, though I haven’t been there in years since he died, I have heard many stories, each depicting a bad event that had recently happened there. They are hardly shocking these stories, they were to begin with but not anymore, just regular happenings.
Anyway, visiting Kevin was a risk at the best of times. We always made sure that our journey was in during the day, and as short as possible as it was considerably safer. We got to the block called the ‘Regents House’ and walked cautiously to the lift, which rose so slowly, that I imagined a race between this lift and a snail. The lift became even slower. Somehow I thought that the snail would win. There was lots of graffiti in the lift, but not nearly as much as there was outside the building. Graffiti. It’s strange that although you don’t like it, you are still curious to see what each individual message has to say. The lift got to the right floor, the doors opened, but I was too interested in reading that drivel that by the time I realised that the doors had opened, they were closing. It’s strange, a feeling when you think that all you can do is panic and nothing else.
So that’s exactly what I did, but as usual when you panic, nothing changed. The doors closed in menacingly on me, and I felt claustrophobic as the lift slowly but surely descended. Would I ever find my way back? I couldn’t remember which floor the others had gone to. Maybe I should have stayed where I was on the ground. Then they would come looking for me- or would they?
Maybe they wanted to lose me. I had to attempt to find them. I made up my mind not to go by the lift again, in case it tempted me away from what I wanted to do again. I walked nervously to the stairs, hoping that I would see no one on my way- I knew what sort of people lived here. I started my way up, trying to memorise the floor that the other two had come out the lift on. That particular floor had a picture on the wall of some lions fighting to the death, most likely over something stupid. Thinking about it now, it’s ironic really; it could have represented the whole area. I knew I would recognise it when I saw it. All I had to do was find the floor with that picture and I would find them. I began climbing up flight after flight of stairs looking for the picture, avoiding all the broken glass on the way. I was starting to get tired now and I still hadn’t found the picture. I decided that if it wasn’t on this next floor that I would go back down and wait by the car, whatever the risk. As I climbed the very last step, I wondered if the portrait I saw was just in my imagination, but then I saw it there, I on the right floor.
Surely I wasn’t lost anymore.