The crimson substance splashed on the pavement, exploding in all directions. Guilty stopped and looked down, eyes wide at what he had done.
“No… Oh my god…” his voice was little but an incoherent mumble. Guilty stammered back, looking down at the cerise, gelatinous essence that tainted his hands. “Good God, what have I done?” he continued, unable to contain himself. The words poured out of him as freely as the red flowed from the white that now littered the pavement.
Beside him stood Victim; the gooey stick still in her hands. He looked down at her with regret. A twang of sadness shuttered through him as he realised what she had been involved in. He would be blamed, but it would be her that became devastated.
“I… I can,” Guilty addressed Victim. The words found a way of clogging up his throat, and he halted his feeble penance before he did any more harm.
She looked up at him, gloom written all over her face. Eye lids scrunched together and Guilty looked around for help, but found only Witness.
Guilty and Witness looked at each other, presenting marks of concern. Witness bit his lip, as if the pain would erase the inevitable events he now foresaw. Guilty kept his eyes wide open, not wanting to miss any progress, yet warring with himself to stop the torture. The whole thing was like watching a sheet of safety glass shatter; thousands of tiny, invisible beads erupting all at once, from the same swipe of his hand and starting a cacophony of reactions. The firework display was etching at the mid December sunshine, scraping off the Christmas time veneer that was sugar coating the day.
Once again the three were looking down at the brown–speckled mess that breeched the dull grey of the concrete. Guilty reached down to tap Victim on the shoulder, but decided against the action that would spread salt in her wounds. If only he could take it back; if only he hadn’t been so careless.
Victim looked between the two forms that towered over her, looking for assurance. They hid their disconcerting expressions with a mask of incisiveness; judiciousness, even. Despite their efforts, the younger sibling shed a tear. They watched in dismay as the salty liquid dribbled down her soft, untouched skin. She brushed back a thin strand of golden hair in a futile effort to cope with the situation, but the saline aberration was followed by another. A shrewd cry split through the air, overpowering the awkward silence that was released by Guilty’s previous amends.
As if the world didn’t already have enough red, a flash of the violent colour appeared in the distance. Guilty’s heart sank, and the cries of his sibling faded into the distance. The entire world singled down to him, the incriminating splatter on the pavement, the nearing light and the ramped beating of his heart; red, red, red and red.
And then, in an instant, the red disappeared, and started to flash blue; then red. Blue, red. Blue red. Screech! The cruiser came to a sudden halt in front of them. The three children on the pavement looked quaintly at each other. Victim looked at her older siblings and a small frown crawled onto her face. It was like watching the life creep out of her. One moment she was wrecking hell on earth, and the next she was diffident; shy and introvert. Her emotions were swiftly bottled up and hidden away inside her.
Guilty averted his eyes, not willing to look at the car or the sorrow expression on Victim’s face. In such an occasion as this he would drop his eyes, and find sudden fascination in the pavement. Sadly he wanted more than anything to forget the sticky mess that lay at his feet. There was only on place to find condolence, and that was behind his eyelids. Guilty brought his hands up to his brow and rubbed it tensely. A thin trickle of blood escaped his lip, and he realised he had started to bite it.
Witness stood beside him, watching curiously as the tinted window started to slowly roll downwards. Judge was revealed - dark sunglasses concealed his disapproving eyes. He chuckled, clicked his tongue and started to converse.
“Well, well, well… what have we here?” The voice was clam and soft, yet it delivered a certain amount of authority behind the mock tone. Guilty opened his eyes and dropped his hands. There was no averting the disaster now.
Victim started to explain, worried of becoming demeaned in front of the figure. “We were just walking along and he—” Her brow furrowed and Guilty worried she might start the waterworks again, but luckily she was interrupted by Judge.
“Have we all been good girls and boys?” he condescended. Guilty would have rolled his eyes if it weren’t for the authority of the figure.
“Yes,” they all nodded their heads furiously, and in Victim’s case, eagerly.
“I’ll tell you what,” said judge, a smile creeping up his face. “I’m in a good mood today, but I’ll have to get you to take this…” He disappeared into the car for a second, fishing out a small blue piece of plastic. “…and pretend none of this ever happened,” he pushed his hand through the car window and passed out the note. A bemused Guilty reached out to take it, but Judge pulled it back before he could grab the ten dollars. “But I don’t want to hear of this occurring again, alright?”
Guilty nodded, thanking Judge as he took the money. Witness waved to the kind man as he drove away. A smile washed over Guilty’s face, and soon his whole body was buzzing. He folded the ten dollar note into his pocket, and the three of them slowly turned and walked; back to the dairy to buy Victim another Jelly-Tip ice-cream.
When they got home, Guilty was surprised to hear that Victim claimed she had met Santa, whom he had known - for an entire year now - did not exist. But maybe that’s not what Christmas is about, he thought before throwing his ice-cream wrapper in the rubbish.
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