DAY 4

Gladys snaps around midnight when a giant firework crescendo causes Bert, her 13-year old Jack Russell Terrier to piss on the rug and yelp. On bonfire night, she accepted the inevitable bi-annual mincing of her sole companion’s nervous system. The next night, irritation marched on her defences, but did not quite breach the walls as tolerance held out. It was a lockdown Friday night and she understands that young people have to let off some steam somehow. Tonight, two nights removed from the occasion and justifiable use of pyrotechnics, her knuckles shine white, arthritic fingers throttling the handrail and makes her way upstairs, stiff-legged, fuelled by rage.

In the spare room, she unlocks a chest in which her late husband's belongings have laid untouched for 23 years and withdraws the sawn-off shotgun he kept for the few occasions his naughtier pastimes would bring bad people to their door. His voice drifts into her head, a distant, yet clear echo from the time things got really ugly, when he had to teach her how to use it in-case they 'got to him.'

Half an hour later, Bert sedated on the couch under a crocheted blanket, Gladys tears a fist sized hole in the bridge over the main road with the powerful firearm. Under it, her targets, a litter or witless teenagers in black Nike sportswear, scramble, scream and scatter in all directions, each face a sunless mask of disbelief. She wears no mask; only her red all-weather dog walking coat, grey trousers and black, orthopaedic shoes. At 89-years of age, under cover of social stereotyping, she has far too much fun showing the youngsters what an explosion should look like. Tonight, she will make them feel alive for once in their Playstation stunted excuses for lives. Dissatisfied with her wayward aim, glasses steamed over, she sniffs the smoke hanging in the night air, waits for the next fizz of pink and green overhead and shuffles off towards it with her kill-switch very much engaged.