Hawaya Hussein Abraham Moss High School

Hawaya Hussein

Abraham Moss High School

Hounds. Hundreds of lapping, dog-like animals laying in wait for the verdict. It was my job to keep order. To keep the wealth we rightfully deserved, away from the narrow-minded spaniels littering the streets of Manchester.

“Sigmund my good friend,” a husky voice sprung up from behind as a hand patted the shoulder of my tweed jacket.

“Alfred,” I replied curtly. The stench of cigars swelled in the room and the man I knew from youth greeted me with a rather crushing embrace. I looked about until my gaze landed on a quivering figure.

I sighed in frustration. “This is no place for a woman, Alfred.”

He simply let out a wheezy laugh, pushing his spectacles further up his squished face.

“I understand…” he finally choked, then shooed her out, murmuring how she should ‘take the bloody kid with her.’

“So,” he went on, “What’s with the reunion?”

The I burrowed into my inner pocket for my brass pocket watch. And the clock finally struck 11 just as the clopping crescendo of cavalry marched through the still fog. The war horses with their masters in tow, cantered lazily into view. The crowd stirred uneasily, the children clinging on to their mothers and the men guarding their wives. It was all falling into place smoothly. It was time. “So these brutes do have some amount of sense,” I found myself thinking out loud.

Then the bursts of outcry erupted on to the cobbled roads. Harrowing shrieks and cries of pain, the begging of children to spare their dying parents. Men were moved to whining as the crowd dwindled. Twas’ easy work for the soldiers defending their honour and salary, spearing the subordinates like fish in a barrel.

“Oh Lord have mercy,” Alfred croaked, his eyes widened in panic. He lowered his bowler hat to his chest in prayer.

“Not to your taste, Quaker?” I simply jeered. Alfred stared shamelessly, his mouth agape and his hands trembling.

“You condone this?!” he boomed. I felt my lip twitch in irritation, was always a loud one wasn’t he?

“Why I was simply defending what was ours.”

Looking back outside to the last of the men cutting down the civilians, I saw one child attempt to get away after trying to pick up his mother.

One soldier looked up to the window in disdain, awaiting the oncoming order. I couldn’t bring myself to more than nod. His head hung low as he reared his horse to move forward after the boy. Behind me, I heard Alfred’s defeated sigh.

He blew out a sharp sigh before tossing his hat aside, to stare directly at me, purple faced.

“And here I was, thinking you had changed!” he bellowed, practically shaking the ground with his harsh tone.

“I did what I had to do,” I snapped back. He was furious, delirious with anger. “In the modern day it is the survival of the fittest. It’s dog eat dog here! It’s the only way.”

“It’s the only way to win.”