Scathed

I feel scathed. I shouldn’t take it personally, I know, but I entered the Willesden short story competition with a fictional account of the last half hour of the life of Jean-Charles de Menezes, and not only did they not award the prize, but they had the following to say:

“To be very clear: just because this prize has the words Willesden and Zadie hovering by it, does not mean that I or the other judges want to read hundreds of jolly stories of multicultural life on the streets of North London.”

Right, well, not to worry, ho hum, I’ll know better next time!

It started when I was having a coffee in Starbucks next door to the IPCC in Old Holborn last September and I first heard of the De Menezes case. I was passively on the look out for a subject for the Willesden short story competition. The fact that the video footage from inside the tube station had mysteriously disappeared made me prick up my ears. I read as many articles as I could and became interested in the case. A tragedy; a communication breakdown. I imagined the stress in the crowded control room in contrast to the calm attitude of a man going to work unaware that he was even being followed. It seemed to me that the points of view of the other players involved would be given adequate coverage so I felt compelled to give voice to the victim who suffered most. Reading on, I nearly choked on my coffee when I read that Jean Charles de Menezes was on his way to Willesden to fix a fire alarm when he was shot.

“That does it,” I said to myself, amazed at the synchronicity, convinced that destiny was pointing a huge arrow in that direction for me. I shall write it and call it “trying to get to Willesden/is this the way to Willesden/on my way to Willesden" before finally settling for “On the way to Willesden”.

Neither of us made it.