late evening mission control, things getting freaky, in a good way but i'm slightly surprised when my karma broker whispers to me, 'wanna do a line of time?'
i say yeah cos i'd do anything she asked me to being shallow in that department so we head over to the table and i watch her as she daintily chops up a line of powder on the glass surface with a black card she pulled from her bag, the card is reflective and blank, just a rich black credit card sized card.
'is that a credit card?'
'yeah, nice huh?'
'what bank are you with?'
'the karma bank baby, you know that.'
she offers me a line.
it's been a long time since anything went up my nostrils, and i was never one for that sort of delivery method but i manage to watch with the corner of my eye the long white trail disappear as it shots up inside my nose, while the other eye focused on her as she says, 'back to skool mission.'
it happens instantly, we are standing on the streets, constable gardens, everything looks so squished together, homes, roads and front gardens, all grey and dismal, the wretched suburbs of london's past. i see a dark kid walking along from the shop back home, he's going against the grain of the other children and about to cross paths with his nemesis, the bully eldorado, eldo for short. eldo is a bulky bastard, pure unadulterated criminal potential, his future is written, dead or life in jail, fate was most certain about the fact, i could read it clearly as a child.
i'm standing next to my broker, both of us there yet not there. 
'thats me, totally awkward loner, wandering the streets in a dream about to clash with the skool thug.'
'yes, do you remember this?'
'i think so.'
'watch and see.'
so there is a eight year old version of me in stupid short pants and black shoes wandering towards my home about to be confronted with the evil child psychopath eldo.
he grabs me and punches me in the chest, 'where have you been mission?'
'the corner shop.'
'what you reading?'
'spiderman comic.'
he snatches it from me, 'got any money?'
i hand over my change, a few pence. this is the ritual, if i can get away without being seriously hurt i will be okay. i've seen this kid up close for years, he's put teachers in hospital, he's almost killed his peers, he's used knives and done major damage to the neighbourhood, he's been in and out of children's homes and he's in my class, which is basically composed of a generation of renegades, artists, criminals and the insane, many of which will die early deaths. he starts pushing me, calling me names, thumping my arm.
over the other side of the street i move to intervene but she stops me, 'we are here to witness this, it has to happen this way.'
i've missed a little of the conflict but memory kicks in and i recall how he pushed me onto the floor and found a rock. it was a jagged black stone, from down on the ground as he towered over me it looked huge, but i could see now it was medium sized. he stood over me and threatened to bash my head in with the rock. ironically in a few years i did get smashed with a rock and split my head open but not today. today he just teases me with inevitable humiliation and pain. 
as always i am outside my body, disassociated, in my head i am spiderman, i zap him in the face with my spiderweb and then punch him across the road, the other skool kids look on in astonishment, kate powers runs over to me and kisses me on the lips and i put my arm around her and swing away to a future happy ending, but that don't happen. nope i am about to be smashed when a bird flies down, a sort of white bird, really clean for london where most of the birds are malnourished and covered in soot and grime. we both look at the bird as it glides in an elegant arc down and lands on the pavement.
'do you think i can hit the bird mission?'
before i can do anything the rock leaves his hand and i watch it travel across the street spinning in it's flight, it's so fast you can almost see the air it has cut through and it hits the bird right on the side of its chest and i feel the pain. even worse is the sound it makes, a deep 'thump' as stone hits flesh, a sound that haunts.
i grab hold of my brokers arm, squeezing it tight, even now the memory hurts. i watch the bird fly away but i also watch myself crying like a baby. 
eldo laughs and lets me go, he wanders of happy that he's caused pain to life and i pick myself up while the other children wander by ignoring me, yet somehow complicit. i'm crying like a baby, tears all the way home, i lock myself in my room and think about that bird for the rest of my life. 
she hugs me and says, 'it's okay mission.'
the time wears off, i'm sitting down next to her, 'jesus, that was so vivid, i remember everything about that now.'
'yes, it's time.'
'i really felt that pain, it hurt me so much, i can never let it go, the sound the rock made, yet the bird was so far away, why on earth did he do that?'
'do you need to know?'
'some things i don't really want to know.'
'the bird lived, it was part of you, you felt what it felt and it felt what you felt.'
'i wish it had never of happened, i never really stopped thinking about that bird. it was like a point in my life, an event that must have shaped something.'
i was falling asleep, the emotional impact must be draining, i felt exhausted and as i closed my eyes i heard her whisper in her soft sultry voice,'it's my job to connect your dots.'