Nitin woke in a panic, threw his alarm-clock across the room, & turned over in his bed.
His stereo turned, playing Capital Radio too loud. Nitin threw the nearest thing to hand at the volume control. Something broke when object hit stereo. Nitin turned & glanced over & swore when realised it was his phone he’d thrown at his laptop. He could see at least one screen had cracked. He swore again, turned over again, and wrapped a pillow round his ears.
Downstairs, someone was calling his name ever more loudly & urgently, & shrilly.
Nitin swore yet again into his pillow, flounced out of bed, stomped to his bedroom door, wrenched it open, bellowed out over the landing & down the stairs something that was unintelligible even to himself, slammed his door and pounded back his bed. He lumped down in the bed so hard, he broke a one of its legs, & the whole bed pitched & collapsed onto the floor. Nitin swore even more vehemently than before, threw his pillow & duvet off the bed, and swung his bare legs over the side. His feet hit the floor hard, as it was so much closer than usual. Nitin swore quietly to himself under his breath, rubbed his eyes & face & hair with his hands, stood in a stop with a sigh, and crossed his room to the remnants of his laptop & phone. Both were cracked & chipped. Why couldn’t throw like that at school? He turned on both devices, saw they both worked okay, launched a video-chat app on the laptop, and opened his favourite photo-chat app on his smartphone. Trill pinging noises signalled that both had successfully launched, so he selected a video-call contact & clicked the cursor on ‘call’, then turned & walked over to the window while it dialled. He looked at the notifications from friends & phloggers he followed, and pulled the blind from over the window. The video-call connected.
“what?” said Della.
“Oh, tha’s nice, I don’t think!” Nitin snapped back.
“you bloody called at this shitting hour of the mor-” complained Della.
“What we s’posed to take in today?” Nitin demanded, cutting her off her valid point before she could complete it.
“check your won bloody timeta- are you stood nekkid at your window, scratchin your balls in public...???” laughed Della.
“fuk off! I’ll do what I like-”
“shame you ain’t got much to nuffin with!” laughed Della, and disconnected the call.
“bitch!” hissed Nitin, and checked his phone. Scratching his scrotum & jiggling his testicles again, he noticed his neighbour watching him. Coyly, Nitin turned towards his neighbour, so he a better view, continued playing with his genitals, and started fingering his foreskin. His neighbour reached into his grown-ups bath-robe, and started playing with his genitals.
Nitin’s bedroom door suddenly burst open, and he swung round, swore, dropped his phone, and grabbed the nearest thing to cover his crotch.
“Nitin!” exclaimed his mother from his bedroom door. “What in blue-blazes are you doing, naked at the window? do you want the whole world to see and laugh at you AND US!” she laughed gently & shrilly, and crossed to her son’s bed. “and what in all that is holy have you been doing on your bed to do THIS?!?”
“get OUT, mumma! Get OUT!”
“you break your bed, drop your bedclothes on the floor, parade naked at your window for ALL and sunday to see, and -”she surveyed the room with a sweeping gesture, “LOOK! you’ve busted your college puter-screen! Nitin, really!”
Grabbing for more fabric things from the floor to cover his indignity, Nitin glowered at his mother, “I’ve told you twice, mumma, get OUT! gimme some pri-va-CY, woman!”
“Like you do, dingle-dangling your tackling at the window for all to goggle?”
“MUMMA!”
“Okay-alrighty,” she laughed, waving & turning her hands up either side of her head, “alrighty-okay”, she turned and trotted across Nitin’s bedroom to the door, “I’ma leaving, I’ma leaving.”, but she stopped at the doorway, holding the door-handle, and turned back to Nitin. “just find some damn clothes to nest you dingling-dagling tackling, & get your arse down for breakfast, or you’ll be late for college, aGAIN!” and she shuffled out onto the landing, chuckling happily to herself.
Nitin threw a pair of worn underpants at the door as she left, grabbed another pair off the floor, sniffed them to see if they were clean (enough), stepped into them, glanced out the window to see his neighbour had withdrawn, grabbed his phone, and kicked through the further clothes on the floor for more things to wear.
Suddenly there was a booming rumbling way off outside. But also it sounded within his room. He returned to the window. Another thrumbling boom, rolled over Blackheath, and shuddered Nitin’s window & wall, room & door. “Wot the fuk!” he swore to himself, as another wave of sound & air swept, rolling over & down from the heath. Car & burglar alarms began wailing & squealing after that more forceful burst, and Nitin grabbed the window frame to steady himself. The window itself cracked. He lurched back from, tripped over some clothing, and fell on his back on the floor, just as the window cracked further and broke, falling into the room where Nitin had just been standing.
“FUUUUUUK!” exclaimed Nitin.
“Nitin? NiTIN? NITIN!” yelled his mother from the stairs. “NITIN!!!” she screamed again.
“CUMMIN, MumMA!” shouted Nitin, as he scrambled into a crawl for the door, broke the handle opening it, and rolled & fell onto the landing.
“Nitin! Are you hurt?” wailed Mumma.
This time the entire house shook and cracked, and groaned and protested as another renting sound roared across Blackheath. It was accompanied by a mighty woosh of wind and air, and an almighty boosh of fire exploding up from the common.
“Nitin!” screamed his mumma, “get down, get down, get under the stairs, under the stairs” shouted Nitin, his sibblings screaming & crying from the kitchen table, scurried to their mother, and they all fumbled & bundled into the cupboard under the stairs. The house moaned & groaned as it buckled and cracked. The banister fell down the stairs. The frontdoor exploded into the hall. Windows & frames crack, split and collapsed inwards & outwards, showering everywhere with shards of glass splinters. Nitin gripped the carpet, as the stairs collapsed, parts of the ceilings caved in, doors and frames cracked, splintered, & split. The rear wall of the house caved and buckled and folded in on itself, crushing the kitchen, dropping Nitin’s bedroom on top of it, and leaving a gaping hole through to the outside.
Nitin coughed and gasped, and scraped fingers over his face to wipe his eyes. And just then, a huge, hulking black-green shape beat its wings up into the air, and way up over the common, Nitin gasped to see what could only be a Dragon take flight.
