INCIDENT

Norman Gray is, to put this politely, a boring man. Every day, Norman goes to his job as an accountant. Every day he wears one of his identical white shirts, one of his humourless, plain ties, his plain grey suit which doesn’t fit perfectly, and his plain, black, Marks and Spencers shoes.

Norman’s life is one of routine, one where little changes. He wakes in the morning to his radio alarm of Radio 2, gets dressed, eats his cornflakes and goes to work. After work, he goes shopping and then he returns home to finish his day’s work.

It was one of these perfectly routine, run-of-the-mill, boring, repetitive days that turned into the most astonishing day in Norman’s life.

Here’s how it started: Norman left his office as usual, and headed to his nearest supermarket to buy his microwave dinner. On his way out of the supermarket, a man came up to him, stopped him , and made what seemed to Norman a slightly bizarre request.

“Excuse me mate,” asked the man with the unidentifiable accent and the tanned skin, “are you going anywhere near the Post Office?”

As it happened, Norman was. He told the stranger this.

“Could you do me a big favour, and post this letter for me?” asked the stranger.

“Norman, slightly baffled, replied “OK”, as he had always been taught to be polite and it would’ve been rude to refuse. So he took the letter, which he noticed with interest was addressed to a Mr. Shovnovskiy in Belarus, and which he also noted seemed to have insufficient postage but that, he reasoned, was entirely the business of the stranger and of this Shovnovskiy fellow. So he posted the letter and went on his way.

Just as Norman reached the corner of the road with the Post Office on, he felt the ground rumble, and heard a noise louder than he could possibly imagine. He instinctively ducked for cover, as did other shoppers. As Norman looked back on the post office he realised that the staff in there were not ducking for cover, and nor were the customers. Parts of their bodies were floating down on the breeze ,and the post office itself was no longer there in any real sense, all that was left being a blackened hole in the ground, some small shards of reinforced glass and a lot of charcoal.

Norman vomited. It seemed like the only thing he could do. He was paralysed with thinking about how it could have been him. A police officer took his name and address as well as an eye-witness report and a paramedic took him to hospital for treatment for shock.

Later that night, eating his microwave dinner later than usual, Norman heard a knock at the door. He got up to open it. Two police officers stood there.

“Look, officer I already gave you a statement, what more do you want”.

“Mr. Gray,” responded a stern-faced Detective Sergeant, “I am arresting you on suspicion of carrying out a terrorist bombing. You have the right to remain silent…”

Norman wasn’t listening to his rights. He was trying, and failing, to comprehend what had happened.