Walking through Grove End, late, late, wasn’t no biggie. It was my End. I was used to it.
People were out roaming, doing crazy shit, like robbing houses and twocking cars. Drinking licker on the shop corner, not tucked up in bed for work in the morning.  
 Anyway, it was Saturday night and it was live at the weekend. There was always shit going on and I was on the way to my best friend’s house. I walked past people whose quick presence felt just like the cold. Stiff and frozen. They bounced past each other, with no mutter of the word sorry. It was always like this but I seemed to notice it more tonight. It was as if my senses were doing overtime lately, noticing shit I never really paid attention to, like that silver Rolls Royce cruising round.
 I walked in the rain, wishing I had a little run around to take me where I needed to be. Selena, my best friend, only lived round the corner, but it was taking me ages because the rain was pelting it.
I went past the pub where punters went for a quick pint that became one too many, to drown their sorrows and complain about life:  having no money, baby father stress, and baby mothers playing up. No one seemed happy any more, not round this area, anyway.

Though the rain pelted down, two drunkards argued over a pint of lager in the street. It was spilling every time one of them struggled to get a swig. The more they struggled the more the alcohol sloshed and got lost in the damp on the pavement.
‘Giv’ us me pint back!’
‘Fuck off. You owe me this.’
An old lady wearing a green, moth-bitten dressing gown walked past in a daze; her toes poked out of the holes of her discoloured red slippers and her cashmere bed stockings were laddered and exposed the varicose veins on her legs.
‘Hav’ yer seen me Charlie, luv?’
‘Charlie? No, sorry!’
‘Get, ‘ome, yer crazy old cow!’ one of the piss heads shouted, toppling over. She walked on, drenched in the rain, like she would find whoever she was looking for. She wasn’t going to find no-one who didn’t need to be out in this downfall.
 What was she doing out so late? Charlie! Who? How the fuck was I supposed to know.
I hadn’t seen this woman before in my life.
I walked passed the pub and crossed the road to the park and the swings clinked with the force of the wind. Graffiti splashed in bright coloured spray paint on the tall flats. I dodged the puddles and the cracks of the pavement to the tower block entrance. This was the danger zone. Two sistas had been offed nearby a week ago—another drive-by shooting they got in the way of. It were real scary man. Could ‘appen to anyone, anytime in The End.