This is not a work of fiction…

I know all about you… Yes you! You are the one reading this aren’t you? You’re the one that walked on by when I was being beaten weren’t you? Surely you must remember when the crowd from the pub that were drinking a toast to their dead father came out and kicked me under my cab? Ooo! how many men and women was it that beat and kicked me and my fellow cabbie from another daddy? Twenty five? Thirty? Yes really! That many! Don’t you remember?

Or remember the time when you were peeking out of your curtains to see a lone cab driver being hacked at with a large kitchen knife by your neighbour, I KNOW you remember that one! Because you told me about it months later when you got in my cab, and laughingly recalled the scared Cab driver running down the road. I must admit you was a bit shocked to learn I was that Cab driver, but… how we laughed eh?

Still shaking your head hmm? Maybe this will jog your memory. Do you remember when that father and two of his sons dragged me out of my cab and threatened to kill me? What was that for? Umm…That’s it! I remember now! They did it because I missed their turning by a whopping margin of about ten metres, thankfully for me they were going on holiday that weekend and the father was persuaded not to gut me because that meant him missing the family vacation, Oh! Now you remember! Haha! I still pass by your door on the odd occasion, y’now, the one you hid behind.

You SURELY must remember this? Remember when the customer got in and head butted the dash? You were right outside pointing at him, remember? I calmed him down and drove him to where I thought was his home, you saw him crying outside your house didn’t you, a couple of your friends had a look as well, good thing I drove off then, you may have had to witness when he had me in that judo type hand and neck hold, and watching me cry out in pain would have brought more of your friends to the window to have a look I suspect hmm!

Courteously he acknowledged my right to clean lungs, y’now, the ones he was gonna tear out of my chest, yes, those ones…

Didn’t finish there though did it? He took me to a further four houses, my hand and neck in this constant painful hold, funny? You were there at each one, listening to his cries, screams and ranting at you over his times with his family in the house where you now live. I was the only person that  heard that he was going to kill me when we stopped, AND felt the tendons in my hand and my neck decide that they couldn’t take much more pain. Was only me though, wasn’t it?

I remember you in the police car, I didn’t see your face, but I’m sure you saw me, I was the one flashing you when he had his head in his hands crying, you must have had something more important to do I’m sure, maybe my eyes didn’t have enough fear in them yet…

Ooo! How long was I gone? An hour and a half-ish? I ended up in Bexhill in a back street outside your flat don’t you remember? The time had come to kill me I was being told, but not without him having a fag first, he asked me if he could smoke in the cab, I have no idea why I said no, but I did, maybe when your worn down enough you just want it to end. Courteously, he acknowledged my right to clean lungs, y’know, the ones he was gonna tear out of my chest, yes, those ones…

He had one foot on the ground and one in the foot-well when he lit his fag. It was at the exact moment I also floored the accelerator, he bounced off my cab and two other cars like a pinball before finally rolling to a stop, and as I turned the corner, I could feel my cancer ramping up brownie stress points. My cancer? I’m thinking it’s none of your business at the moment, I have told of it elsewhere.

Spare a thought for the 54 taxi drivers that have been murdered in the UK in the last eighteen months or so, 54 men that got ready for work, and kissed their families goodbye for what was really the last time.

I went back to my office mad as hell, demanding why no one even missed me. The guy laying outside my office threw a bottle of something at me as I left, a final humiliating we don’t fucking care salute, you were there as well, I still see you in your cosy police car from time to time…

Oh! I’ve seen this madman that tortured me for an hour and a half a couple of times since then, laughing and joking with his friends, he doesn’t come to my cab office that he used to frequent so often in the past anymore…

I’ve got pages and pages of incidences of your punches and digs, and your spittle dripping down my face, and many tens of thousands of Cab drivers all over the world will have too.

You were there every time something happened, you watched AND took part, it’s not the others, there are no others! It was just you… and me.

Did you find this quite uncomfortable to read? I imagine your adrenaline levels spiked just a little, may have even got your back up a bit. I’m sorry, but spare a thought for the 54 taxi drivers that have been murdered in the UK in the last eighteen months or so, 54 men that got ready for work, and kissed their families goodbye for what was really the last time.

You were there too, don’t you remember?