Angry

So I’m sitting in the armchair nearest the sofa. I’ve got a lap tray across my knees and I’m doing some serious damage to my dinner. The television is on, just playing adverts for now so I ignore it, concentrating on my food. My flatmates occupy the other chairs, munching contentedly. There’s an affable silence as we chew our food, broken only by the raucous ditty of an advert. Apparently if I like a lot of chocolate on my biscuit, I need to join their club. I stab another potato with my fork and tune the music out. By the time the advertisements end, we’re all pretty much finished. I push my knife and fork together on the plate, empty except for a smear of gravy. Leaning back contentedly, my shoulders burrow into the cushions of the chair and I sigh in satisfaction.
“Bloody hell, I’m stuffed.”
I’m answered by a chorus of affirmative grunts as the others finish of their own plates. In the meantime, Channel 4 news comes on. A newscaster, all smiles and plucked eyebrows begins the litany of the days headlines, grinning out of the screen beneath an exquisitely coiffured haircut.  Beneath him, an animated ticker-tape reel began listing all the gloom and doom that was todays news.
“…Prime-Minister announced today that peace talks with…”
I was almost half asleep, awash with the pleasant cocoon of warmth that can overtake you after a good meal. The cushions around me were very comfortable. Maybe a quick snooze was in order, I thought.
“…DUP spokesman, doctor Iain Paisley was adamant in his views that…”
It had been a long day and I was pleasantly drifting further and further from any awareness as I let sleep claim me. My eyelids flickered shut, shutting out the glare of the television screen.
“…at a press conference today, Sinn Fein representative Martin McGuinness addressed the…”
My eyes snapped open, a hot bolt of fury washing away my lethargy and crackling down my spine like an electric shock. I sat up bolt upright in the armchair, my eyes focusing on the television screen with all the intensity of a laser beam. A broad and blocky face replaced the artificial perfection of the newsreader. I found my attention zeroing in on a set of piggy little eyes squinting around a bulbous nose. I felt something building in my chest – a hot and liquid sensation that made me feel as if I was about to explode. As the man on the screen began to speak, I could feel nothing but loathing as his toad-like mouth began spouting platitudes at me. A loud crack sounded like a gunshot, breaking my reverie. Both my flatmates jumped, startled by the sound.
“What’d you do that for?”
For a moment I couldn’t answer them, looking down at my lap. The knuckles of my hands were white, bone pressing against skin and tendon under the pressure of my grip. Bisecting the middle of the tray, marring the picture printed on the pale wood, was a long crack.  It crossed the middle of the tray like a jagged scar. Eventually I found my voice, choking down the anger that clogged my throat. My words were thick with emotion when I began to speak.
“…that…that sanctimonious fucking BASTARD!”
I was met by puzzled looks and questions, but I had eyes only for the squat, poisonous figure on screen as he trumpeted his message of peace and cooperation to the world. Eventually the voices of my friends attracted my attention and I tore my gaze away from the TV.
“…you know my dad’s in the army, right? Well, he’s met that little fucker.”
More questions.
“It was when I was four years old, we were living in Londonderry. My dad was guarding a border checkpoint.”
I pointed a finger at the screen, a gesture of accusation and condemnation at the stocky little irish demagogue.
“My dad stopped THAT little runt at the border. Asked to search his vehicle before he crossed.”
I paused, feeling the urge to explain further.
“This was before the cocky little shit got into politics. Back when he was a hatchetman for the IRA, not some Sinn Fein mouthpiece.”
Nods from my companions. I carry on.
“My dad says he’s not gonna let them cross the border without a search of the vehicle. Mister McGuinness there, decides he doesn’t like that. Probably had a boot full of C4. They were stepping up their bombings around that time.”
More nods. My friends listen mutely. I continue, my voice rising in volume and intensity, drowning out the hypocrisy being spewed by the little man on the screen.
“The little FUCKER leans close to my dad. ‘I know you, now.’ He says. ‘I know your face. And some dark night, I’ll see you again.” Then he makes that throat-cutting sign…you know.”
I draw a finger across my throat by way of a demonstration and then stand, the tray and plate spilling to the floor. My friends look up at me, shocked. Their eyes are wide and its evident they don’t know what to think, don’t understand the venom and rage that churns in my gut.
“I can’t STAND it. That murdering FUCKER had us living in fear for TWO FUCKING YEARS during that posting! And listen to him! Listen to that bollocks!”
That’s right. I called the Northern Ireland peace process bollocks. The negotiations destined to save lives, to commute the senseless slaughter that had been the norm there for decades. Bollocks. I turned my back and stalked across the room, turning my back on the rhetoric of peace.

Do you blame me?