The sound of the rain on election night was a constant demanding
drumming on the roof of the car, like a radio station tuned to white noise whose
signal cut out as I passed beneath every one of the seven bridges between work
and the polling station. It was, I knew,
my democratic right and duty to cast my vote and much depended upon it. The car park, I noted with dismay as I drove
into it, was a long way from the entrance.
A long wet way under the wet white noise. But still I had my mark to make, and make
my mark I must. I locked the car behind
me with a brace of beeps. A bundle of
fly tipped garbage propped against the wall of the desanctified church that was
now a community centre moved unexpectedly and spoke.
“buy your name, mister?”
