{"id":265010,"date":"2026-07-15T02:35:39","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T23:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/lairies-steve-hollyman\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T02:35:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T23:35:39","slug":"lairies-steve-hollyman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/lairies-steve-hollyman\/","title":{"rendered":"Lairies – Steve Hollyman"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pass asks, obviously eager to get the ball rolling and impress his partner. \u2018Yes,\u2019 I say. Kelsey asks Pass to get some chairs. There\u2019s a stack against the opposite wall, and Pass scurries over to fetch a couple, tail wagging as he brings them back. \u2018Let\u2019s start with what you remember,\u2019 suggests Kelsey when they\u2019re both sitting down. \u2018Where do you want me to start?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018The day you were attacked.\u2019 \u2018I remember up until about eight in the evening. I\u2019d arranged to go out with some mates, and one of them \u2013 Tony \u2013 he came over to my flat for a few beers first. The last thing I remember is getting into a taxi with him.\u2019 \u2018Tony\u2019s full name is\u2026?\u2019 \u2018Sorry. It\u2019s Anthony Redding.\u2019 Pass makes a note. \u2018And where were you getting the taxi to?\u2019 \u2018To the town centre. High street, where all the bars are.\u2019<\/p>\n

I want to tell them that all this bollocks is irrelevant, and that all they should be interested in is catching the people who did this. It doesn\u2019t matter what the fuck I was doing up until it happened. All that matters is that it did happen. Steph got raped, and I got the shit kicked out of me. The only thing that stops me from saying this to them is the fact that I want to be as helpful as possible for Steph\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll no doubt be speaking to her again once they\u2019ve heard my side, and I don\u2019t want them to report back to her that I was an uncooperative prick. \u2018Who else was there?\u2019 asks Pass. \u2018No one. Just me and Tony.\u2019 \u2018No, I mean who did you meet up with?\u2019 \u2018I don\u2019t remember. I know that I met up with my girlfriend, Steph, but that\u2019s only because Tony told me when he came to visit.<\/p>\n

There are a couple of other guys we usually meet up with \u2013 I can give you their details if you like? \u2013 Jake Anderson and Darren O\u2019Brien. Also, Tony\u2019s mate Gaz. But I don\u2019t know his surname. A couple of others.\u2019 Pass keeps scribbling. Probably best not to mention Nick the dealer. \u2018What I need to get to the bottom of,\u2019 Kelsey says once his partner has finished writing, \u2018is what went on once you were all together inside the club.<\/p>\n

Did anything unusual happen between you and Steph that night?\u2019 \u2018Such as?\u2019 \u2018An argument.\u2019 I don\u2019t understand why he\u2019s asking questions that he quite obviously knows the answer to already. I tell the truth, because there\u2019s no point in withholding it: \u2018Apparently we had an argument, yeah.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Apparently?\u2019 \u2018Yeah, apparently. I don\u2019t remember, but Tony told me.\u2019<\/p>\n

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He\u2019s lying on the floor, mouth open like he\u2019s sleeping, but with wide unresponsive eyes fixed on someshit above him. Inside my head I\u2019m not in this club with the lairies and the skanks, caught up in this brawl with someone I\u2019ve never met. Inside my head I\u2019m alone and in silence.<\/p>\n

Fuck me, I\u2019m thinking, all mute panic. I\u2019ve fuckin killed the cunt. Then bedlam returns. Pumping beats. Throbbing bass. Guys and girls gobbing off, some of them unaware of what\u2019s gone on. Where are Colbeck and Ade? Must\u2019ve made a sharp exit like. And where are the bouncers? Have they even had time to react? Time slows down in situations like this but it\u2019s probably only ten seconds since I delivered a final jaw-shattering kick to the face of this fucker. The sequence of events hasn\u2019t yet registered in the minds of all the dolled-up ladies and stripe-shirted lads around me.<\/p>\n

Shock still clouds their judgement. Most people hate to see a fight, and I\u2019m the same. I wince at the sound a punch makes when it connects with a fragile face. It\u2019s not like they portray it on TV. It\u2019s more of a thud than a cracking sound: a dull interface, understated in its subtlety, quieter than you\u2019d expect but more devastating, a slab of raw meat thrown against a cold hard surface.<\/p>\n

So how, then, have I ended up here in a club full of the kinda people I hate, standing over the comatose form of a bloody-faced geezer whose head I\u2019ve just mashed? Before I realise it, I\u2019m in the corridor next to the bogs, then I\u2019m forcing open the fire doors and I\u2019m climbing onto the recycling bins and pulling myself over the wall with people shouting after me, and I\u2019m away. This is both the beginning and the end.<\/p>\n

It is June 13th, 2003. OceanofPDF.com ZERO SHAUN There was the blackness, and it blanketed me, and then there was nothing. Nothing for days, and then the wall clock tick-tocking. And here it comes, The Surfacing. This is how it felt to be born. Unwombed and taking the first breath, back when I was nameless, back when I was nothing more than a cursor flickering at the top of a blank page.<\/p>\n

All clock hands snap back to the beginning: innocence, the first dilated pupil, then the steady corruption of experience. Voices in the distance, broadcast from miles away and floating towards me on the breeze, recognisable as language but impossible to understand. And all I have is this inside surface of my skull where my thoughts dance like charged electrons trying to escape.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n

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