I saw it all from my phone, in the remains of the sitting room, watching
it on the screen and wondering how, just how anyone could look at our
little flat and our terrible, manky estate and mistake it for the home
of an organized crime kingpin. They took the printer away, of course,
and displayed it like a trophy for the newsies. Its little shrine in
the kitchenette seemed horribly empty. When I roused myself and picked
up the flat and rescued my poor peeping tweetybird, I put a blender
there. It was made out of printed parts, so it would only last a month
before I'd need to print new bearings and other moving parts. Back
then, I could take apart and reassemble anything that could be printed.
By the time I turned 18, they were ready to let Da out of prison. I'd
visited him three times -- on my tenth birthday, on his fiftieth, and
when Ma died. It had been two years since I'd last seen him and he was
in bad shape. A prison fight had left him with a limp, and he looked
over his shoulder so often it was like he had a tic. I was embarrassed
when the minicab dropped us off in front of the estate, and tried to
keep my distance from this ruined, limping skeleton as we went inside
and up the stairs.
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