I pull up to the pavement, look around to see if there are any hood rats. I’m in a nasty area. I shouldn’t be here but it’s the only available cash machine on the way home. Broken bottles and smashed windscreens glisten on the pavement like starry sea of diamonds and nobody even cares. I cautiously open my car door and think do I really want to leave my car in the open? I shut the door, drive off and find a decent looking car park. I park up my car.

I casually make my way to the cash machine; why am I here? Seriously? I could be at home with my family, but I had to do the night shift and chose to be paid by cheque. I walk up to the cash machine and the buttons are stained and the screen is smashed. The water droplets slap my shoulder like thousands of little hands: the area I am in is gloomy and edgy, and I feel as if I’m being watched. I withdraw my wages from my account – £6500 in cash. I take a good look around to see if anybody has seen me. I look up and that is the moment when my heart stops – four men are glaring at me from the floor where my £60,000 car is parked. I’m paranoid that it has been vandalized by these low-life degenerates. I throw myself into the building, fly up the stairs to the third floor and see my car in pristine condition. I calmly walk up to it. There is a clump on the side of my head. And I pass out.

I wake up. I can dimly see a blurred shape standing over me. “Wake up, WAKE UP,” it is saying. A deep kick pounds my ribs. What if I lose my life here? What if I never see my family again? Then the blur hollers, “Give me your money and car keys now!”, “Only if you stand me up,” I stammer. I hear him say to his mate “Lift him up”. They hoist me up ,the blur becomes all too clear. I see a man pull out a gun from the waistband of his grey tracksuit bottoms. “Now give what I asked for. I saw you pull out a wad of notes, now give me it before I kill you and make it look like you killed yourself. Understand?”

I feel my legs avalanche away from the rest of me. I need to get out of here. Then of all a sudden the anger and adrenaline kick in and possess me. I am a 47 year old man and getting robbed of my dignity by youths half my age. I’m going to teach these kids to respect their elders. So I pounce on the gunman, tackling him to the ground. I have a chance to reach for the gun. I grab it. I immediately point it at his friends, trying to hide the unbelievable anxiety enveloping me like a tsunami. I demand “Get out of here before I kill you all!” I cannot believe what I said, I sound like a gangster in a hardcore crime movie. I place the gun on the bonnet of my car. I grab the gunman, pull off his mask and pummel him in the face. Now his friends decide to come back. Long story short: I’m hitting him, and I hear fast footsteps behind. I swivel round. The gun is pointing towards me. I grab it. The gun slews upwards. He strikes me in the groin, but I still hold on. His strength overpowers mine. His arms drop. I look away. Then three shots go off , one after the other, like a shootout in a western. We stare at each other and we both drop the gun. I hear distinctive thick slaps on the floor. I look down and there are two holes leaking my blood. It’s gushing out of me like water from a bucket. I panic. A high pitched piercing sound screams through my head. My vision blurs; then blackens.

I wake up in a hospital bed, a tube sticking down my nose and throat. The light above me is cooking my eyes. I take a look at my surroundings and there is someone in the ward with me, an indistinct shape on a hospital bed. I squint at it. I see a man in grey tracksuit bottoms and a black tracksuit top. His face looks horribly familiar. Then it hits me like a Mike Tyson punch in the throat. It’s him….