Tony: Edinburgh bomb explosion

He had been intending to take a bus from the Royal Mile, and was walking north along South Bridge.  It was late morning.  A large number of buses were coming down the busy street towards him, and Redman noted, with little amusement, that three bore the same number and were travelling to the same destination.  He frowned absently.  It was that sort of morning.

What took place as the last of the identical buses reached him was at first impossible to understand.  Redman’s mind, which had been moving conveniently from one thought to the next, lost connection.  An experience so unprecedented as to be indescribable, took over.

He was aware of brilliant, violent light, bluish-tinted, as though someone had suddenly shone a bright torch in his direction.  He was attempting to raise his hands to shield his eyes, when an altogether stronger force hit him and threw him backwards, followed by a sound of such strength and suddenness that his senses were stunned.

His senses were stunned….  It would be easy to say that he was aware of this.  But he was not.  That predictable, normal world he was used to, generated by the senses, organised by mind and memory alike, had disappeared.

He was lying on his back, a nauseous dizziness and an excruciating pain in his head almost obliterating his attempts to register his surroundings.  He assumed his eyes must be open, but his ears were ringing, and a thick, choking smoke was rasping the back of his throat.  The ringing in his ears became one with a new sound – piercing, uncontrolled screaming – though Redman could only guess that it was made by a human being, and not some other, altogether stranger creature.

The screaming subsided for a moment.  The throbbing in Redman’s head, which had threatened to overwhelm him, eased slightly.  He strained to listen for any new sound which might explain his new situation, but there was only silence.  The smoke, as he tried to see through it, seemed slightly thinner.  A movement somewhere near his foot caught his eye – someone’s hand, wet with blood, was moving near his foot – his left foot….

His head fell back, and he was aware of dizziness  again.  What had he seen near his left foot?  He was preparing , in spite of all, to lift his head again to look, when a new sound came to him – the wailing sound of some sort of siren.  At the same time, being able to look to his right, he saw that the road – was it the road? – was covered with scattered shards of glass, some large, some so small that they gleamed like jewels.

“Don’t move!”  A voice, somewhere behind him, a man’s voice, shouted the command more than once.  The harsh, curiously mechanical voices of people speaking through radio receivers reached him.  His strength was failing, and his head once more settled onto whatever was beneath him.

Above him the sky was visible, but threads of white and grey were travelling through it.  Smoke threads, idly rising to a great height, fanned out above him.  So something was still on fire?  A sudden movement near his head made him look towards it - a man’s face was bending over him.

“Yes….  alive.”  Were they his words?  His own voice sounded dry, his words echoed in his mind.  A second man was attaching something to him – perhaps they were going to lift him?  Only time, measured out by the throbbing beating in his head, would tell.