after 11pm on a friday night.

It saddens me to see children drink their youth away.

Last night, in the surbaban courtyard outside my window – one teenage boy, two girls with big hoop earrings and the third in pyjamas stood in centre stage cussing, fighting whilst making an amateur film and laughing.

I did the neighbourly thing and watched from the safety of my first story abode. The poor boy was irate. Most likely felt hard done by because one of the girls with the hoop earrings as his unfaithful partner. I’d feel hard done by too if my girlfriend looked like either of them. He was gesticulating and laying claims that she had committed all sorts of sexual deviancy.

She was trying to calm him down but repeating her mantra of “I didn’t do it” the second Hoop-Earring girl was documenting this dramatic saga for her awaiting audience on Facebook. The Third, pyjama girl, was given a free Jerry Springer show. I originally intended to go to bed but was hooked on this live East Ender scene.

Sadly, this would become a Shakespearean Tragedy as opposed to a Comedy.

A drunken woman staggered into the scene from stage left. I believe she had the intention to calm these children down. The boy turned and told her to “F off”. One can presume that with such an open dialogue, it must have been his mum. She slapped him. He pushed her. She staggered off stage left. Then staggered across the courtyard only to exit stage right.

To the right side of my house rests a retirement home. I wanted to see more so moved into the spare room to gain a better view. The mother was banging on the window of the retirement home screaming. Her screams were drowned by the screaming of the drunken youths, though out off sight because I changed rooms.

I wanted to call the police but didn’t know how to report the issue. Domestic disturbance? Public disturbance? Contravening noise levels after midnight? I don’t know. Life must have been hard for all of them if the bottle is the only path to happiness.

Sadly, I had to make a call to the ambulance. Within those short moments, the boy turned his fit of rage towards the girl in the pyjamas. He felt angry that pyjama girl for laughing at his broken heart. He chased her. She ran across the road and didn’t look right. A night bus hit her and the courtyard fell silent for a brief moment. Then the screams and the blame and the tears and the people came out of their apartments. The mother on stage right kept hitting the window of the closed retirement home.