We were playing Echo the dolphin on our sega saturn when it happened. Mum ran into the room whilst me and my brother were day dreaming to the soundtrack to ask us for help. Nan wasn't acting right and mum she thought she was having a stroke.
"She just keeps moving back and forth but its blurry and I don't know if its her or me oh my god I just don't know. I cant even trust my own eyes. My beautiful young boys please help me" my mum said, lil weird but it was a strange day. I heard on the radio that the IRA had just called in a bomb threat outside the Arndale and it was all over the news. Everyone was acting crazy, it wouldn't surprise me if nan was being a bit weird. She had gotten so into embroidery recently with her new machine I barely saw her outside of that space anymore. She'd sit for hours adding flowers to shit that didn't even need flowers. I didn't get it.
Me and my brother ran into the room my nan sewed in and holy shit, there she was, glitching in and out of reality at the sewing machine. She looked ok tho, not disturbed by the experience just deep into her work, sewing a new dolphin onto my school blazer. I don't think it will be allowed and I'll probably have all my teeth beaten out of me for it as people will assume I'm a homosexual for liking dolphins but hey, its my nan. Let her work and be happy, she's doing her best.
And here she is, looking like a nackered scart cable connection, phasing in and out of reality in RGB formats. My brother, the smart one, goes up and kicks her chair and she sits up. It all ends. She's there again all normal like nothing had happened. Like she wasn't having issues with her analogue connection keeping her in the mortal realm a moment ago.
"Why did you kick my chair?" She looks up from her work and asks him, annoyed to be disturbed. But he just smiles and runs back into the other room and continues to play saga saturn. It was at that moment in 1996 the IRA detonated a 1,500-kilogram bomb outside the Arndale shopping centre in Manchester, causing £1.3 billion pounds worth of damage and to be honest, doing us all a favour because the place has always been a shithole and needed a complete redo.
