Craig tackled John in a move so dirty, you could have planted flowers in it. John hit the ground hard with a ‘woof’ of expelled air. “You fucking cunt!” John shouted, laughing as he rolled over. Craig took the ball that had just been in John’s possession and wellied it over to Kevin, who stood unmarked in front of a wide open goal. Kevin ran up to the ball and blasted it between the two coats masquerading as goal posts in a guaranteed game clincher. Eleven boys watched the ball connect to the twelfths foot and six resigned themselves to the inevitable. Kevin knew as soon as his foot connected to the ball, that he had fucked up. Twelve pairs of eyes watched the ball slice away from the wide open goal and pass the wrong side of a Nike jacket. Oh fuck...

“Kevin you fucking twat!!”

“Fucking nob cheese!”

“Should have fucking gone to Specsavers...”

“My fucking gran could have sunk that, and she’s blind!!”

The other team were, justifiably, in hysterics. “Sorry” was all Kevin could think to say. He opened his mouth to blame Craig, when they all heard a roaring in the sky and looked up. Something very bright was hurtling towards them. Kevin just stared at it. He knew that he should be running, but his body just wouldn’t move.

“Fucking run!!” John screamed and he was off towards the park gates. Like a switch had been thrown, all the boys were suddenly in motion as the roaring got louder and louder. It was so loud Kevin’s bones were vibrating. The old abandoned steel works, a legacy of the destructive Thatcher years, ceased to exist as something smacked into the middle of it, throwing slats and steel joists out to either side in every direction. The ground trembled at the impact, making it very hard, almost impossible, to run. The boy’s staggered like drunks as the ground suddenly wasn’t where foot and brain was expecting. Something shot past the fleeing boys, throwing up great waves of grass and soil.

A monumental force hit Kevin’s back, lifted him off his feet and threw him fifteen meters through the air to land head over feet in a tumble.

Something was trying to bury him and Kevin desperately clawed his way free, spitting out earth. Kevin staggered up right and dazedly looked around. The other boys were also climbing to their feet, shaking earth from their hair and spitting out mud. Where they had just been playing football, was now a big deep hemispherical trench that ran most of the length of the park. Something was still busily collapsing in the former steel works.

“My fucking jacket! Mum’s going to kill me!”

“Shit! Mines gone as well.”

“Well, I’ve got mine...” One of the boys held up one sleeve that had a bit of torn body still attached. The boys laughed the nervous laugh of those who had just escaped death by the narrowest of margins, and knew it.

“What the fuck was that!”

“A plane?”

“Nah. It couldn’t have been a plane. There would be luggage and dead bodies scattered everywhere...” The boys congregated at the lip of the newly formed trench and followed its path back to the still collapsing steel works, and then back to where the trench stopped at the edge of the park.

“Come on!” One of the boys started running along the top towards the end of the trench, the rest following because no-one wanted to be the boy that didn’t. They all stopped and peered down at the wall of earth that marked the end of the trench.

“There’s fuck all there!”

“Maybe it was a satellite or something.”

“Or an alien spaceship!”

“Fucking wise up Neil, you plonker.”

“Why not!” Neil grumbled. Something smacked into Kevin’s back and sent him over the edge. For the second time in as many minutes, Kevin found himself tumbling head over heels. The opposite side of the trench arrested his tumble and he glared up at the laughing boys stood above, lining the top of the crumbling trench edge.

Picking up a clod of earth, he threw it at them. “Bunch of cunts!” He shouted, as he spat out mud yet again. Tilting his head over, Kevin banged the opposite side, trying to dislodge some of the Earth from his ear. He shook most of it out, tilted his head the other way and banged the other side to get some of the crap out of his other ear.

“Kev! Can you see anything?”

Kevin looked around. “Apart from my fist in your face? Nah. There’s fuck all here.”

“There must be something!”

Kevin climbed to his feet, not an easy task in the slopping loose soil, and made his way to the almost sheer end wall that marked the stopping point of whatever had landed. In the distance, the sounds of sirens could be heard. Kevin stood in front of the shear wall of Earth. “Nope! Definitely nothing here!” Something caught his eye. It looked to be about a football in size and shape, mostly buried in the ground. Automatically, Kevin leaned down to pick it up. “Got something here!”

“What?” shouted out the boys above.

“Bring it up!”

Kevin wrapped his hands round the object with the intention of lifting it out. There was a sizzle accompanied by the smell of bacon and for the briefest of moments that felt to Kevin like an eternity, the most horrendous pain in his hands that he had ever felt. Kevin screamed as his hands burned. Not so much stepping back, as falling back, his weight ripped his hands from the object, leaving most of his skin still attached. He had a brief glimpse of the burned ruin of his hands before darkness took him into its welcoming embrace.

There was something bitter in his mouth and his bed did not feel right. Something was also beeping and doing so annoyingly. He’d just had the weirdest of fucking dreams. Kevin opened his gritty sticky eyes to a ceiling of patchwork tiles. That was all rather weird, as his bedroom didn’t have a tiled ceiling. His was painted plaster dotted with glow in the dark stars, spaceships and moons. The stars were supposed to be in the shape of constellations, but after sticking up the third star, he had decided that he couldn’t be bothered and had discarded the map instructions and stuck the glow in the dark stickers where he wanted. He tilted his head over to the side. Kevin had never been in a hospital before, with the exception of when he had been born, but he didn’t count that time as he couldn’t remember it. He had seen enough TV shows to get the jist of what one looked like. So maybe that dream hadn’t been a dream after all. He was feeling a little ... spaced out ... after all. Spaced out. The phrase made him smile more than it should have.

Kevin lifted his hands up so that he could see them. He stared at the two white boxing gloves that he was currently wearing. His eyes took a moment to focus in the dim light and it slowly dawned on him that it wasn’t boxing gloves, but bandages. How the fuck was he going to hold his cock to pee with them? The thought was funny, though he knew it shouldn’t have been. He really, really needed a drink. His mouth tasted horrible and his throat felt as though it had been raped by a donkey. A very unhygienic donkey. Now why the fuck did he think that.

“Err...” His voice was really dry and raspy. “Hello?” He heard a rustle and movement from beyond his view. The sound of footsteps coming closer.

“Kevin?”

“Yes?”

“How are you feeling?”

Kevin held up his bandaged hands to the young female nurse standing at his bedside. “Not very well at the moment.”

The nurse smiled “A bit of a joker are you?”

“Aye.”

“Are you in any pain?”

“No. Feel a bit, you know, not here...”

The nurse reached out and pressed some buttons on a unit next to the bed. “I’ve reduced the dose of your morphine. If the pain becomes too much, let me know.” The nurse lifted a chart from the foot of his bed and noted down that she had lowered his morphine dose and the time.

“What happened?” Kevin asked her.

“Do you not remember?”

“I remember something hitting the ground and I think I went to pick it up or something.”

“A bit of an asteroid survived entry into the atmosphere and narrowly missed landing on you and your friends.”

“Oh, right. What happened to my...” Kevin held up his two bandaged hands.

“Well Kevin, you did indeed think it a great idea to pick up something a few thousand degrees in temperature.”

“Ahh. That wasn’t very clever. Have I lost my hands?”

“I don’t know Kevin. I do know that some very good surgeons worked for over eight hours straight to try and save them.”

“Eight hours?” The nurse nodded “Wow.” The nurse took and logged his temperature, blood pressure and other vitals. “Could I have a drink please?”

The nurse poured some water from the carafe on his bedside table into a glass. “Let me sit you up.” There was a hum and the top of his bed started to rise. The nurse stopped it when he was sat up. She held the glass to his lips and he took cautious gentle sips.

“Thanks. What time is it?” The nurse checked her watch automatically, even though she had just written the time down.

“Just after two twenty in the morning.”

“Oh.” The nurse returned his glass to his bedside table. “My mums going to be really pissed that I’m not home. Does she even know that I’m here?”

“She does indeed Kevin. She’s in the waiting room just down the corridor. Is there anything else that I can get you?”

“Umm. I’m absolutely starving. Is there anything to eat?”

“I’ll see what I can rustle up.” The nurse silently left the ward. Kevin looked around. He was in a room with seven other beds, all occupied by smallish forms. A children’s ward or something, though weren’t those wards supposed to have cartoons on the walls or something? There were footsteps and hushed voices in the corridor and the nurse re-appeared, along with his mother, who immediately rushed over, tears in her eyes.

“Are you okay my love? They said you might lose your hands, you were in surgery for hours...”

“Could you please keep your voice down Mrs Hamilton. Remember what I said about the other patients in the room needing their sleep, and if you become disruptive, you will have to leave...”

“Yes, I’m so sorry. It’s all just so emotional...”

“I know, I understand, please just remember to keep it down...”

“You stupid idiot! “His mother hissed. “What were you thinking!” Her voice struggling to keep to a whisper.

“I dunno...”

“It could have been radioactive, or poisonous, or something. And how it never hit any if you is anyone’s guess!”

“What happened to it?”

“Happened to what?”

“The thing that fell.”

“The meteorite? The Natural History museum has it, I think. They are doing analysis on it to work out how old it is and where it came from.”

“Space.”

“What?”

“Space. It came from space mum.”

“They know that dummy, they are looking to see from where about in space it came from...” They chatted quietly for a bit more before tiredness overcame him and his mother let him go back to sleep.

“Time for the big reveal!” Kevin looked on apprehensively as Dr Blinds started to cut away the fastenings and slowly unravel the bandages. A couple of nurses, one male, one female stood in attendance either side. Kevin was filled with trepidation. His hands hurt all the time now that he was no longer on morphine. They had been quick to take him off it and had refused to put him back on it for some reason that they hadn’t bothered to tell him about, replacing it with decla-something or other and some other tablets. Kevin winced through clenched teeth, determined not to shout out and appear weak in front of the other seven boys, who were all watching him avidly. It wasn’t as if they had much else to watch. Certainly not Peppa Pig that was currently on the single TV at the end of the room. They were fourteen, or roundabouts that age, not fucking four. He couldn’t help himself and let out a yelp as the gauze was pulled away from his flesh.

“That doesn’t look bad at all” The doctor said to no-one in particular.

Seriously? That fucking looks horrible! His left hand was a red mess of ... Kevin didn’t have the words to describe it other than ‘disaster.’

“Hmm ... Not bad at all.” If the doctor classed that mess as ’not bad’ Kevin didn’t want to see ‘bad’. His hand looked like something that had just come out of a mincer.

“I can’t move my fingers.” Kevin said worriedly.

“Do you have any sensation?”

“Other than pain? Then no.”

“The rock you touched was very hot Kevin. The resistance of the Earth’s atmosphere caused friction, which was converted to heat. Normally rocks entering our atmosphere, get so hot that they explode into smaller and smaller pieces which eventually burn up before they reach the surface. Your piece had a high iron content however, which meant that it resisted breaking up. The high iron content however, also meant that it retained a lot of heat, so that when you touched it, it was so hot that it melted all the skin off your palms and melted the flesh beneath as well. Unfortunately, this included all your muscles, tendons and nerve endings. You were very lucky to keep your hands, though you might still lose them yet if infection sets in.”

“Oh, so they are always going to look like this?”

“In a week or two. If they heal okay, we will look into skin grafts.”

“What’s that?”

“Skin grafts? You have lost the ability to grow skin on your palms, so what we are planning on doing, is taking healthy skin from your thighs or your stomach, and grafting it on to the inner surface of your hands. If all goes well, it should take and the pieces of skin we removed should grow back as normal. It won’t replace function, but it will help make your hands look more normal.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Today was his first day back at school in three months. He had been given lessons in hospital, but even Kevin knew that he had drastically fallen behind the rest of his school year. There was talk of him being held back a year, which Kevin didn’t want as all his pals would move on without him. He had seen footage of the meteorites fall. Several security camera’s had picked up it is spectacular descent, which had caused several sonic booms that had shattered windows across the city. The insurance claims for broken windows alone, was already into the millions. The steel works had
basically been flattened by the landing and the city council had been forced to pay for a demolition company to come in and flatten what little was left to secure the site. Another contractor was still filling in the trench and returning the park to its former pre-asteroid strike state.

Kevin and his football playing pals had gone global. Footage of them playing football one minute and then sent flying the next, spreading across the internet like a digital venereal disease. Even watching it now, Kevin couldn’t believe how neither himself on the other boys had received any damage other than a few scrapes and bruises. You could quite clearly see his arms and legs flopping around uselessly as he soared through the air. He watched as they all lined up at the top of the comets final resting place. Watched as he was pushed in and disappeared from view. The emergency services were already enroute and had been arriving in the streets around the park and the abandoned steel works as he was busy deciding to touch a lump of iron at a few thousand degrees.

There was footage of him being lifted out of the trench on a stretcher by the fire brigade. It was the prompt medical care and subsequent air ambulance flight to hospital that had allowed him to keep his hands-what was left of them. He was still rather annoyed at being unconscious for the helicopter flight.

“Are you ready for this?” His dad asked. Kevin nodded. They were deliberately late at the headmistress’s recommendation. She had believed it would be easier for him and less disruptive amongst the pupils, if he arrived after all the other kids were in class. Which would allow both Kevin and the school to integrate in a more manageable fashion.

His father opened and shut the car door for him. He’d lost almost all function of his hands and fingers. The surgeons had said that he might gain a little more mobility over time, but they hadn’t sugar-coated his condition, saying that what little he had now was as good as it was going to get. The reduction and loss of circulation meant that he had to take a plethora of drugs daily to help reduce the threat of infection and possible resultant amputation. The pill taking was something he was going to have to live with for the rest of his life, he had been told. Velcro had also become his saviour and new best friend. With almost no articulation in his hands and fingers, simple things that he had taken for granted, like tying his own shoelaces, doing up buttons and zips, were all now beyond him. Either he could get someone to do it for him, or he could go Velcro. He didn’t want to beholden to anyone, personal pride and dignity wouldn’t allow it, so his mother had gone into overdrive with her sewing machine. Anything with buttons or zips had the fastenings removed to be replaced with Velcro. New shoes had to be bought, but there were enough Velcro fastening shoes out there, not for it to be too much of an issue. Even his school tie, his mother had cut the neck loop and shortened the two ends to three inches that with the addition of Velcro to the partnering strips under his collar, allowed him to take it off and re-fix it when needed.

Kevin and his dad had an interview with the headmistress first, where she asked them lots of questions about his medication, how often he took it, what physical help he needed, what his physical limits were, would he need help going to the bathroom, and on it went. It was quite an exhausting interview and Kevin was relieved when it was over.

“She’s just trying to cover the school’s and her proverbial back” His father said as she left momentarily to photocopy some waiver forms that his father needed to sign and his drug requirement list and notes on when he should be taking his medication. It was almost lunchtime by the time Kevin finally entered his classroom. I was disruptive at first, the teacher finally giving in and pausing the lesson so everyone could cluster around Kevin to look at his hands and ask the obvious questions.

“How do you wipe your arse after a shit?”

“How do you hold your cock to piss?”

“How do you eat?”

“How do you dress yourself.”

“You’re going to be such a shite goalie.”

“That’s enough George.” The teacher warned. “Right, that’s enough excitement. Back to your desks. Come on, hurry up now. Right, back to the lesson...”

Lunchtime was a bit of a circus. He could hold the tray, just not the individual dishes, so he had to get one of the canteen staff to fill his plate and put it on his tray. Kevin was very self-conscious of everyone watching him as he sat down to eat. He hadn’t bothered collecting a knife and fork, as he couldn’t hold them well enough to use them as they were intended, and had just taken a spoon. Because of his injuries, he had picked food that could be easily cut by the edge of a spoon. As he started to eat, he heard monkey noises from around various points in the room, but he ignored it. If he bit, it would only make it worse.

His mother picked him up at the school gates, desperate to know how his day had gone. He told her most of it, but left out the verbal abuse. She would only worry and complain about it to the school, which would make it worse, so he kept quiet.

“You manage really well. Does it hurt?” A tray was placed down next to him and Tracey Squires sat down. She was dressed in her usual trousers, blouse and fleece. She was one of the few girls in the school that very rarely wore a skirt, normally only on the hottest days of the school year. Kevin had never even seen her wear a skirt or dress outwith school hours. He had always had her down as a bit of a Tomboy. His relationship with her was one he never understood either. She had always seemed friendly with him and she normally left him with the feeling that something else is going on, but he hadn’t yet worked out what. She did seem to spend more time talking to him than she did with the other boys. She had even stopped by the hospital a few times to see him. Which was more than some of his male friends had done.

“All the time. But you start to get used to it after a while.”

“Can I see?” Kevin sighed inwardly. It’s what everyone really wanted to do when they stopped by to ‘speak’ to him. ‘The Claw’ as he was now known in the playground, due to the fact that his fingers were permanently bent inwards. It was best, he had found, just to let them sate their morbid curiosity and be on their way. They would only pester him otherwise. Silently, he held a hand out to her, palm facing upwards.

Tracey gasped. “That looks ... really ... umm, bad.”

“Yeah, touching a two thousand degree rock really wasn’t one of my better ideas.”

“You have good ideas?”

“Oh ha-ha.”

Her fingertips touched his scarred skin delicately as she traced the contours of the red puckered skin over his palm. Gently, she turned his hand over. “It looks kinda normal from this side.”

“I’ll bear that in mind and only show the world the outside.”

Tracey gasped and lifted a hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to be so rude.”

Kevin sighed. “It’s okay Trace, I’m getting used to it now.”

“You shouldn’t need to.”

“Shouldn’t need to, what?”

“You know, get used to it.”

Kevin shrugged. “It is what it is, you deal with it and move on.”

“I suppose.” They ate in awkward silence ... Tracey watched him out the corner of her eye. “Do you want a hand?” she asked.

“Yeah, two please.”

“What?”

Kevin shook his head.

A moment of silence then Tracy said “Ahh! I get you!”

Kevin turned to face her and smiled, no need to be a dick to her he thought. “Better late than never.”

“Yeah, sorry.” She replied, bashfully.

Tracey was actually quite pretty, Kevin suddenly realised. Not a traditional head turner, like some, but pretty in a plain way. Someone you could be pals with and not have to worry about every other lad in school trying to woo her away from you. It dawned on him that he must be staring at her quite intently as she wasn’t meeting his eyes and had gone a deep red in the face, “Umm...” Kevin, turned back to his plate, spooning up some food. “It’s probably best that you don’t. Help me I mean. You’ll just get slagged off for helping the cripple. You know what they are like.”

“I don’t mind.” The words came out of her mouth in a bit of a rush. Things were starting to fall into place in Kevin’s mind. There was a subtle conversation going on here, he realised. One he didn’t know the rules to. There was another awkward silence. “Well...” Tracey made to leave, though she was very slow to do so, almost as if she was drawing it out, as if she was delaying in the hope of something.

Kevin You bloody idiot! she doesn’t want to leave, but she doesn’t know what to say-Well, That makes two of us. Say something you blithering idiot!!! “I wish you’d asked yesterday...”

Tracey looked relieved as she curtailed her standing and sat back down. “Why?”

“It was gammon yesterday and I bloody love gammon, but...” Kevin lifted his hands up. “I’d still be here now trying to cut it up with my lethally sharp plastic spoon.”

“I had it, it was really nice, very tasty.”

“Oh thanks a bunch! Just rub it in, why don’t you.”

“So what did you have instead Kev?”

“The potato cheese bake thingy...”

“Eurgh! Sorry, gammon all the way...” They shared a companiable laugh.

Keep it going Kev, keep her talking! “I thought you would have been a, you know, ‘meat is murder’, err follower, advocate, one of them?”

“Oh god no! I like my bacon rolls!” She looked down at his hands. “You can eat them, can’t you? Bacon rolls that is? You sort of have...” She clawed her own hands “a pre-built, roll shaped, cuppy thing going on.”

Kevin nodded. “Yeah, they do kinda fit in there quite nicely. But only for a couple of bites, then they fall out.” He laughed, she laughed as well.

“Bummer.”

“Aye.” Kevin spooned some more food into his mouth, nervous at actually having an honest-to-god conversation with a member of the opposite sex. Pudding was sponge and custard. Thankfully, easy spoon material.

“Do you not use a separate-spoon?”

Kevin paused, spoonful of pudding halfway to his mouth. “Why? It all ends up in the same place. ‘Ma sexy belly’” He said the last in a very poor rendition of the Scottish accent out of the Austin Powers film.

Tracey laughed. “I suppose it does ... I’ve never really thought about it before.”

Kevin watched her watching him out the corner of his eye. Trying to keep hold of the spoon was not an easy task at the best of times. It was even harder when you were being watched by a girl he had now decided that he was most definitely interested in, and to whom you were trying not to look like a complete and utter spastic. Tracey hadn’t gone for pudding, so he felt a little self-conscious and awkward eating by himself. The nature of his injuries meant that he was a slow eater and by the time he finished, there were only a few other pupils in the canteen. “Same time tomorrow?” He half-jokingly said, not really expecting a positive reply.

“Okay.”

“What! Really?”

“Do you not want me too?” There was an amused glint in her eye.

“Hell yeah! I want you to. Err, I mean, that would be nice, if you are, like, free that is...”

“I’ll check my diary. See if I’m free tomorrow. I might have to re-schedule an appointment or two. I did have a hair appointment and I need my nails doing...” They laughed together as they picked up their trays.

Kevin, not paying enough attention, dropped his. “Bugger. Fucked fingers.”

“Isn’t it supposed to be ‘butter’ fingers ... Oh yeah, I get you now...”

“I’ll catch you later?”

“Okay.” She helped him pick up his tray and dishes and they racked them with the rest.

Kevin headed straight out into the playground and joined the ongoing football match. “Your suddenly very friendly with Tracey?”

“She was just being polite, asking if I needed a hand.”

“Oh yeah? I know the helping hand you are after...” James closed his hand around an imaginary cylinder and pumped it quickly up and down as all the other lads laughed.

“Only because you are really shit at it James. Some friend you are ... At least Nigel uses his tongue.”

Nigel looked over. “Fuck you Kev!” He shouted back as Kev passed him the ball.

“How did your day go, my love?”

“Okay mum.”

“Any trouble?”

“What? No, it’s fine, all good.”

“You know. If you are being bullied, it’s okay’ to say so.”

“I said I’m good mum. You don’t need to keep picking me up after school. I want to go back to using the school bus.”

“Are you sure?”

Kevin thought back to his lunch with Tracey. “I’m sure mum.”

Tracey kept her word and sat with him at dinner. She did the same the next day and the day after that. They talked about everything and anything, though today Kevin was bemoaning a particularly bad math lesson. It had been trig and the lesson had gone too fast for him to keep up. The symbols and large quantity of numbers that had needed writing down, had been more than his ruined hands could keep up with. Because he couldn’t keep up and spent so much effort in just trying to keep the pen in his hand, he had failed to take any of the lesson on-board. He had a similar problem in English class.

“I can give you a hand...” Tracey had dryly remarked and they had both laughed easily at the pun. Kevin no longer felt as awkward about the condition of his hands around her as he had once had. “If you wish?”

“That would be great!” Any excuse to spend more time with her. Even if it meant having to suffer more trig.

“You can come round to mine after school...?”

“Okay.”

Tracey chatted all the way through the bus ride and during the walk to her house. Stopping at a door, she pulled a key out of her purse and slid it into the Yale lock. “Come on up.” Kevin followed her up the stairs into her room. A room that was suspiciously immaculate. No clothes lying about all over the floor. Her makeup was all neatly tidied up in front of her dressing table mirror. She either suffered from OCD, which Kevin hadn’t seen any tell-tale signs off until now, or this had been planned for in advance. Kevin fervently hoped that it was the latter. “Sit.” Tracey dropped her school bag by the side of the bed and sat, patting the bit of empty bed next to her. Kevin dropped his own bag and sat in the indicated spot He prayed that she wouldn’t pull out her homework or a math book. “Kev?” She asked after a minutes silence, as though she had been working up the courage for something.

“Hmm?”.

“Do you want to kiss me?”

“Fuck yeah!” He laughed, she giggled.

“Go on then...”