He had a club foot.

(I recognized it as my son is inflicted with the same.)

The trousers he wore were black denim, creased and freckled with sawdust. His face was covered with a green, scaly, monster mask.

He was holding out a knife and it trembled, whether it was his hand or an attempt to frighten me I do not know.

I felt protected by the CCTV camera and I was aware of another customer towards the back of the shop.

(Who I saw in the reflective mirror!)

And was, I hoped, dialing 999 to fetch the police.

So I wait calmly although I am being told repeatedly ‘give us the money, money now’.

I think of the mortgage, the medical bills for my son and the dozen of credit cards all steeped in debt. I could do with the money too but I wouldn’t dream of holding a shop up to get it.

‘Are you deaf?’ the man yells, bellowing closer with the counter a barrier between us.

All of a sudden there is action, the door blasting open and two burly police men are in sync with tackling this masked man… The knife clatters to the ground, his face forced onto the counter and his arms gathered behind him. He is handcuffed by the wrists. ‘Let’s see your face then,’ one of the police officers pulls off the mask.

‘Robbie!’ I exclaim, staring into the exposed face of my son, ‘What are you doing?’

‘I didn’t know you were working today.’

‘Well, I am.’

Katie Lewington is a student, as well as a writer, reader and firm believer in Karma. She has had her work previously published in various online magazine/journals including After the pause and on the breadcrumbs magazine, winamop.com, and fuckfiction.net websites. She also has a collection of poetry published as an eBook on Amazon Kindle titled ‘Just: a sign of the times’.

[Top photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/damien_thorne]