Gunshot In Paradise: My True Story

I noticed that I was choking now as my throat seemed to be blocking up with something, my left cheek pressing heavily with the full weight of my head into a warm sticky substance on the floor.

As I watched, the ground in front of me changed colour as a fast-growing circle of black centred at my chest began spreading out across the tiles. A sweet salty sensation filled the air like a fresh slab of meat being sliced open at a butcher's, as the dark liquid at first fully encompassed then quickly surpassed my entire stretched-out frame.

I was transfixed by this rapidly moving pool as it raced over the smooth ceramic then touched and bounced back off the bar panels like a wave hitting a sea wall.

It reminded me of hot black treacle, and I began to think rather worryingly that it looked a lot like blood.

I put the facts together and with horror grasped that it was mine.

It felt as though a violation had taken place upon me that I had been powerless to control or stop, and for the first time in my life I really understood the word violation and what it meant, and all the horrible connotations it holds.

It was 10.30pm, Wednesday the 2nd of February 1994.

Great. I wish I'd stayed in bed.