Fate

As far as I know, only two bombs fell on Ladbroke Grove during the whole of the war. One of 'em completely demolished a house, the plot the ruins were cleared from, remains a vacant patch of incongruous green to this day, I wonder if anyone knows this piece of estate is up for grabs? I mention it, because who should've been residing opposite, but my mother. She would occasionally recall the incident that left her ears ringing, deaf to the cries of my brother, bawling amid the broken glass in his cot. 'Not a scratch on him!' she'd say, 'not a scratch'. It's odd to think that if the gust of wind picked up in the wrong the direction or that bomb hit a pigeon on the way down, I wouldn't be here to relay the miracle of the uninjured baby retrieved from a pile of shattered glass and the patch of green on Ladbroke Grove, would be the other side of the road.