I was a bored boy with a catapult and no sense of consequence. We'd stolen a metal dustcap from a parked car earlier that day, heavy and perfect for distance. Just before nine o'clock, daring each other, I aimed up at the town clock tower and let it fly. The crack echoed through the square like a gunshot. The clock stuttered but kept working. A neat scar appeared in the face just beside the nine. They never fixed it properly. I've passed that tower for twenty years, watched weddings, funerals, festivals beneath it ' all shadowed by a mark I put there as a child who wanted to feel powerful for one second.