It was midnight. I was trying to sleep but the screaming wouldn’t stop. Outside, someone had been screaming for a while. I got out of bed again and peered anxiously out the window.

‘Is someone getting raped?’ I thought. ‘What do I do? Can anyone else hear it? Should I go outside? Can I stop it?’

The screaming stopped. I went back to bed. Then it started again.

‘Maybe it’s a dog,’ I thought. As far as I could tell, the screams hadn’t formed any words.

Two dogs started barking.

Again, I got up to look out the window. I thought about the story of a girl being mugged and killed in a New York alley. Many people looked out of their windows onto the alleyway. No one tried to help the girl because everyone could see that plenty of people were watching. Everyone assumed someone else had called the police or was making their way downstairs to intervene. And so, the girl fell victim to the phenomenon of distributed responsibility.

‘Stop it!’ someone yelled. It was a woman’s voice and it came from halfway up the block of flats across the road. ‘Leave it alone!’

A man’s voice joined in. His voice came from lower down the apartment block. ‘Stop beating the dog! Stop, or I’ll call the RSPCA! I’ll call the cops!’

‘Fuck off! Mind your own fucking business!’ That man’s voice came from the bottom of the flats, probably on the lawn. The screaming started again.

So it was a dog.

The dog wasn’t barking or whining. It was crying in long vowels. It was a human sound. If I had been in its position, I think I would have shut up in an attempt to appease the tormentor.

I was relieved that there were two people braver than me. I could go back to bed and wait for the shouting to stop. I wondered what I would have done if I was the one with the phone in my hand. Should I have the RSPCA’s number programmed into my mobile? Would the RSPCA pick up at midnight? Would I call 999? Not for a dog, surely?

A blaring siren pulled me back to the window. A police car flashing its lights drove past our front door and turned left into the housing estate.

Two police officers got out. They spoke to someone outside at the bottom of the building, then walked to the front lawn. They were on the lawn for a while. Were they talking to the dog beater? Or looking at the body of a dog?

Who knew how long this whole thing would go for? I climbed into bed. I needed to get up in less than seven hours.

Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody This is a story about four people: Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did. Somebody got angry because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody knew that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realised that Somebody wouldn’t do it. And Everybody blamed Somebody because Nobody did what Anybody could have done.