25

It’s the last in a line of units between town and sea.

Nightshade Blinds

East End MOT & Repairs 

Bikes 4 U

Solar Services

Get Framed

It stands alone from the others. 

A sign on the wall says, ‘Food Bank’. 

There’s a metal container in the car park, with a yellow smiley face and the words ‘drop ‘n go’. Cars deposit donations and depart.

A white unmarked minibus drops him beside the container at ten o’clock each morning and collects him at four in the afternoon. 

A van, ‘helping to keep the people of South Side free from hunger’, arrives with boxes of food supplies throughout the day. He checks the contents for a sell by date, then stacks them in the appropriately labelled bay.

Vegetables

Meats

Fish

Poultry

Drinks

Biscuits/snacks

Household supplies

He gets on well with the others. Sometimes behind the smiling eyes he can hear the distrust. D cat from the open prison. Four years and six months. For burglary. They understand he would not be working here if he could not be trusted.

They know nothing of his life before this. Working in a small town bank. Unmarried. Unnoticed. Keeping to himself. Content. And then the lie. Such a lie. Told by an old school friend. An investigation. Nothing proved. Outside of the bank no one knew. But he knew. And it festered. And it grew. Cold, hard, deep, intense, personal hatred. And the decision to do something. Not to just move on and accept things as they were.

And so he makes his plans. 

To get into the house. 

To confront. 

To take control.

To find an answer. 

To end it.

Getting into the house was easy. It is empty. He would sit, wait and surprise him. He was the one surprised when the police arrived. A neighbour called them.

He pleads guilty to the charge of burglary.

No one knows that it was something else he had in mind. 

Twenty-five more days of stacking, then life as he knows it will be ended.

He is counting and planning with each box he unpacks.