Short Fiction

I'm at home, packing. I've got a job back with my old employer, its less important, but the money isn't bad. I figure it's better than nothing. Only they've moved on now, I think they're in Stockport. I have to take clothes and stuff, things to shave with. So it's all gone in a black bin bag, and I'm getting it out of the car when I realise I've actually taken everything out of the bathroom, so when I go home I've got nothing to shave or wash or deodorise with. I curse myself, thinking I'm going to have to take some stuff back. I'm in a bad mood, and I walk down the steps of the new place into a tight corridor, as I pass down it I can see through frosted glass, the offices where the people I knew before will work. I am not going to be working in the office, I'll be separate somewhere, probably in the warehouse. It is a comedown, that's why I'm grumpy. But I've made the choice, seemingly against my better judgement. As I shout 'morning' through the glass I hear an Italian voice that calls back. It sounds like Carlo Fallarini. Something is going on for him to be here and it seems like there might be others too. But I'm not that interested, it's not my problem any more, I'm just here to be a job. Besides, I'm not important enough to be involved anyway. I'm quite glad about it, but there's a hidden jealousy there too. I flashback or find some document that hints at the future; where the new company will operate from, who will be the key players etc. But at that moment I see Ken Smith in a side office and give him a tentative greeting. He looks sadly back at me and tells me both his parents are dead now. I say I'm sorry and he says, with typical Yorkshire alacrity, 'aye, I've visited both their graves now, both within a week of each other.' I realise this means one of them died a week ago and he said nothing about it. I go into the unknown place with my bin bag, unhappy with my lot and sympathetic to Ken, where I really should have been feeling resentful, which makes me unhappier still.

As an aside, the office building I went into I realise now is a counterstrike map which starts off in an underground car park. It is pretty faithfully rendered in the dream, although we are normally shooting each other in the game.