by Limmy
Just keep moving.
He began walking down the length of the office, down the aisle that ran through the middle of the room. He walked slowly. There was no reason to walk fast, there was nowhere to go. It was a dead end.
He looked to the left, and saw Jack, working on a design for a website. Ben assumed it was a website. He walked over. Jack was new here. He was young and still quite timid. He wouldn’t give Ben any trouble.
‘That’s looking great,’ said Ben.
‘Thanks, sir.’
Holly leaned to the side of her monitor to give Jack a smile.
‘Sir?’ she said, laughing. ‘Did you say “sir”?’
Jack’s face went red. He was barely out of school. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Ben.’
Jack looked embarrassed, but not embarrassed enough to stop him from smiling and giving Holly the finger. Ben wanted to put his hand on Jack’s shoulder and laugh along, but then he’d have to say something funny. He’d have to say some kind of punchline, something to put the icing on the cake.
He put his hand on Jack’s shoulder, and took a breath in preparation for what he was going to say.
But he had nothing to say.
He could feel Jack’s shoulder move away slightly from under his hand.
Do something.
‘Oh,’ said Ben, and he turned away, as if he had just remembered somebody that he had to speak to. A thousand apologies. He suddenly remembered that he needed to speak to somebody. Somebody at the other side of the office. And who would that be? He decided it would be Faye.
He wandered away, clicking his fingers, to give the impression of a man remembering something, and began walking towards Faye. And who knows, maybe when he got there, he really would have something to say to her.
She was sitting at one of the desks across the aisle. He walked over to her. Then he got to her. Then he kept on walking.
He walked to the window.
He looked out the window to the streets below, and wondered if he was being watched by Jack or Holly behind him. They didn’t know that his intention was to speak to Faye, so he was probably fine. If he’d said, ‘Oh, I need to speak to Faye,’ but they saw him walk past Faye, then they’d maybe wonder what was up with that.
He tried to see them in the reflection of the window, but he couldn’t. It was too bright outside.
What did he look like right now?
What was he doing?
He needed to turn around.
He turned around to face the employees again. They were busy, working away, walking here and there. Luke was opening a box. Louise was throwing something in the bin. Bobby was showing Raymond something that looked like a toy, a figure from a game or a cartoon.
If they looked at him now, they would see he was standing there doing nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing to do, nowhere to go. Lost.
Ben let out an unintentional high-pitched whine: ‘Hmmmm.’
It sounded like somebody letting air out of a balloon. He wasn’t even sure if it had come from him, until Faye’s head turned away from her screen to look at him.
He changed the whine into a tune. He was just humming a tune, that’s all. He didn’t look at her. He hummed his tune and clicked his fingers and walked away to the toilet and closed the door behind him and locked it.
For a while, he stood there, facing the door. He looked at the white paint. He looked at the brush strokes. There was a small drip around eye level, where the paint had been put on too thick, and now it was stuck that way. He pushed his thumbnail against it, to see if it was soft, but it wasn’t.
He put his hands by his side and leaned his forehead against the drip, enjoying the cooling feeling of the door, and he let out a sigh. The cool feeling on his head began to warm up, then that part of his head became hot. He rolled his head slightly so that his left temple rested against another part of the door, and it was cool again. After a while, that part of his head also became hot. He began rolling his head slowly to the other side, to cool his right temple.
He was interrupted by somebody trying to open the door. He didn’t move until he heard them go away. He needed to leave, but not too soon. If he left too soon, people would know he wasn’t in to do the toilet. He waited until he’d stayed there long enough for the average person to do the toilet then wash their hands. He took a deep breath and stood tall, then he unlocked the door and walked out.
And there again was the office.
He could walk back into the toilet and walk back out again a million times, and here it would be.
This was it.
He walked over to Sarah at the reception desk.
‘Sarah,’ he said.
Sarah finished typing a few more words, then looked at him and smiled. ‘Yeah?’
He smiled back. ‘I’m going to be out for a while. Maybe an hour or so. I’ll be back in around an hour.’
‘Okay,’ said Sarah. And then: ‘No. Wait. Remember you have the meeting at 11. In about 20 minutes.’
No.
That’s what she said. She said no.
He remembered when he started the company. Why he started the company. It wasn’t to be told no. It was to enable him to come and go as he pleased. It wasn’t to be told no, you can’t go. But it didn’t quite turn out like that, did it?
No.
‘I see,’ said Ben. ‘Thanks for reminding me. I’m just going to step out for something, but I’ll be back in time for the meeting. What time is the meeting again, 11? 11’s fine, I’ll be back in time for 11.’
‘Okay,’ said Sarah. ‘But I’ll let everyone know that you might be a bit late, if you’re held up.’
‘No, no,’ said Ben. ‘I won’t be late. 11 is fine. Bye.’
He walked to the door, pressed the button that let him out, and out he walked to the corridor.
He had nowhere to go.
Ben pressed the button for the lift. He was six floors up, and he could see from the display that the lift was on the fourth floor.
And now it was on the third. It was going down.
The waiting around gave his mind time to think.
Where are you going? Go back to the office, you have a meeting in 20 minutes. In fact, it’s probably 19 minutes now.
He took the stairs.
He reached the ground floor and walked out into the foyer.
‘Hi Ben,’ said somebody. ‘Early lunch?’
It was the guy from the company downstairs on the fifth floor. The guy from the travel company. Gordon. He was standing by the lift.
‘Yeah,’ said Ben, with no intention of going on an early lunch. He smiled at Gordon and nodded and put his finger on his lips to say ‘Shhhhh’, like it was their naughty wee secret. Ben thought that Gordon would appreciate that, he seemed like a fun type of guy. That’s the impression that Ben got from him. Or maybe it was just to do with his line of business. Travel. Holidays. He seemed like a fun type of guy when he came up to Ben’s office a while back, when he came up with that offer. The offer was that if Ben’s team built the website for his travel company, Ben and the team would receive a really good discount on some fantastic holidays. Ben had said it sounded great, but they were extremely busy. In truth, they weren’t that busy. Ben just wasn’t interested. Interested in holidays. Gordon made it sound like fun, but Ben knew from experience that it wasn’t. Not for him. He’d been on holiday and his head went with him.
But an early lunch? Ben liked the sound of that. No, he wasn’t planning on going on one, but he liked that it was Gordon’s first thought. He liked that way of thinking.
Maybe Ben could speak to him. Maybe Gordon was the person to speak to. Maybe Gordon knew more about all this than anybody. It was his business. People getting away. People needing to just go away. People going away, not to do work in a more relaxed surrounding, but going away for the sake of going away.
‘D’you care to join me?’ asked Ben.
‘I wish,’ said Gordon, as the lift door opened. ‘Another time. You free next week?’<
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‘I don’t know.’
Ben wasn’t interested in next week. He thought Gordon was the type of person who would walk away from the lift and drop everything, but he wasn’t.
‘Okay,’ said Gordon. ‘Well, I’ll skip up next week and you can tell us how the old schedule’s looking.’ He smiled and walked into the lift, and the door closed. Ben stood there in the empty foyer, thinking about how pale the guy looked for a person who sold holidays.
He walked out the door, down the ramp to the car park, and got in his car.
He didn’t look at the clock on the dashboard. He made sure he didn’t. He had minutes, he knew that. He had minutes to do whatever it was he was going to do, before it was time to be back at the meeting.
Go back to the meeting.
Get out the car and go back to the office. This is a big job and it’ll be very good. Very good for you and very good for the company. You’ll be in solid work for the next two years.
He turned the key, started the engine, and drove away.
He took a left out the car park and down the hill towards the main road. He waited at the lines for a couple of buses to go past.
Where are you going? Wherever you go, you’ll have to make that same journey back. However long it’ll take you to get there, double it. That’s how long you’ll need. Forget it.
He indicated to go right, which he usually did when sitting at the bottom of the hill. That was the way home.
He turned left.
A car behind him beeped its horn. Ben gave the person a wave.
He continued to drive. These roads weren’t as well known to him as the roads to the right, but they were familiar. He had taken some in the past on the way to other places, on the way to friends or pubs. A long time ago.
He reached a fork in the road. The street on the left was familiar, it would take him past the shopping arcade. The street on the right wasn’t familiar. So he took a right. And so he continued, taking turns he’d never taken or couldn’t remember taking, until he was lost. Absolutely lost.
He parked his car, switched off the engine, closed his eyes and did nothing.
Then he opened his eyes and looked out the windows, to the left, to the right, and straight ahead, being careful not to accidentally look at the clock.
It was a council estate, by the looks of it. Across the road was a park. A big park. A swing park with rides and things to climb on, all made of metal that had been painted over a hundred times in red and green and yellow. Further away, behind the park, was a field. A field that would take ten minutes to run to the far side of. On the field were goalposts, broken.
He closed his eyes again, and a long time passed.
Just look at the time. Just look at the clock and look at the time.
He looked. It was 11.07. Sarah was probably telling them that he was running late but he’d be there in just a minute. At 11.15, she would probably send a text. And then at 11.20, there would be another text. And then at 11.30, there would be a phone call.
Then he would have to come back. He would have go back, because there was nowhere else for him to go. And the later he left it, the more questions there would be.
He should go now. Just go now. He could call Sarah as he was driving. She would hear that he was in the car, and it would make him sound like he was on his way, make him sound like there was nothing out of the ordinary and nothing to worry about.
He maybe just needed a holiday. He’d speak to him from downstairs. Gordon. Gordon said he’d come up next week and pay him a visit. Maybe he could book a holiday. Maybe if he chatted with Gordon about exactly what type of holiday he needed, Gordon would understand, being a boss himself.
Gordon’s face was so pale for somebody who sold holidays.
Ben saw something move out the side of his eye, something out the right window, across the road. He looked, expecting to see a person, but it was a dog.
It was walking along the pavement on the opposite side of the road next to the park. It was by itself, and it was carrying something in its mouth. A ball. The ball was green, so it was probably a tennis ball. Probably a burst tennis ball.
Ben watched the dog as it trotted along. It was a mongrel. Sandy coloured. He couldn’t tell what breeds went into making the dog, but whatever the blend was, it seemed to have resulted in the dog having one ear up and one ear down. The ears didn’t look like something the dog could fix by giving its head a shake, it seemed permanent. As the dog bobbed along, the floppy ear flapped up and down, but the dog didn’t seem to mind. It didn’t seem to mind anything at all. It walked briskly, but not in a hurry. It didn’t look rushed. It didn’t look harassed. It looked like it wanted to be wherever it wanted to be.
It had no collar, and Ben wondered if that meant it was a stray. He wondered how it got fed. It had no collar and there was no owner in sight. He worried about it, but the dog didn’t seem to be worried about a thing. It turned to walk through the front gate of the park, and began walking towards the field, even though there was no one in the field or anything that Ben could see that would give it a reason to go there. The dog seemed to know what it was doing. Or maybe it didn’t, but didn’t care. It had its ball.
A memory came to Ben. He once saw a video on YouTube that compared the size of planets and stars and other things in the known universe, all laid out side by side. First you had the smaller planets of the solar system, like Earth. Next to that were bigger planets like Neptune. Then bigger, till Jupiter. Then the Sun, which was big next to Jupiter and enormous next to Earth. But then there were more. Stars that he had never heard of, dwarfing the Sun like the Sun dwarfed Earth. And then there were other stars that dwarfed those. Until you could barely get your head around the enormity of what you were looking at.
Next to that was the burst tennis ball in the dog’s mouth.
Julie asked Sarah to send a text, just a gentle reminder, but there was no reply. She gave it five minutes then sent another, but there was still no reply. At 11.45, with the meeting kept waiting, Julie asked Sarah to give Ben a phone call. Ben answered, but it sounded like it was answered by accident. All she heard were strange talking sounds muffled through his pocket. Then the phone hung up.
Sarah walked into the boardroom, where Julie was waiting with the rest of the team. She told the team about the call, and the strange sounds.
‘Strange sounds?’ asked Julie. ‘What like?’
Sarah said it sounded like a dog.
They laughed and asked Sarah what she meant. Was it an actual dog or did Ben sound like a dog? Sarah laughed and told them, no, it wasn’t Ben sounding like a dog, it was an actual dog.
But, if she was being completely honest, she wasn’t really sure.
Box Set
Aaron and Emily were watching a box set. They’d been watching it all week. Last night they finished at the second last episode, before Aaron said he had to go to bed because he was falling asleep. Emily had said she was going to stay up and watch something else. She wasn’t tired.
Now it was the night after, and Aaron wanted to watch that last episode.
‘D’you fancy sticking it on now?’ asked Aaron, picking up the remote.
‘What?’ asked Emily.
‘The last episode,’ he said.
‘Oh that. Aye, alright, if you want. Just a minute.’
‘Are you watching this?’ asked Aaron, looking at the documentary on the telly. ‘Watch it if you want. I just thought you’d want to watch the last episode. I’ve been choking for it.’
Aaron loved it. The box set. Everything had been building up to this last episode. A lot of unanswered questions. He’d made sure he didn’t mention on Twitter that he was watching it, in case anybody spoiled it out of badness.
‘All right then,’ she said. ‘Stick it on.’
Aaron got up from the couch to switch a few of the lamps off. This last episode was a big deal. It was the end of the entire series. The series finale, as they say.
‘Right,’ he sa
id, excited. ‘Here it is.’ And he sat down and pressed play.
And they watched.
And what a fucking episode it was.
Halfway through it, Aaron hit pause again, simply to turn to Emily and say, ‘Seriously, what a fucking programme this is. D’you not think?’
‘It’s good,’ said Emily, nodding.
The pair of them loved it. It was a dark comedy, that’s how Aaron saw it. It was serious in parts with shocks and deaths and cruelty, but it was also funny. They’d go from laughing one minute, to sitting in stunned silence the next with their jaws hanging open, to laughing again, to then being almost in tears not long after. Aaron didn’t know how they managed to write something like that, they were magicians.
He unpaused it and they continued to watch.
At around three-quarters through the episode, Aaron had a quick glance at his phone. He’d sometimes have a glance at Twitter during a quiet bit of an episode, when it seemed like nothing was happening. But Emily saw what he was doing and ticked him off.
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘You’ll miss this.’
Aaron looked at the telly, but he could see that he was missing nothing. The main character, Reno, was just walking across a car park. He wasn’t with anybody, nothing was being said.
But then a car came from out of nowhere and ran him over.
‘Jesus!’ said Aaron.
The car drove off, leaving Reno lying there. He wasn’t moving. There was no way he was going to be moving after that. He hadn’t just been clipped by the side of the car, he had gone right over the top.
‘Oh my God,’ said Emily, with her hand over her mouth.
‘That better not be it,’ said Aaron.
‘Shhhh,’ said Emily.
‘It better not be,’ he said again. Had they killed Reno? Is that how this fucking thing ends? He looked at Emily. She looked as shocked as he was. ‘Fucking hell,’ he said.
The car came to a stop, and the door opened. You couldn’t see who was in the motor, not yet.