The creature looks up at Chuck from the block through wide, pleading eyes. Its struggles against the shackles have ceased for now. It has expended a lot of energy thrashing about – not in pain, but the anticipation of pain – but seems to now accept its situation, or, at least, the futility of struggle. Chuck smiles at this, running his tongue along his blackened, rotting teeth and, as the creature recoils, whimpering behind its muzzle, Chuck shuffles around the block and regards its plump, ripe frame.

It lies on its belly, panting in quick, shallow, panicked breaths; its haunches fettered to the butcher’s block in stainless chain. Chuck cocks his head, takes his bony blood-stained finger and traces the nape of its neck to the shoulder. The brisket. It winces, and the chains rattle again. Briefly, this time. It is so very tired, now. He thinks about the sinewy cut; how he’ll dice it into chunks – cubic inches – and fry it in lard, adding a pint of Guinness and the stock from the creature’s boiled bones to make a hearty stew.

His finger continues to trace down the spine, sinking into each depression between the ribs. He can feel the beastly thing mustering the strength to struggle again. Chuck likes ribs. He’ll cleave clean through the spine, he thinks, and portion two meals from the ribs. He licks his lips at the thought of grilling them Cajun style, charred with a lathering of Louisiana hot sauce; and an Asian version with a Hoisin dip.

Chuck’s finger draws down to the hip, around the joint and back up to the small of the back. He visualises the incisions he will make to extract the sirloin. This is his favorite cut, to be enjoyed with a bottle of French Syrah. Perhaps some company. A little jazz music. He closes his eyes and sniffs in the imaginary aromas: the peppered steak, charred outer crust with a moist pink interior, dabbed in a rosemary and chanterelle sauce.

The chains jingle louder now as the creature begins to writhe once more. Chuck pulls his hand away and holds his open palms above the rump. Plump. Succulent. He’ll roast this cut first, he thinks, with Hassleback potatoes and baby carrots.

He takes a breath and licks his cracked, eager lips.

“Are you ready, boy?” he asks, wiping his palms carefully down his stained, leather apron. He gathers the skinning knife and sharpening steel in his large, steady hands. The boy, terrified and so very alone, thrashes in his manacles once more, finding the energy to once again yell through his muffle, as he had been all morning, and Chuck begins to whistle.

Auburn leaves detach from the English trees and muddle about the garden. I’m unsure how long I’ve been watching their charming, futile flutter through the reflection in the dresser mirror. It must be April, though it could be early May.

April. Such a pretty name.

Pasted to the mirror, a square, yellow note shouts, ‘Your DAUGHTER APRIL will collect you at 2pm today’ in a stranger’s upper-case scrawl. They must consider me quite vain to presume my mirror the best place for posting messages. Beneath, in lower case, it reads ‘today is your birthday’ alongside three hand-drawn balloons surrendered to the breeze, each dangling an S-shaped thread.

They seem detached, as though they are drifting further from each other.

The old woman’s hollow, sunken eyes gape at me. Her features are carved into the mirror in deep furrows. She is ancient and still, her last essence of life captured and framed like a Goldie portrait. I reach a gnarled, spotted hand out to trace her creases.

A sharp knock at the door cuts through the room. A brown-skinned girl lets herself in and flaps about me like a chicken soon to meet an axe. We have chickens at the farm. My mother hands me a bowl of scraps each day and I scatter it in a radius as they follow me about the yard like disciples. Awful creatures, they are – always nervous; a sense of impending doom their only constant. The girl frets through my wardrobe, liberates my few dresses and strews them across the bed.

‘But dear,’ I probe. ‘Where is it that we’re going?’

She clacks and clucks, pointing to the yellow note fixed to my mirror. ‘Your DAUGHTER APRIL will collect you at 2pm today’ in a stranger’s upper-case scrawl. Beneath, in lower case, it reads ‘today is your birthday’ alongside three hand-drawn balloons surrendered to the breeze, each dangling an S-shaped thread.

A violet cotton dress with red roses hangs off the bony shoulders of the old woman in the mirror. It must be an unreturned gift, because it does not suit her. It’s three sizes too large, and red and violet are not her colours. The brown-skinned girl refuses to help me change, despite my insistence that the silk dress that Bert bought me on our honeymoon – the one from Kirkcaldie & Stains – is there, in the wardrobe. If only she’d listen. Instead, she applies rouge to my cheeks, scolding my tardiness, and I’m staring at that ancient, lined woman in the mirror, suspicious that the girl has taken the dress and that’s why she won’t comb the pitiful wardrobe; cawing, instead, with her incessant instructions.

Another knock at the door; this time discreet and apologetic. The girl flaps her way over to answer it. She confers in a murmur with a stranger, who occasionally nods in my direction and feigns a smile through pinched lips and doleful cow eyes.

‘This is your daughter, April,’ the brown-skinned girl declares, as though I were a simpleton.

‘Yes, yes, dear,’ I say, shooing her aside and shaking April’s hand, foiling her clumsy attempt to embrace. ‘Of course, it is. How are you, April?’ I inquire and, despite the crow’s feet surrounding the worry in her eyes, she smiles that impish grin that once belonged to Bert and pecks me on the cheek.

‘I’m well thanks, Mum,’ she divulges. ‘How are you?’ Before I can complain that the room is too dark, the old man next door cheats at cribbage, and the girl is taking money from my purse, she adds, ‘Happy birthday. Are you ready for your party?’

I ask what on earth she is prattling on about and she points to a yellow note stuck to my dresser mirror. ‘Your DAUGHTER APRIL will collect you at 2pm today’ in a stranger’s upper-case scrawl. Beneath, in lower case, it reads ‘today is your birthday’ alongside three hand-drawn balloons surrendered to the breeze, each dangling an S-shaped thread.

At the front door, I ask April where she’s leading me. She murmurs something about somebody’s birthday. She never could speak clearly, that girl. It used to drive Bert up the wall. She bundles me into a car and it’s all blue lights and dials and leather and so very plush and I wonder if it’s new. She tells me she’s owned it for a year or two and I feel suddenly aggrieved that she’s never come to collect me and take me for a drive. As she starts the car, I can see that she’s very red faced. ‘There’s no need to be embarrassed,’ I exclaim. ‘Just come by, perhaps on a Sunday, and we could drive to the tearooms at the lake.’

‘We did that last Sunday!’ she thunders, and I tell her it’s not ladylike to yell. I am sat right beside her, after all.

She drives in silence and when I ask where we are going she doesn’t answer. She always had cloth ears, that girl. It used to drive Bert up the wall.

‘Do you need help to get undressed?’ asks the brown-skinned girl. Oh, the cheek of it.

‘I’ve managed a good many years thus far!’ I bark. Unbuttoning my dress, I lock eyes with the antique etching in the mirror. There is a yellow note pasted next to her ancient face. ‘Your DAUGHTER APRIL will collect you at 2pm today’ in a stranger’s upper-case scrawl. Beneath, in lower case, it reads ‘today is your birthday’ alongside three hand-drawn balloons surrendered to the breeze, each dangling an S-shaped thread.

My birthday. How wonderful. I open the wardrobe, searching for the silk dress Bert bought me from Kirkcaldie & Stains. On our honeymoon. Ever the romantic. I’d better hurry, I think as the copper leaves detach outside. April will soon be here.

You're no doubt privy to those rotting carrots dangled before you by a league of self-help hacks proposing, somewhat preposterously, that you can instantly improve your life – at least long enough to purchase their books or subscribe to their YouTube channels…

…Life begins at the end of your comfort zone…

…Don’t let your dreams be dreams…

…Today is the first day of the rest of your life…

I know by your nodding, or slight smirk on your lips, that you recognize these incantations. Perhaps you’ve used one, or a close confederate, before. Perhaps you’ve even been energized, felt its opioid aura navigate your veins, infusing your whole self to rise like Lazarus from your bed; to create that to-do list and start ticking boxes; to buy the book or click the button…

Well don’t fret; I shan’t use any of them here. Why infest your headspace even briefly with such glib conjecture? Besides the inanity, it’s simply not true. Today, believe it or not, is just a day – like any other futile fucking day…

…Peace is broken by my trumpeting alarm…

…I eventually and resentfully raise myself from my bed…

…I fixate on the curled hairs amid the linoleum pattern as I liberate a solid shit…

…I shave my face, avoiding contact with the hollow eyes in the bathroom mirror…

…I stand hung in the shower…

…I battle with a Windsor knot…

…I realize my tardiness and surrender the French Press for a cup of vulgar instant…

…I tip the coffee into the sink, washing it away with a slightly less brown cascade of Thames Water’s finest…

...I miss the bus and pound the pavement, zigzagging the previous day’s plastic bags, dog shit and Big Mac boxes…

…I cram into a train, where I’m coughed and spluttered upon by several sardined somebodies in a tin can containing thirteen thousand assorted bacteria…

But today is different; I have to grant it that…

…Different in the sense that it is the gateway to a fresh path of banality…

…Today I will begin a new temp assignment no less tedious than the last…

…Throughout this induced coma I will be paid the unsightly sum of fifty-five Great British pounds per hour…

…Of course, I could have refused it, taken control of my life, harnessed this great city and galloped towards the career progression I’d once aspired to…

…Though the prospect of answering a phone twice a day between bouts of data entry and Candy Crush, while collecting the pension plan of Malawi as my weekly wage was too much to resist…

…‘That sounds like a challenge,’ had leached from my mouth into the ears of the temp recruiter, who doubtless wakes each day with dread at the prospect of dealing with the undead clientele that I clearly represent…

You’ll note by the surrounding statues, pillars and posts that here, on the Thames, is the heart of the Corporation of London’s banking district. The buildings complement their occupants in grim and grey, seemingly dropped from the dreary skies to sit tightly, politely, in their gloom. Just take a moment to marvel at how this scape is utterly devoid of colour, resembling the pages of a child’s unused colouring book…

…I walk past a faceless young woman with dull brown hair smoking a cigarette and I curse myself and clench my jaw for having given up…

…I walk past the bacon buttie shop, lingering long enough to remind myself that I have senses…

…I walk past the homeless, squatting in their nooks, and remind myself that I come from a land that once had a little more hope and a little more glory…

This fine specimen of sparsely-windowed concrete slab is where I’ll spend my days. You will discern that, despite its brazen unsightliness, it is a building not too unlike any other in this area. No doubt its architect was lobotomised a year before its commission and knighted for services to mundane-ness the year following its completion…

…Mental note: I wonder if Monday and mundane go hand in hand, histo-linguistically speaking…

…So, this is the place, anyway. No colour, no flair…

…No passion, no hair…

…Ugh…

…This is Habib, the security guy...

…Like all job-proud, self-respecting Corporation of London security officers, Habib’ll cock his eyebrow to me as I swipe through the door with the pass my agency gave me. His demeanour will indicate that he has seen me here every other day previous. He’ll only save his more personable welcomes for the pretty Essex girls: The ones that have been here every other day previous…

I call the elevator and, once inside its stainless space, push the button to my floor: 12A. In the speedy ascent that ensues, I examine the OTIS™ car operating panel and its final column of buttons…

…15…

…14…

…12A…

…12…

…11…

…and I’m contemplating the peculiarity of this when the doors open and I see instantly that the security’s a little tighter up here. I stride out from the lift, suitably primed for my day to begin…

…black…

A sameday – a ‘similar too’ day… a Tuesday…

…I make a mental note… is there any linguistic link between the “too” with two o’s and the “tue” of Tuesday?...

…I contemplate this as I roll my mouth around the words, spouting ‘too, tue, too’ over and over like a runaway steam train….

…There are two things that define this day as differing from the previous: the colour of my tie and the date on banner of the already discarded Metro I am attempting to read on the train…

…reading, however, causes a headache to surface. Hell, this thing doesn’t just surface, but sinks me as well. Like a cowboy confronting an injun, I reach instantly for my piece, though I prefer a packet of Marlboro Lights to a six-shooter. Ha!! The Marlboro Man… or is that The Carcinogenic Kid?…

…the train-dead people look up at me in disdain (as though I’ve urinated on their shoes), so I holster my cigarettes…

…and there’s this tiny package in my jacket pocket…

…I dig it out to find that it’s a little flip of folded paper

(a flip? Well, yes… a flip)

…I examine it closer and see that it bears this alpha-numeric:

12A

4NF

…There’s the tiniest logo emblazoned above the code. I’ve definitely seen this before, haven’t I?

(Attempts to recall this memory are met with a sharp headache of unparalleled pain)

…I run my fingers over its edges and, as I look within its folds…

…it is empty, save the alpha numerics it carries…

…I light that cigarette as I alight from the train, completely dumbstruck. I can’t even recall the entirety of yesterday and wonder if I went out and celebrated the first day at my new job. But there’s no hangover, unless this is what this bastard migraine is supposed to be. I taste my mouth; uttering small lapping sounds as I attempt to ascertain any levels of alcohol on my breath. It tastes fine, slightly dry but not experiencing any sour scent nor lingering film of old alcohol. And if I was so trashed as to spurn my memory, then my morning is so far devoid of any post-drunken pre-noon elation. I’m not still pissed, is what I mean to say. My mind continues its probe for yesterday’s set of memories, which simply leads to more powered and persistent thumping from my cranial regions…

…I’m at the foot of the granite tower that awaits me like a headstone marker awaits its names, dates and fanciful verse (should anyone care to add one) and I’m long finished my cigarette, fighting the urge to consume another…

…Habib raises his eyebrow to me and I make my way into the mirrored elevator and up to floor 12A…

…ten, eleven, twelve, twelve A… fourteen is next, or so I’m told…

…black…

Wednesday: My when’s it gonna end day? I make a mental note to get myself a frigging life…

…I have my crap, my shave, my shower, my Windsor knot…

…I have my job…

…at the instant that I give rise to thought about my new temp function this nauseating and scorching pain launches through my head, pounding away until I abandon such notions…

…there is another little flip of folded paper in my pocket. I know this even though the wrapper is identical to the first because the first remains now but a crumpled piece of waste housed in the same pocket. I wonder if this is supposed to make me feel happy. There were early moments of elation on Tues…

…and that headache kicks in again…

…but now I’m left wondering if I can even experience emotion. There’s just this numbness across me (nullified only by those bursts of pain through my mind) and it seems almost an eternity ago that I actually felt anything at all…

12A

4NF

…so saith the package with the miniature logo that I know I’ve seen (ouch, my head!) before…

…Habib’s eyebrow…

…12A… why no number 13?

…black…

My eyes fade in, focussing on the inside of a Turkish bar. How do I know it’s Turkish? It could be the cluttered contents strewn about me (enormous colourful nargiles, rickety wooden furniture, carpets on the walls and sausage-shaped cushions), but I’d be safe to say the half-consumed bottle of Efes, warm in my hand, gives it away. There’s no natural light in here, so I assume I’m in some kind of basement bar. The blonds behind the bar (two Swedish girls, giggling and saying, ‘Titta på honom’) fade in and out of focus until they simply disappear and I suddenly feel alone and vulnerable.

There is movement in my right periphery (from beneath a black hanging) and I swear it was some kind of tail… reptilian – like perhaps there’s an upright alligator lurking in the shadows of this bar. But, it’s gone and I’m alone. This time I feel safety in my solitude…

…I reach for my cigarettes and notice that I’ve changed brand to Camel Lights, which I find bizarre considering how nasty these things taste. The hand that transfers the packet from my pocket to the table has also netted another flip of folded paper with this familiar symbol on it (it comes to me then that this symbol is the logo of the Corporation of London) and the alpha-numeric:

12A

4NF

Two crumpled empty sachets spill out onto the table. What the hell am I doing collecting this? And how? When?…

…oooooooo, Jesus that hurts…

…I’m falling apart… shattered… smashed… scattered…

…my watch is mocking me, suggesting it has gone 11pm. I have a compelling urge to rest and sleep… yet, how do I know I’ve been doing anything but?

…black…

Up at eight… I can’t be late… for number 12A… it won’t wait… he-te-he-he he-te-he he-te he-te-he-he… I have so many questions left unanswered by my thin sleep, yet the one that stains my lips the most is: Who’s the girl? She mocks me constantly in my dreams… I know… for no matter how faceless, voiceless, and featureless she is; I know I have seen her… been her before…

…who was the woodpecker?… who was the squirrel?… am I going bonkers?… my head’s in a whirl…

…the meaning of life? I can’t even recall my life. I’m losing grips on who I am and all I can think about (as if it’s of some paramount importance) is: If I like the cool, sultry funk of George Michael then does that mean I’m gay? If so, then there are thousands of ageing motorheads out there who must face up to the Freddie Mercury question…

…the Greys gather like an army of unquestioning ants; they swarm and scavenge the concrete jungles… a slave to their Queen… yet, unlike our gracious cousins (the ants), the army of Greys have forgotten to help out one another in our hour of need… to disburden the weak of their load, to carry the crippled and the fallen… instead the Greys will trample to get at their promised piece of the pie…

..and yet the pie gets disproportionately smaller and the hours of need elongate… hibiscus hours, hyacinth hours; growing like unwanted weeds on the wastelands of souls; stretching into days and nights, weeks and months, years and aeons…

…Habib… Habib… raise an eyebrow for me…

…12A… 12A… in 12A we play… 12A: A number… an enigma… 12A – unlucky for some…

…black…

Doors open before me…

…I lean through them with uncertainty…

…my arms flail in front of me…

…in search of some stability…

…I almost fall out of the train and my mind laughs heartily as my ears dizzily pick up a call to mind the gap… I reach the safety of a platform seat and grab hold of it for dear life, as though I’m fighting a hurricane…

…I wonder what day it is; noticing that I’m dressed for work and the clock on the platform is a very blurred 19:28. The train groans, clanks, moans, and thumps as it departs the platform – though its rumble is nowhere near the scale of my throbbing head…

…louder than the departing train…

…that’s my head; my departing brain…

…I can’t help but envelop myself in a fit of giggles as I stagger up and down the stairs of the station like some derelict on Tennent’s Super… I have tonight to myself… the first night in… [Ouch! My head!!!]… the best part of this last week… this is the first night I can recall… I feel myself adjusting as the world begins to get lighter and warmer around me…

…I cackle as I walk aimlessly down a cesspool alley… I need some sleep… I need to recharge… Yet I know I have another one of these folds of paper in my pocket… where it’s from is anyone’s guess… but there’ll be another tomorrow… and more… and more…

…that you can bank on…

…am I now a fully-fledged soldier of the Greys? Someone with neither inkling nor aspiration to the knowledge of what is going on?…

…Happy as a pig in muck because I have my distractions and (at least) periodic moments of my life to myself?…

…Who am I questioning? Certainly any answers to what I’ve become can be found squarely in my pocket… or in books of verse and praise and prisons of humanity…

…I cackle again, this time hearing my laugh echo throughout every alley and side-street of Greater London… what have I become?…

…homeless in my neural streets…

…fade to black…