Fatigues

When Ben came home from work that day, slowly unfolding from his battered company car like a man much older than himself, the apartment block was quieter than usual. The noisy children who frequented the driveway-turned-playground were conspicuously absent, their abandoned football left to roll unattended in the breeze. The hedgerows had been neglected by both council and tenants, equally more concerned with their own lives, families, incomes. They grew out of control, shooting out green spears at varying angles, swallowing up rose bushes and petunias alike in their path. A discarded BMX bike half-blocked the entranceway, propping open the door and rendering the keypad security useless. The frame of its back wheel was distorted, as if viewed through water or clouded glass, unrideable. The tea ladies on the second floor, on their lunch breaks after a busy day serving others, whispered gossip between half-open doorways. Fell awkwardly silent and dispersed as Ben rounded the stairs. As he rose through floors three and four, a pungent smell of marijuana clung to fibres in a well-loved coat, followed him to the top floor, where the young couple in 53 was communicating with each other the only way they knew how. In screams. He sighed, pausing for a second, resting head and shoulder on the wall to listen, the shouting a welcome hum in the dark silence that consumed him. Ben’s flat was empty and cold, the jingle of keys in the lock met by the silent stack of unopened post on the mat. Ben pushed them carelessly to one side with a foot, careful not to look. It took a while for post to get out sometimes. He couldn’t read a dead boy’s words. Not yet, not now.