A Meeting

The boy decided he had had enough.  He would soon have to make a decision about whether to stay or to go.  He looked one last time around the room and realised that he held no connection with anything around the room at all.  Nothing there held him to the place and there wasn't much that held sentimental value.

It was one of those cold London days when the sky looked as if it might turn black.  How odd the season had been with the weather following its own destiny from bright sunshine one day to jet black the next.  He thought for a moment about what he could have done differently and yet nothing came to mind.  It was as if he was living in a dark and dank prison cell whilst he had lived on this street and in these conditions.  

Times like this were desperate and the strangling relationships he found himself in were the final knot that twisted his stomach into coils that seemed as if they would never unwind.  How ironic it had been that this was the first place he had met them, in this apartment block, and on that mild day in autumn.  The sun was neither hot nor cool, it was just autumnal sun.  A usual day that held no outstanding memories or extraordinary happenings.

It has been a Tuesday when the estate agent sought to show him around a couple of vacant apartments in the block.  He had been a strange fellow himself, the estate agent with a peculiar scent, and clothes that dated back to the 1920's.  He was a short man with an unusual confidence which he used when speaking rather loudly and assuredly, standing as close to his victim as possible.

It was unfortunate that he was one of those people who came across as not owning a toothbrush or if he did, his wife might have dipped it into the lavatory water.  In this case, it simply couldn't have just been the lav water, it must have been a swathe in urine.  On that Tuesday, he had seen them coming for a long time before they reached him and he found that he was staring.

It wasn't that he was transfixed or drawn, it was just that his head had paused in motion and would not move from that position.  His eyes settled on them and they would not remove themselves.  He did not know why and he still did not.  It was one of those fatal moments of life when things happen and frankly you have nothing to do with it at all.  There was no element of choice or decision making process.  It was just as it has been told, it was just like this.