Morning all and Happy Monday. I hope you had a splendid weekend. But it is time to start up the last week of July so let’s get those timers set and our first fifteen minutes in. Everyone ready? Then off we go.
Not quite what I was expecting when I started writing, but I do like when my brain surprises me.
Monday, July 27th: The heat was oppressive.
The heat was oppressive. It lay across the shoulders like a yoke and pressed down upon his head, intent on crushing him to the dirt. Sweat rolled down his skin, soaking into his shirt. Earlier he worried about pit stains but now, the entire shirt was uniformly soaked. His undershirt too stuck to his skin under the thin cloth of his oxford shirt.
The outfit wasn’t ideal, but it was mandated.
A Kelson’s man was a well-dressed man.
It was in the company handbook, page one. The suit he wore was the regulation, white shirt, black trousers shoes, belt and tie. There was a coat too, black to match the trousers. He had it slung over his shoulder at the moment. Company policy or not, attempting to wear it now would have just caused his complete collapse.
He somehow doubted any of the upper echelons of Kelson’s were likely to see him. They didn’t much leave their offices, except to get into their company cars, driven by company men back to their homes or maybe to one of the restaurants in the city.
He was far from the glittering lights of the city and the eyes of the company. He was certain that he could have stripped naked and gone running along the dirt road without any one from the company noticing. He wasn’t important enough for them to constantly monitor.
There were several reasons he didn’t take this route. The first was because he had no other clothes with him. He had a suitcase of course. It was in the small hotel in town. It contained three identical outfits to the one he was wearing. Not yet stained with sweat, but otherwise identical.
The second reason was that he would have to carry the clothing if he removed it. That seemed like a weight too far for him at the moment. The third reason was that he expected once he removed the garments he would be hard pressed to put them back on again. While he could run down this empty road with nothing on his skin between him and the sun, once he reached town he would need to put them back on or risk being photographed and pasted in as part of a local news story.
Kelson’s man goes crazy in the heat.
That would bring notice, notice he didn’t need. He needed to be at Kelson’s, for now anyway. He knew his skills could get him a better job elsewhere. He had in fact been offered better jobs elsewhere. But he had one task left before he walked away. Then his promise to Uncle John would be complete. He could walk away and never look back. There was only one thing to do and he had to get back to the main office to do it.
‘Then I am burning all of the Kelson suits,’ he told himself. He felt the weight of his sodden garment. ‘After it dries out,’ he added.
This was the final piece. He hadn’t thought he would be able to collect it in person. He thought he would have to sneak it out of the files when someone else was sent. After all, this wasn’t his district. But there was an illness spreading. More from the office were out sick than usual. Everyone was assigned extra districts to make up for it. This one fell to him.
At first he thought someone knew. He lay low, not touching any of the elements before he left in case someone suspected things. Then he saw how the extra districts were chose. There was a simple sheet, and the supervisor went down the line. His assignment was random.
‘And who would have expected the car to break down.’
Ten til Midnight 