Ann shivered as she walked back to her desk from lunch. Even for winter, the office felt unnaturally cold, and the chicken soup she’d had for lunch had done little to warm her. She pushed through the fire doors separating the office from the canteen and looked across the room. Not surprisingly, she was alone.
Every day after lunch, she came back early, unable to feign interest in the karaoke shows her workmates loved. Every day, the other cubicles were unoccupied; void of human culture except for those stupid posters. She glanced at her neighbour’s desk as she passed, and shivered again. Photographs of celebrities, most cut from glossy picture magazines, adorned every centimetre of free space.
She tried not to think about that, or about the way life used to be, or about the man on the phone.
Abruptly, she froze in place. Her heart tried to leap to her throat. Another rectangular cardboard box was sitting on her desk. She felt a sudden icy chill as beads of sweat began to form on her forehead.
Not again. Please not again.
She closed her eyes and waited. And then the phone rang.
Please not again.
Ring ring. Ring ring.
She swallowed hard and forced her eyes open. Her arms and legs were shaking. Every muscle in her body had tensed.
“No.”
The word escaped her mouth with a sob and she realised she was crying. She reached into her handbag, grabbed a tissue and dried her eyes, looking back towards the door. Nobody could see this.
Ring ring. Ring ring.
Ignore it. Ignore it and maybe it will go away.
She lifted the box and knelt down on all fours. Nobody could see this.
At the back of her desk, there was a hollow behind some drawers. Her hands were shaking so hard she almost dropped the box, but finally, she reached back, found the space and wedged the box inside. Nobody could see this.
As she got back to her feet, the phone was still ringing. Suddenly, overcome with a blind rage, she lifted the receiver and roared.
“What do you want? What do you want with me you ****ing bastard?”
Her grip on the phone was so tight it had turned her fingertips white.
At the other end of the line, the caller remained silent, shocked – or maybe scared – by her outburst. Whoever he was, if somebody caught them he had as much to lose as she did.
“You got my present?”
She ignored the question.
“Stop doing this. Stop sending them. You know what will happen.”
She was crying again, the words almost incomprehensible, even to her.
“Have you opened it?”
“No, and I’m not going to. Leave me alone!”
“Open it at home, Ann. I think you’ll like it.”
He sounded so calm and secure, as if he hadn’t just endangered her life, and she hated him for it.
“They’ll take me away if they catch me. Please stop sending them.”
The anger had waned now, and all that remained was the fear. Fear of being taken away. Fear of the men who smelt of kerosene and carried boxes of matches to work.
“Open it, Ann. They don’t want you to and that’s reason enough to do it. I didn’t–”
She slammed down the phone without letting him finish, and wiped her eyes as she glanced behind her. Nobody had seen her. Nobody could see anything.
But still, she didn’t feel safe.
The man’s voice still rang in her ears as she arrived home that night. It was half past seven, and a cloud of vapour accompanied every exhalation. As she walked, the day’s snowfall crunched beneath her feet. It stopped as she arrived at her door and reached into the bag for the keys. Looking inside, her heart leapt once more. The cardboard box took most of the space inside, but her keys were visible just beneath it.
She glanced back down the street.
Nobody could see.
She turned the key, stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
Once she was safe in the house, she flicked the hallway light on and sank down to the floor, leaning her back against the closed wooden door. She lived alone, and so nobody saw her finally let the tears fall freely down her face.
Her bag lay in a heap by her feet, one cardboard corner of the box sticking out like an accusatory finger. She reached forward and lifted it into her arms. The box weighed about the same as the others, and inside, she knew it would be something similar, something wonderful that could have her put in an asylum, or have her house burnt down. Or both.
She leaned her head back, rested it against the door for what seemed like hours and let the tears fall until there were no tears left.
The walls of her house were paper-thin, and through the plasterboard she could hear a wailing noise accompanied by a rapid beat and followed by riotous applause. Her neighbours were watching a karaoke show.
Gradually, she stood up and walked into the kitchen, the box tucked safely beneath her arm. The room was dark, and through the glass door, the snow covering her back yard looked orange in the flickering neon street lights. The grass, the shrubs, even the incinerator was coated with an orange cotton blanket.
She put the box on the table and sat down. Surely there’s no harm in looking inside…
Like the others, the box took some time to open. Small metal staples lined its edges to ensure the contents would not accidentally fall out. The stranger took precautions.
Eventually, the last of the staples fell free and she pulled open the box’s top flap. She turned it upside down and held it over the table. Inside, something slid free and she heard a thud as the contents hit the wooden table. She lifted the box, put it to one side, and for the third time in her adult life, held a book in her hands.
Next door, there was further applause as a new contestant took to the stage.
Ann stood, the book still in her hands, and walked towards the back door. As she turned the key, she ran her eyes across the book’s cover. She stepped into the yard with her eyes still fixed on it. Six men dressed in colourful robes rode horses past an old looking castle. Above, the words read ‘The Canturbury Tales.’ She traced the title with one finger and felt a sting as a final tear pushed its way free and down her cheek.
The snow crunched beneath her feet once more as she walked towards the incinerator.
In her head, she heard a voice that was not her own. Neither was it the man on the telephone, but perhaps a mixture of the two.
Read it. Read it and live more in a night than those fools next door will in a lifetime.
Her hands were shaking again.
She flicked the switch on the side of the metal drum and opened its door. The incinerator shook for a moment, then began to hum. Inside, an orange light flickered to life, lighting the kindling inside.
Read it.
She looked back towards the kitchen door, then over the fence towards her neighbour’s house. Music still blasted from inside, interrupted by occasional laughter and cheering. Nobody would see. Nobody would know.
She waited for the incinerator to reach full blaze, her heart thumping so hard in her chest that it began to hurt. What if they came? What if they burnt her home and took her away like they took her father? She could taste the kerosene on her lips again.
Despite the freezing night air, she soon felt waves of heat coming from the furnace. It was almost hot enough.
She looked at the book, bit down on her lip, and thumbed the cover open. A few pages opened with it, leaving her on one which bore the title “The Wife of Bath’s Tale.”
Read it. Read it. Read it.
The heat from the furnace was near unbearable as she turned and stared into the flames .
There was no choice. There was never a choice.
She tore a handful of pages from the book and threw them into the fire. Again and again she tore and threw. Each handful was like a shard of her soul burning before her until nothing remained but the cover.
With a final sob, she ripped it in half and pitched it too into the blaze.
She shut the incinerator door, and looked across her yard. A set of footsteps walked a snowy path from the kitchen door to a clear circle where the snow had melted.
Next door, the music played and once again her neighbours cheered.