The mover

6:00am.

The Mover awoke with a jolt; head slamming into the car door as he slipped from the seat, scrambling to turn off his alarm. For one reason or another – that he was adamantly refusing to admit – he would not go ‘home’ , instead putting up with the stiff-morning-necks in avoidance.

He had clients anyway. Clients come first. He started the engine.

By the time his van spun onto the street, the sun had just settled. It was low-lying, breathing down the necks of the frosty gardens so that at once, the street fell apart- cracked by the aura of something never-quite-good-enough. He parked beside a particularly telling door- it was branded by a chipping crust of thick grey paint beneath which vibrant yellows stood in ironic melancholy- from its discordant fading, he knew that this must be the one. It was an hour of further lingering on the remote street before a second alarm ruptured; his tight, car-bourne breaths, his lulling neck, his eyelids, were heavy. The Mover’s body rose -sharp- as death lifts his scythe, tipping his cap to the sun as he did so.

He was right about the door- after all this time how could he be wrong? As soon as it opened he took no time for greetings- clients come first, after all.​ They showed him around the bathroom tiles, the split mahogany table; showed him thick layers of dust that had already settled in readiness for the isolation that dawned across the living room. They showed him all and nothing as the same, handed over the key, and slammed the door -quickly- craving for loose lungs once more.

“It’s just me and you now.” Clients come first.

The Mover got to work right away- tears streaming as he lifted the shattered glass bookcase, stuffing the broken goods into the back of his car. He tackled the larger things first- the unforgettable- then began the scour for smaller things.

He found a set of prescription glasses lying behind the fireplace. Despite the hideous frames, The Mover slipped them on; craving desperately for something else. To see something more. For this not to be all.

Please don’t let this be all.

He threw them off quickly and wondered why his face rippled like a lake when he touched it.

He skipped lunch; ate up the must instead. Looked at old photo frames they left behind, and saw happiness-

a bitter reminder of what he was not-

and then shook himself, suddenly, scouted out the empty house, and caressed the tired door to a close. It was time to go home. He knew it was.

Through all the false keys that whispered around his belt, he found his own.

Opening the door to the house he could hardly call a home, he felt a deep, longing breath lure him forwards. Thousands of creamy photos flew from his hallway into the walkway beneath his feet, coating a barricade of wallpaper, smoothing the cracks in the pave-stones, building a house out everyone he never knew.

He was known as the Mover; he didn’t move the objects, the objects moved him.

They were his family now, in destructive unity, they distracted his isolation.

The mover smiled and stepped inside.