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Nine

This one had the city as a backdrop, though the longer it went on the more obvious it was to me that I was a long way from home. It reminds me of Cities of the Red Night by William S Burroughs, and also the popular lunchtime soap opera Neighbours. I posted it once before on a now defunct journal elsewhere.

'Old building, on a prairie or any other large expanse of flat open land. The sun here is always setting, the sky a permanent red, fading into yellow where it reaches the floor. The building has no doors or windows, outside is windswept; there always seems to be a chance of rain despite what the sky suggests. I am living next door to an accountancy firm out here in nowhere. A man from the television delivers swivel chairs through a gap in the wall where my door should be. He tells me it needs fixing, I tell him I don’t need any help. He looks around the outside of the house for weeds growing up the brickwork. The accountancy firm is responsible for the chairs in my home, there are soon so many the bed is up on its side against the wall. I am forced to sleep on the chairs. There is a suggestion later that someone has been shot so I go outside with the TV man to check it out.
When I come back the accountancy firm is out of business. All the desks in the office (that was through a swing door in my living room) have been shuffled around; the carpet is missing from the floor exposing the broken boards. The sun is shining in through a window, which has suddenly appeared. The man from the TV introduces me to his friend who is wearing a fishing hat and has a beard. He says, "What do you remember about the accountants?"
All I can remember is that one of them had thinning hair.'

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