28 February 2013
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick...
The clock would never stop, not until it saw the room in chaos. To Eric Van Grunsby, or "The White Van Man," as many of his colleagues had named him during his first week, the clock was on a constant countdown. For what exactly, he was not quite sure, but somehow he felt as if it were watching him, with great intent, and sometimes he would go through phases where he was petrified of it, and would have to spend an hour (or two) in one of the bathroom stalls until all the blood left his face. He wouldn't dare to have a smoke, though, as the smoke alarms will occasionally go off when you so much as sneeze near them. Anyway, he was trying to quit. Lewis had made a slightly unfair bet with him, which was if he didn't quit within the next two weeks, then he would be allowed to shave off Eric's fluffy ginger beard, which was a very intriguing growth and his pride and joy. "You need to cut off that disgusting ball of mould," his mother would say, as he sat with her at the rather revolting cafe next to her care home. It was just outside that very care home, in fact, that he had proposed to his wife, Cath, four long and tiring years before. Turned out she wasn't for him, or, as she had said, he wasn't for her. They kept in contact for a while, but had been drawn away from each other by the demands of their lives. She had two children, James and (the quite awkwardly named) Eric, which had made life very confusing when they were living (struggling, rather) in their small semi-detached down near Fullimer Lane. Mind you, his job hasn't changed, which is no good thing.
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