"I hate this fucking job."
krrrh, goes the walkie-talkie, and then falls silent. Steve, whose actual name is Stephanos Hantzopoulopoulos, is out there, on patrol duty. We have been doing this job for two years now. He also happens to be my brother and a useless piece of meat. Still.
The static resumes, heralding more profanity-filled wisdom from my brother's mouth.
"Angelo? You copy, you son of a whore? I said I hate this fucking job." krrrhrh
"Steve. You just insulted Mom. I'll start eating the meatballs she made us for tonight. Finish your damned round so you can eat the ones that 'll be left for her unworthy son. Or actually, make that the one that will be left."
The static resumes, but I turn the volume off before I hear anything he says. Knowing him, he is probably insulting me, Mom, Dad, God, the Virgin Mary, and all the Saints again, and I have better things to do. Or rather, to eat.
It is a cold night, and I do not envy Steve his bad luck of having to do the rounds. But I am not complaining either. Tonight we are guarding the regular place for Tuesday nights, the warehouses 3 to 14 of Storelia T.M. at the Sydney industrial docks.
I pick one of Mom's meatballs up, no the crappy Italian ones, but the keftedakia, the true recipe from Yaya, and savour it. I leaf through an advertising leaflet of IKEA that is laying about. I browse through it, looking for a sofa, but really just looking for something to ease the dullness of this night-shift. We are making rounds and guarding empty warehouses. Well I am doing the guarding and Steve is doing the rounds.
The wind outside the small security office at the docks is picking up, seeping its way in through the badly-insulated corners of the glass windows all around. It whistles an alien melody, and chills me. I eat one more meatball, and pull my feet down from the desk. I proceed to inspect the windows, giving them a few taps here and there. My actions have no discernible effect whatsoever to either the cold or the terrible whistling. I turn on the little radio, but it gives nothing but static.
I look at my mobile phone. Its battery is dead. Well, I can always see what time it is on the security monitors. 3:11 in the morning.
Since I am at this end of the office, I tinker with the control panel to try and locate my brother, shoving two more of the meatballs into my mouth. By this time he should be at warehouse 7, so I toggle the control to display the cameras overseeing it. He is not there. The image is shaky from all that wind, and at some point a leaflet flies in front of the middle camera and a bikini-clad girl advertising sun-cream, briefly, but completely, obstructs the view. I push some buttons to get the view from the cameras overviewing warehouse number 8. And, showing uncharacteristic speed, Steve is there, walking against the gale, papers and leaves blowing past him and on him.
Watching this amuses me for a bit, but I quickly tire of it. I pick up my pursuit of the ideal sofa and that too holds my interest for a solid two minutes. The whole building is creaking from the strain this gale is putting on it. I look outside and the water at the docks has risen.
Meatballs.
I eat them and chew them and then a sound of a crash cuts that activity short. The whole thing is beginning to unnerve me a bit. I chuckle nervously at my silliness, and eat the last meatball.
Damn him. I will regret this, but I grab the walkie-talkie. I turn the sound back on. I inhale, exhale, and try my luck:
"Steve?"
krrrhr. "Angelo!" The wind is making his voice muffled.
"The papers, Angelo!" There is urgency in his voice but he gets interrupted.
"The papers, I -" the wind cuts him off again. I cannot hear what he is saying.
"...full of cuts, help me HELP ANGELO!"
This; I hear.
I half believe it to be a prank.
"What is it you crybaby?", I ask him while I flick the controls trying to locate him again. He is no longer at warehouse 8.
krrhrhkr "ANGELOOOO!" then a thud, then nothing. I locate him, he is at, no, he is near warehouse 10, trying to get to its door.
There are hundreds of papers flying around him. He is quite literally surrounded by what looks like a whirlwind of leaflets and scraps of papers. His arms are up protectively around his face, and I can see the walkie talkie on the ground by his feet. His fat parka with the security company insignia looks torn and its stuffing is falling out.
The leaflets pass him, and circle him and obstruct my view.
For a moment, as he is getting closer to the warehouse's door, the line of sight is clearer, and I can see that his hands are bleeding. Shit.
"STEVE" I scream to the walkie talkie I am now clutching as hard as I can in my left hand.
For a moment he is hidden, and when I can see him again in the camera feed, his hands are bleeding. His face is bleeding. Big fat pixels of grey-coloured blood on my god-damned git of a brother on the fucking black and white monitors.
As I watch, in the security office with the creaking sounds and and whistling wind, a paper seems to strike his hands, and when I next have a line of sight, Steve is on his knees clutching his left hand, from where blood seems to be gushing out.
"STEVE", I scream again.
The papers fly about. The bikiny clad girl passes in front of the camera for an instant again, her paper wet, her colours running. She leaves and I get a glimpse of him, of his face, and I seem to discern something, no, no it cant be, oh God and Virgin Mary no, is that his eyeball hangi- "AAAAAH" I scream and scream and scream as his hanging eyeball is cut apart from the hanging nerve by a paper sliding on the wind.
"STEVE" I get myself hoarse, as he slumps down, a meter away from the door of Warehouse 10. The wind keeps getting rougher and rougher, carrying with it bloodspray from my brother's limp body. The papers whirling about him get impregnated in it.
Then, abruptly the wind ends. I am crying; crying his name; watching the monitor, as a heap of bloody scraps of paper settle on his body, covering him completely. For a moment the only sounds are those I make, snivelling in my puny little security office. I see my brother's mass move feebly under the papers. This, this...
Crap, words fail me. I did not even think to ph... shit. The phone. I grab the dead phone to try and make a call. I have forgotten its battery is dead and end up throwing it to the wall.
"DEAD"
"SHIT"
I swear some more.
My hand trembling, I try the land-line. The only sound comes from my trembling breath. I pick the receiver and am about to hit 000, when I realise the only sound to be heard still comes from my trembling breath. The land-line is dead.
I look at the monitor again. He is not moving. The papers cover him, head to toe, the image on the screen looking frozen, except from the time-stamp that keeps incrementing the seconds, and when it amasses enough of those, the minutes. I put on my parka. I am going out. I am. Scarred shitless, but I am. My parka on I take the keys that are by the monitor, and get a glimpse of the screen. And then I have a feeling.
Dread. That is the word. That is what I feel when I turn to the monitor again, before leaving. Just as I lay eyes on the screen the wind picks up again. The papers leave the ground, uplifted and carried away, most of them bloody, and there is no body on the monitor.
I vomit the meatballs. And cry. And cry some more. I slump on the floor, hugging myself.
The whistling and creaking has resumed. And I am here, in the security office.
There are hundreds of papers circling the office, carried by the wind. One of them, bloody, sticks to the window, for a moment. One of its corners starts flapping in the wind, spraying droplets of blood on the window, then it rejoins the rest of the papers, and resumes its circling.
krrrh, goes the walkie-talkie, and then falls silent. Steve, whose actual name is Stephanos Hantzopoulopoulos, is out there, on patrol duty. We have been doing this job for two years now. He also happens to be my brother and a useless piece of meat. Still.
The static resumes, heralding more profanity-filled wisdom from my brother's mouth.
"Angelo? You copy, you son of a whore? I said I hate this fucking job." krrrhrh
"Steve. You just insulted Mom. I'll start eating the meatballs she made us for tonight. Finish your damned round so you can eat the ones that 'll be left for her unworthy son. Or actually, make that the one that will be left."
The static resumes, but I turn the volume off before I hear anything he says. Knowing him, he is probably insulting me, Mom, Dad, God, the Virgin Mary, and all the Saints again, and I have better things to do. Or rather, to eat.
It is a cold night, and I do not envy Steve his bad luck of having to do the rounds. But I am not complaining either. Tonight we are guarding the regular place for Tuesday nights, the warehouses 3 to 14 of Storelia T.M. at the Sydney industrial docks.
I pick one of Mom's meatballs up, no the crappy Italian ones, but the keftedakia, the true recipe from Yaya, and savour it. I leaf through an advertising leaflet of IKEA that is laying about. I browse through it, looking for a sofa, but really just looking for something to ease the dullness of this night-shift. We are making rounds and guarding empty warehouses. Well I am doing the guarding and Steve is doing the rounds.
The wind outside the small security office at the docks is picking up, seeping its way in through the badly-insulated corners of the glass windows all around. It whistles an alien melody, and chills me. I eat one more meatball, and pull my feet down from the desk. I proceed to inspect the windows, giving them a few taps here and there. My actions have no discernible effect whatsoever to either the cold or the terrible whistling. I turn on the little radio, but it gives nothing but static.
I look at my mobile phone. Its battery is dead. Well, I can always see what time it is on the security monitors. 3:11 in the morning.
Since I am at this end of the office, I tinker with the control panel to try and locate my brother, shoving two more of the meatballs into my mouth. By this time he should be at warehouse 7, so I toggle the control to display the cameras overseeing it. He is not there. The image is shaky from all that wind, and at some point a leaflet flies in front of the middle camera and a bikini-clad girl advertising sun-cream, briefly, but completely, obstructs the view. I push some buttons to get the view from the cameras overviewing warehouse number 8. And, showing uncharacteristic speed, Steve is there, walking against the gale, papers and leaves blowing past him and on him.
Watching this amuses me for a bit, but I quickly tire of it. I pick up my pursuit of the ideal sofa and that too holds my interest for a solid two minutes. The whole building is creaking from the strain this gale is putting on it. I look outside and the water at the docks has risen.
Meatballs.
I eat them and chew them and then a sound of a crash cuts that activity short. The whole thing is beginning to unnerve me a bit. I chuckle nervously at my silliness, and eat the last meatball.
Damn him. I will regret this, but I grab the walkie-talkie. I turn the sound back on. I inhale, exhale, and try my luck:
"Steve?"
krrrhr. "Angelo!" The wind is making his voice muffled.
"The papers, Angelo!" There is urgency in his voice but he gets interrupted.
"The papers, I -" the wind cuts him off again. I cannot hear what he is saying.
"...full of cuts, help me HELP ANGELO!"
This; I hear.
I half believe it to be a prank.
"What is it you crybaby?", I ask him while I flick the controls trying to locate him again. He is no longer at warehouse 8.
krrhrhkr "ANGELOOOO!" then a thud, then nothing. I locate him, he is at, no, he is near warehouse 10, trying to get to its door.
There are hundreds of papers flying around him. He is quite literally surrounded by what looks like a whirlwind of leaflets and scraps of papers. His arms are up protectively around his face, and I can see the walkie talkie on the ground by his feet. His fat parka with the security company insignia looks torn and its stuffing is falling out.
The leaflets pass him, and circle him and obstruct my view.
For a moment, as he is getting closer to the warehouse's door, the line of sight is clearer, and I can see that his hands are bleeding. Shit.
"STEVE" I scream to the walkie talkie I am now clutching as hard as I can in my left hand.
For a moment he is hidden, and when I can see him again in the camera feed, his hands are bleeding. His face is bleeding. Big fat pixels of grey-coloured blood on my god-damned git of a brother on the fucking black and white monitors.
As I watch, in the security office with the creaking sounds and and whistling wind, a paper seems to strike his hands, and when I next have a line of sight, Steve is on his knees clutching his left hand, from where blood seems to be gushing out.
"STEVE", I scream again.
The papers fly about. The bikiny clad girl passes in front of the camera for an instant again, her paper wet, her colours running. She leaves and I get a glimpse of him, of his face, and I seem to discern something, no, no it cant be, oh God and Virgin Mary no, is that his eyeball hangi- "AAAAAH" I scream and scream and scream as his hanging eyeball is cut apart from the hanging nerve by a paper sliding on the wind.
"STEVE" I get myself hoarse, as he slumps down, a meter away from the door of Warehouse 10. The wind keeps getting rougher and rougher, carrying with it bloodspray from my brother's limp body. The papers whirling about him get impregnated in it.
Then, abruptly the wind ends. I am crying; crying his name; watching the monitor, as a heap of bloody scraps of paper settle on his body, covering him completely. For a moment the only sounds are those I make, snivelling in my puny little security office. I see my brother's mass move feebly under the papers. This, this...
Crap, words fail me. I did not even think to ph... shit. The phone. I grab the dead phone to try and make a call. I have forgotten its battery is dead and end up throwing it to the wall.
"DEAD"
"SHIT"
I swear some more.
My hand trembling, I try the land-line. The only sound comes from my trembling breath. I pick the receiver and am about to hit 000, when I realise the only sound to be heard still comes from my trembling breath. The land-line is dead.
I look at the monitor again. He is not moving. The papers cover him, head to toe, the image on the screen looking frozen, except from the time-stamp that keeps incrementing the seconds, and when it amasses enough of those, the minutes. I put on my parka. I am going out. I am. Scarred shitless, but I am. My parka on I take the keys that are by the monitor, and get a glimpse of the screen. And then I have a feeling.
Dread. That is the word. That is what I feel when I turn to the monitor again, before leaving. Just as I lay eyes on the screen the wind picks up again. The papers leave the ground, uplifted and carried away, most of them bloody, and there is no body on the monitor.
I vomit the meatballs. And cry. And cry some more. I slump on the floor, hugging myself.
The whistling and creaking has resumed. And I am here, in the security office.
There are hundreds of papers circling the office, carried by the wind. One of them, bloody, sticks to the window, for a moment. One of its corners starts flapping in the wind, spraying droplets of blood on the window, then it rejoins the rest of the papers, and resumes its circling.
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