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The White Space Short Story

Decent Essays
The White Spaces.

There is not much to be said about me, I guess I am a rather average guy. Thirty nine years in all and I am still uninspired. My creative side likely died back at college and Uni along with my dreams to save whales and trees, although I do recycle and prefer dolphin safe tuna. I am like a cardboard cutout of a person that fell out of a politically correct waffle advert, a caricature of what it means to be a responsible adult these days. A hardworking taxpayer with a mouth to feed and Mortgage repayments to make good on. In truth I just coast and at some point I just got comfortable with mediocrity and my receding hairline. I am aware I have a lot of what many aspire to have.

I am happily married, and have been for
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You can tell a lot from a front garden, it is like a welcome matt of beauty and floral scented promises or an indication no one gave a damn or weeds were in this season. Sixteen Alcott was no exception. The garden in front of the white two storey condominium was a poor attempt at a rock garden. It went for the zen but failed in aesthetics and looked more like a fenced off second drive way, hampered by large pointed bits of rock. What greenery was there seemed to have mostly died in stone pots, leaving not much more than skeletal remains of stylised shrubbery. The house itself seemed in good condition and had the bonus of wide garage and ample driveway with good road access. The house itself was certainly in a respectable area giving it high market value. Which made it all the more odd to see bars on the windows, stranger still, they were on the inside. Those were going to be a pain to have removed.

I took some time to inspect the external faces of the building. Noting that every visible window had screwed into it thin but densely packed bars that were all painted gloss white. Only the second floor seemed spared of this less than inviting treatment. Once done with casting my eye over the the guttering and double glazing. I went inside making use of the key. The door closed behind me with a slightly weighted thud. I could no longer hear the drone of traffic outside, I may as well have been in the depths of the ocean
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There were three metal doors along one wall. I had seen their type before when surveying defunct prison structures whilst in the deepest bowels of what had likely been a lonely hell for many. There were no windows in the doors just two metal slats set at different heights. One a feed slot the other for observation. There was also a fourth door dominating one wall, it reminded me of a walk in safe, same implied thickness and old style rotary lock system. The metal was an off kind of brown with peeling paint the whole thing speaking of the hey day of the fifties.

Other things of note were a padlocked metal cabinet, a desk with an old white rotary phone. Three white plastic moulded trays. As well as sacks of white rice and jars of what looked like pickled eggs. I felt like leaving and glanced at the door just to see if it was still stuck open. It was but I could now clearly see on the inside that it was riddled with indents and gouge marks that had clawed at the paint. My mind could put none of the pieces together in any healthy way. My guts squeezed on me and told me to leave this place. This was not a good place, nothing good could possibly occur
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