" Don't forget. Don't erase it. You can't erase it.
But make it into a story. Just a story.
Just a story.
Yes, everything's crazy. What's real?
All a story. Only a story..."
Graham Swift's Waterland
Job ran his skinny hand over his newly shaved scalp. His dirty crusted fingertips stung the raw meat where the used blunt blade had slipped its way too closely. He didn't care. Three weeks. Three short weeks it gave him before they would come back. Digging into his skin, the fever would rise and remind him of how useless, insignificent and poor he was.
At the corner of Sade and Huntington, the cold wind dug into the news scars.The snow had stopped for the day. He brushed away the few remaining grey flakes and with a shrug of his shoulders raised the dirty collar of his jacket against the cold. His mind wandered. Anything was better than the treatment, anything.... He quickened his pace. He hated this street; it was a keen reminder of what thing had been once, before the Rising. The Council had preserved it, an Obligation to Public Memory, they said. Crowds gathered to stare at the empty tall buildings. Faded publicity photos adorned the walls, the shit yellow smiles of half starved men and women selling their faces or their bodies to promote some useless item or object. The dulled gloss and glamour of the crazy nineties when people had money and thought themselves gods. He could not understand why his fellow citizens were so envious after all, it was the same generation who had landed them in this pile of shit in the first place. A fist full of phlegm tied a knot in Job's stomach, a part of the spit that then flew landed on the window nearest, the other part landed on his sleeve. A cloaked woman, richly dressed, stared at him from a nearby doorway. Their eyes met, she withdrew herself into the lurking shadows.He noticed the bare wrist. He smirked to himself, she could hide herself with any expensive cloth but it would not save her from Routine Control. One call from the Center and she would be begging him for mercy. He also knew that he looked terrible, and smelt even worse. He pulled up his collar against the chill and brushed off the remaining ashes. People darted from his path, afraid of the tell-tale signs of where he had spent his morning. Job didn't care. He had other problems.
His main street barber shop had become too expensive and work had slackened in the past few weeks. Prevention was paying off but it left people like Job out of a job. He had given up hope of ever finding the funds for his next visit and there was only one solution left; Chez Tony's. Tony never cleaned his blades or burn the hair but Tony was cheap. Job had once seen a grey- white body crawl out from beneath a box in the corner. He had squirmed in his shabby seat and had looked elsewhere. Had the creature sensed the worthlessness perched on the seat and had decided to crawl back in to its hiding place? Job had nothing to offer, Tony, on the other hand, promised miracles. A dark room, a little wooden box and a silly, reluctant client not willing to pay up. Clarity came quickly, as well as used bank notes. Tony, in his infinite kindness, would then offer a free shave. Job was lucky, he had no bills, well at least not yet.