The Factory News

The factory news was delivered three times daily by way of couriers traveling from one depot to the other. The facts and information they carried was of a ‘sensitive’ nature – awkward – were it to fall into the wrong hands.

I was one such courier.

On this particular morning I had had a rough night. Hadn’t slept much more than a wink. My nerves were jittery and the air seemed unconscionably quiet. Eerie even. My bed creaked as I slid from one side to the other. My alarm went off too early.

I arose feeling exhausted. After a shower and coffee, life began to return. My right eye twitched now and again.

The drive to work was turmoil. After leaving my sedate street and merging onto the main road I was jammed into a mass of cars careering down interminable stretches of road like automatons, mindless matters of metal and steel, all moving unswervingly to their destination of work in the rush-hour cliché of terror and belligerence.

I had the great misfortune of being boxed into the middle lane by a set of two or three cars and soon found myself unable to speed ahead or slow down or turn off in a bid to loose them for they drove so doggedly about me.

Then they took a left and my car obliged in kind. A play-off ensued – I would break a right and they would follow and yet afterwards I was urged to take another right.

I pulled the car over and came to a stop. I left the engine running as I watched the other cars pull over, up and behind me, against the ditch. I opened my door and leaping across the ditch I sidled up to the fence around the field beyond.

Blackened figures are not good at the best of times. This was not even a mere average ‘time’. Two got out of the three cars. I backed closer to the fence.

“Don’t be alarmed.” He had said. The voice could have even been familiar. I don’t know – I can’t remember. “We’ve come only for the paper.”

“In the glove-box.” I said. Sure they were sensitive documents – powerful in the wrong hands – their's perhaps? But to me? I know their secrets – I had carried them to and fro twice a day – I stopped at intersections, while waiting for a light to change, I’d have a flick through. Maybe peruse a page that caught my attention. I knew their secrets. Dangerous in the wrong hands? We’ll have to wait to find out.