I, Willhelm

It had been a hard few years. Alun was tired down to his bones. Every morning he would wake up look at the alarm clock and wonder if relief would be the last thing he would feel if he stepped out in front of the bus today. Of course he would never do that, he’d seen enough photos in court and witnessed the devastating emotional aftermath in the witnesses to know that he could never actually do that. But still, imagining it provided a kind of metal relief that was was almost soothing.

A few seconds after the alarm went off his old German Shepard flopped on the bed next to him and pressed a smelly wet nose against his ear.

“Fanta, you know you’re not allowed on the bed”Alun smirked at the dog which looked back at him sheepishly. It did know, but still, Alun always allowed him on the bed anyway.

The day started the way it always did, with a dark black coffee in the living room and Fanta eating loudly from the bowl next to the couch. He stared out the window like he always did, the skyline staggered with flats everywhere he looked, Some of them new, most of them old. When he had first taken the flat Alun had told himself that it was just a stepping stone, a place for him to save money and eventually own his own home. That had been six years ago now. The first few years had been ok. He’d managed to save a bit of money, he progressed a little at work and he’d started dating again. Then the pandemic hit and the world changed. The first lockdown had been bearable, just about. Looking back at it, he couldn’t believe just now much of it was blocked out, but the feeling of it always hit him like a freight-train when he thought about it; like being frozen and drowned at the same time. It was during the second lockdown that he’d gotten Fanta. The lockdowns were hard on everyone, but for his 80 year old neighbour, it had been fatal. Fanta had guarded her body for several days, barking every time he heard Alun walking close to their shared wall. Alun phoned the police, then the GP, and then finally broken open the door himself when neither of them turned up. Thankfully, it appeared to have been peaceful. Ethel was lying on the couch, her feet tucked under her and a stone cold cup of tea on the armrest next to her. Fanta had been frantic, but calmed down then Alun entered the living room.

Even once Alun notified the police, it took them another two days to arrive.

Unwilling to leave the dog along, Alun did the only thing that made sense and took the food supplies for Fanta from Ethel’s house into his. Nobody ever came to ask about it, and after a week Alun found himself so attached that he was ready to do almost anything to keep him. Fanta didn’t seem to mind either.

Alun wondered how the dog would cope if one day they ever had to leave. He’d considered it many times over the last few months, but in the end he decided against it. There was nowhere cheaper to go, at least, not in London. And London was where his job was. Nobody wanted a tenant with a dog and if he left his flat he would have to pay the current prices, which where almost four hundred pounds per month more than he could afford. The price of food wasn’t that much better either.

He sat up and got dressed, Fanta annoyingly close as he got dressed, nearly tripping him over several times. Alun couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed. He desperately needed someone to just hold him and tell him it would be ok, this was as close as it was going to get.

It was Tuesday, shopping day. Alun checked his bank account before he left and then double checked the fridge and cupboard for any items he might not have put on his list. It used to be that the list would just be a list, now it was arranged in order of priority; Dog food, coffee, milk, pasta and eggs - with a few tinned items thrown in, and it was unlikely that the eggs would even be available. He was right.

A few items were the same, but the pasta, rice, apples and meat had all gone up again. He knew this for sure because he kept notes on his phone of the prices. 2p, 15p, 20p. It struck Alun that his life revolved around these tiny numbers. A simple flick in one direction and he was having to make the choice between which meal to skip. He reached for Fanta’s head out of instinct to calm himself, before remembering that the dog had been left leashed outside. Overwhelmed, he turned around and walked towards the exit. As he did, he noticed a woman in her forties with faded purple hair walking past the self checkouts with two large bags full of meat, fruit and other items. Nobody stoped her. Alun looked at the staff who stood near by, all of them irritated as she walked through the doors, the security alarms blaring. None of them moved.

“Should I call the police?” Alun asked, his phone still in his hand.

“No point”, the cashier near him shrugged. “They won’t turn up”.

“But, didn’t she just take all that food?”

“Yup. Nothing we can do about it. They’ll just write it off and claim on the insurance”.

Alun’s breath caught in his chest and he stumbled outside. Fanta walked up to him, whining and trying to nuzzle his hand. Normally this helped, but this time all Alun could do was sit huddled next to the shop entrance, his head in his hands and wait for his heart to slow down.

“You alright mate?” He heard a voice ask, but all he could do was shake his head and wave them away. Fanta lay her paw across his knees and pressed her nose against his shoulder, a concerned look on the old dogs face.

After what felt like an eternity his heart began to regulate, he looked up at the retail centre, and it suddenly struck him how much everything had changed in the last three years. Over ten of the thirty shops had closed down, all of them replaced with discount shops or charity shops, that’s if they we’re replaced at all. Most of them had been left empty, or were half filled with what was obviously some kind of poor attempt at a money laundering scheme. Everything just looked worn out. The shops, the people, even the road.

“This is fucking nuts” Alun whispered to himself. “I can’t do this anymore. This is insane.”

Fanta whined again and licked him, and for some reason it made Alun cry.

That day Alun didn’t bother going to work. Instead he walked back into the shop and spent the next two hours buying an enormous shopping trolly of food before walking to the camping store on the opposite side of the retail park and spending even more money. The staff where more than happy to advise him on which tent, sleeping bag, boots and general kit where the best quality. It had been a long time since someone had walked into the story without a care for the cost, and with layoffs looming, they hoped their story might be safe from the chopping block. Once he had finished, Alun dragged all of the food and fresh gear home in a large collapsible cart that he had bought. Fanta walked beside him, confused by his strange mood, but happy that the anxiety was gone. As he walked back his phone began to ring. The first few times he ignored it, but after the fifth time he reached into his phone, looked at the name on the screen and then tossed it into the hedging. On the other end of the line his boss, Calum, rang another six times before giving up. It was unlike Alun to be late, ever, but more importantly, it annoyed him that that he had not heard an apology or an excuse as to why he was late.

Alun smiled as the sound of the phone ringing in the bushed faded the further he walked and breathed a large sigh of relief.

“Its all going to shit anyway, I think it’s time to just say fuck it.” He laughed at Fanta who wagged her tail back at him. She had no idea what was going on, but he seemed excited, so it only seemed appropriate to also be excited.

Once he was home Alun laid out everything he had bought on his living room floor and looked at it in silence. Now that he was home he felt less sure, of himself, the tightness in his chest began to creep up.

“NO!” Alun screamed, scaring the dog. “Im doing this! I’m bloody doing this!”

He reached over for his headphones and slammed them over his ears. Over the next hour he meticulously packed his bags, wrote several emails to the few people he thought would care and took the longest, hottest shower he’d taken his life. For once he didn’t turn over the sand clock he kept by the shower, instead turning the temperature up as high as he could and sitting under the running water until his fingers began to prune. After half an hour sitting under the hot water he called Fanta into the shower with him and washed the dog as thoroughly as he could.

“This might be the last hot shower we take for a while, enjoy it, ok?”

By the time he left the bathroom the heating in the rest of the house had reached boiling point. Alun laughed and twirled naked in the living room, overjoyed at the feeling of being warm enough to walk around his house nude. He was going to leave the heating on, he decided. While it wouldn’t make a difference to everyone, it would make a difference to the flats directly around him which would soon start warming up too. It would be a brief relief from the relentless fear of a higher heating bill for them.

After his fourth time packing his backpack and the trolly he had bought, Alun felt comfortable enough to carry it. The bag was heavy, and he had no doubt that after a mile or two his back would hate him, but the trolly had been a good idea. If not for him then for Fanta at least. He figured it would also be a nice way to sleep off the ground if need be. He hadn’t been camping since he was a young boy, but he still remembered how much of a difference being able to sleep off the ground could make.

“I really should have done this in spring you know”.

Fanta barked as though she understood.

Before he left Alun checked one final detail on his laptop before leaving, locking the door, and throwing the keys over his shoulder. The fell several floors down over the edge of the walkway and landed loudly in the courtyard bellow. Nobody noticed him leaving, and to be honest, he was happy about this. He had nothing left he wanted to say anyway.

Alun walked up to the nearest ATM and took as much cash out as he could. After this third visit to a different ATM his card was swallowed and the screen flashed that his account had been marked for fraudulent activity. Alun nodded and closed his eyes, a brief moment of doubt hitting him.

“Right, no turning back now darling.” He smiled down at Fanta. “You know what, I’ve always fancied going to Cornwall. You?”

Fanta wagged her tail back at him.

“Sounds good to me. Cornwall it is.”

Google had advised him that walking all the way from London to Cornwall would take approximately 93 hours. What it had not taken to account was that Alun was almost fifty and had spent most of his life in front of a computer screen. Within hours his shoulders began to hurt from the straps, and his feet hurt even worse, the shoed brand new and unbroken. Still, he kept walking, just at a slower pace. That night he slept in a park as far away from the playground as he could. Fanta didn’t sleep the entire night, and to be honest neither did he. By morning his original zeal had begun to waver, but he still forced himself to sit up, eat some of the food he had brought with him, and start walking yet again. His bones hurt. The warmth of the shower had long since worn off and his feet had been throbbing all night. This time the bag felt twice as heavy, his shoulders sore where the straps had been pulling into them.

Fanta walked beside him patiently, her shoulders brushing against his knees as they followed the road signs and referred to a list he had written before they had left. Despite how uncomfortable he felt Alun found himself smiling as he realised that the early morning air smelt different. In fact, it almost seemed to have a scent for the first time; a sharp crisp air laced with tinges of the world waking up around him. Hints of cafe shops, grease-spoons, petrol exhaust and a little bit of greenery and cold concrete.

He wondered if Calum would try to ring him again today, and he smiled as he imagined how frustrated it would make him. Calum had always been a micro manager that could out gossip even the most die-hard church goer. To not have a member of his staff available would surely send him into a complete melt down. Part of him wondered if he would have like to have seen it, but on second thought Alun felt contented in his decision to just leave. The further he walked from London the more he felt his soul begin to shake off the smog that covered it. That evening he and Fanta sat on the outskirts of the city and looked over the first open field, the sun setting in the distance. They made their tent in the corner of the field and cuddled together while they ate. Alun when to sleep smiling, his arms around Fanta and a large grin on his face.

He had dreamed of doing this once when he’d been a boy, he’d always told himself that once he’d finished school he would go to America and walk the appalachian trail, or maybe the Santiago through Portugal and Spain. He’d dreamed of his, practiced walking for miles with his backpack and what he thought he would need at the time. Then life and just gotten in the way. His dad fell behind on his mortgage, Alun had taken a job in order to help out, and bit by bit even hope and hobby had died on the track of the daily grind. He had helped his save save his house, but he had never been able to save for a house of his own. After the lockdowns Alun had briefly considered asking his parents to let him move in so that he could start saving money again, and at first they had agreed; until they realised that Fanta was part of the deal. The ensuing conversation rattled Alun down to his bone in ways that he was only just now being able to put into words. At the time he had said nothing, just expressed his thanks to his parents for their generous offer to let him live with them, but that he would have to find something else as Fanta was important to him.

“Don’t be a sissy, Alun. It’s just a dumb dog. We don’t want dirty animals in our home.”

Alun found that statement particularly infuriating as every time he went to visit them the their cupboards would spill out even more with the random junk they stored inside. One of the upstairs cupboards had even had a pair of bungee coords tied around it to stop the doors from vomiting out it’s content. Alun stroked Fanta’s ears and leaned down to kiss her forehead.

“You’re a wonderful dog.”

After three days of walking he found his brain began to unravel the tangled knot of frustration into words that were coherent. Most of all, they were scathing and angry with his parents. So many of his dreams had died on the alter of theirs. Despite helping them pay their mortgage, he had recently discovered that both of them had extensive credit card debt and where just barely making the payments. They also seemed to be under the illusion that once their health began to fail he would be happy to play nanny, maid, nurse and cook for them. All of this - of course - would be because how could their dear devoted son do anything but take care of his loving parents. He would be left in the ruins of their selfish lives with no money, house or someone to care about him.

He had never gotten to walk the Appalachian trail, he had never gotten to take the gap year he wanted. He had never gotten to own his own home, and recently he had come to realised that he would likely never own his parents home either. Right now he could imagine their faces as they read the email he had sent them. His mother would wail and berate him for abandoning them in their old age. His father would join in, and then find a way to convince himself that Alun would be back, and that he was just a silly boy who needed the world to smack some sense into him. Alun thought to himself that there was nothing about the world that made sense. Especially right now. He had worked hard all his life, done his best to make his parents happy, tried his best to make the company happy; and rather than reward him, the world had seen fit to remind him daily how unimportant he was, and that he should be great full. If that was what doing to the right thing gave him, it couldn’t be that terrible to try the wrong thing for once.

The 93 hours google had estimated for the journey were wildly optimistic. Three weeks later Alun walked through Dartmoor towards the only thing that he could see for miles in either direction. His food had run out almost completely save for a small bag or rice and some dog food, and the cash he had withdrawn was all but gone. Fanta lay in the cart behind him, her paw bandaged as well as he could manage and her eyes red and tired. The further he walked the more Alun could make out the outline of the small forest in the distance. It was hard to tell how close it was, everything about the place looked like a strange alien wasteland save for the occasional blot of wild ponies and sheep. The cart rattled loudly on the crude stony paths, but still he pulled harder and trudged against the wind. It had all been a terrible idea. As much as his life in London had been killing him, he would have been happy to endure it to make sure that Fanta could stay with him. Two weeks into their walk she had caught her leg in a barbed wire fence and cut it badly. Alun had done his best to take care of her, clean the wound and carry her the rest of that way in the cart, but she seemed to be getting worse. Every time he would lift her out so that she could relieve herself the dog would hobble away whining, her legs shaking.

Alun had never felt such a panic. As the forest got closer the noticed that there was a clear path leading into it, and what looked like a wall around it. It didn’t make sense to him that such a desolate place would need a wall around it unless it was the boundary of a property, so he pulled harder on the handle and threw his tired legs into each foot step with desperate aggression.

A hour later he reached the edge of the forest. Despite his frazzled state there was an air about that place that made him stop, even Fanta looked up from the cart.

“What do you think, Fanta?”

The dog barked, a confident bark that sounded healthier than she looked. Alun nodded and pulled the card forward down the path.

The robot came out of nowhere. Alun jumped as he heard footsteps behind him and yelped, his hands raised and ready for a fight. In the cart Fanta whined and hobbled out to walk to the robot, which crouched down and reached for her foot.

“You dog, she needs help?”

“Yes?” Alun lowered his fists. “Who’s robot are you?”

“Nobodies, I am Will.”

“Will?”

“My name, I am Will.”

“Robots don’t have names.”

“I do.”

Alun stared, unsure if he should run or walk away. He looked down at Fanta who was happily allowing the robot to stroke her, her tail swishing in the muddy ground.

“Can you help her?”

“I can, if you want me to?’

“Yes. Please. She’s all I have.”

“Then follow me.”