The Upper Hand

It was really pissing me off, if I'm completely honest, how he sloped about the place with that little smirk on his face. If he'd been arrested (as he bloody well should have been) he'd have been locked up wouldn't he? At least for a while, surely. I would have had the whole flat to myself. That would have felt good. The tantalising opportunity to... oh I don't know. Go through his stuff or something.

That seems weak, though. He took my stuff. He got my trophy. And then, after I'd carefully watched him and followed him and taken great pains not to be seen... After I'd schemed, and snitched, and watched... When I should have had the satisfaction of seeing his scrawny frame buckle under a couple of burly policemen, instead I was treated to a sickening disply of him toadying up to them. He pissed me off, got under my skin, had the absolute gall to take things that belonged to me... and he got away with it.

It boils my piss, it really does.

It was starting to keep me awake at night. The way he radiated this air of knowing some secret I didn't know. I lay there in my bed, staring up into the gloom, imagining ways I could unnerve him. Put him off-kilter somehow. Make him less smug. Take him down a peg. Pop his ego like an especially vicious pimple.

What I came up with was small-fry, really, in the end. But my plan was to escalate, so I didn't want to go in big. I wanted to be subtle. Then I'd have somewhere to go. And if I played it right, he'd wonder if he was overreacting, or imagining things, or going mad. He'd doubt himself. That's what I really wanted, after all.

I thought about getting a grey anorak, just like his. Revolted at the thought, and feeling I'd not be seen dead in something like that, I decided against it. It was too on the nose, anyway. Too obvious.

I started with a box of cereal. He has a very particular way of ordering his shelf in the food cupboard, with his box of cereal for the week on the left. Me, I like to have a few different ones to choose from, but I took most of them out and removed them to my room. I left only one, and I reordered everything so that the box fit neatly along the left hand side, mirroring the shelf above.

He's bound to see it. Would he say anything? I doubted it.

I settled in for the long haul, planning what other little things I could do to start messing with his greasy, shaggy little head. He was bound to be the sort easily nudged into a state of paranoia. Shouldn't be too difficult. I practically hummed on my way to work.

I started thinking of him in parts or slices. A finger here. A foot somewhere else. A head never found, a rictus of shock and fear stamped on it. Pain, too. Oh, yes. The mix of sun and breeze felt pleasantly warm on my face.

On the second day, I put a bottle of juice next to the cereal, just like he does. I whistled, applying my deodorant, thinking of all the creative uses of a cigar cutter.

On the third day, I stacked my tins next to the juice, and when I shut the door with a soft little click, I imagined his fingers going crunch in the hinges. I bet he cries like a little girl. I picked up a spare shirt to keep in my car. It's going to be a scorcher today, and I don't like being sweaty and gross.

It was when I was on my way home from work that I noticed it. In my car. The Smell.

What has that nasty little maggot done now?!

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Thank you for reading!

If you are interested you can read these in order, starting with "What Are The Odds?"