The Yellow Tree

I put on my wizard coat and sunglasses and walked quickstep to the jobcentre. In some ways I was an oddball I knew, but in others quite normal. I had green knitted gloves with bows on and felt ok about it. I looked a bit apocalyptic in my head, but in real life I was just a person walking along.

The highlight was a bright yellow tree for which I took off my glasses. My neck did a click when I looked up at it.

We all sat on the sofas and waited. There was a drug addict getting annoyed at the shaky hands advisor. I liked that one best, it was something in his eyes, like a horse in fire. The addict was full of self-pity, I felt sorry for him and hated him too. He was shouting but nobody heard so he shuffled off back to his crappy life.

When I heard my name I was surprised. It’s surprising when someone says your name out loud. I gave old shaky hands my most winning smile and got out my job search. ‘He was interesting’ I said. He went on about it for a bit and I said stuff like ‘you don’t make the rules’ etc to help him along. Now we were friends.

There was a picture of him at a football match pinned on his cubicle, it made me sad I don’t know why. I think he was disabled in some way, he had a special keyboard with big letters on. I was keen and signed the thing and was set free.

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