Evidence Has a Funny Sense of Humour

Femi paid me in paperwork, which is a disappointingly honest substitute for money. I nearly laughed, but anger had hold of me. I kept thinking: if the promise means nothing, what exactly was I crawling under that machine for? My gear? Another bruise? There was supposed to be a number at the end of this job, and now there is only a removal date and the feeling that somebody pocketed my reward while pointing at my boots.

The photograph unsettled me more than I admitted. Not because I did not recognise the duct, but because somebody recognised it too. That means attention, preparation, someone waiting for me to become careless. I kept checking the warning as if a different word might appear. A hearing at dawn sounds official enough to be dangerous and vague enough to let me imagine every version of myself turning up there.

Forwarding the permit number, camera serials and dispatch sheet felt sensible in the way panic often does when I give it a clipboard. I wanted proof sitting somewhere outside my control. I wanted someone else to have to account for it before I had to explain myself again.

I am frightened that attending will look like confidence. I am more frightened of staying away and letting the hearing assemble me from fragments.

So I am going. I am taking the copies, the serials and the parts of the story that do not bend easily. I will walk in before anyone gets to decide which part of me strangers meet first.