The joke stopped landing

I laughed when they called me Scaffold Boy. Just once, hard enough to hurt my ribs, because if I got there first then I could control the shape of it. That laugh sounded convincing even to me. Nobody saw it was mostly panic wearing a pub coat.

Mara Venn called me reckless in front of the camera. Fine. Reckless is easier to live with than wrong. But the missing plate has become evidence against my old claim, and that is not a mistake I can laugh off. I keep replaying the comments, not the footage. People enjoy a fall more than they enjoy truth. That is old news, but it still makes me feel as though I have been holding the rope while somebody above me saw an excellent place to tie it.

I thought the carrier would settle it. A clean recovery, a clean correction, perhaps even an apology small enough for me to refuse generously. Instead, the courier vanished around the industrial estate and left me with wet rails, bad timing and a camera that kept working despite me. I hate equipment that outlasts the fool carrying it.

I left Barking without anything except the footage. That counts as a defeat, though I am filing it under 'later'. I called Rosa because I did not want to sit with the silence. I wanted her to say the route meant something. She gave me facts instead, which was annoyingly sensible.

The mocked video is still buzzing. I am not worried they will remember me. I am worried they will remember the wrong version of me.