The Box Was Cheering

So the first box was cheering. That would be the joke if I weren’t already angry enough to taste metal. The photograph made the London skyline look smug, but the real insult was the depth mark beside the hook. Someone wanted me to understand that I had been aiming at the treasure all along while the actual prize sat somewhere quieter.

I keep placing the two survey dates beside each other. The old measurement and the altered one are close enough to look like my mistake, which means the change was deliberate. Those fresh pins at the intake structure were not lazy fieldwork. Somebody left them for me, or wanted me to think they had.

The worst part is that I followed them. I packed the pry bar as if the answer might hide under a rotten board, when all I truly had was an invitation written in someone else’s handwriting. I hate being invited anywhere. I would rather find the door broken and know it was my own work.

At the Church House, the cheap beer steadied me enough to compare the figures again. Around me, people ate dinner and talked about ordinary days. I wanted to join them so badly that I nearly laughed at nothing. I did laugh, too. My public face remains excellent service.

Tonight the fear has settled into a clean, cold line: Rale was the bait, and there is a person above him who understands the plate better than I do. I do not have a name to add to my scoreboard. That feels like standing in a dark pit with the shovel already over my shoulder, pretending the next dig is mine by right.