The sign said population 800, the sign was made of metal and the poles were inserted into the ground the ground was dirt etc and had some grass growing around the sign and there was trees nearby. It was on the side of a road and the road led into a town and cars drived on the road. The cars were different colours but mostly black white and sort of greenish and the cars were mostly four wheel drives. The sign also said that the town which the population belonged to was called Barrow and i drove there one day in my car which wasnt a four wheeled drive just a sedan and it was white. I had been driving the whole day since the sun came up and i was tired so i parked in the town of Barrow near the police station to be safe but then i remembered its illegal to just live in your car so i got out of my car and went into the police station to ask where i could sleep that wasnt illegal. In the office there was a stapler on the desk and pieces of paper and pencils and the stapler was black and was about the length of my hand it looked like it had a nice healthy weight to it that it would be pleasurable to hold and the person behind the desk asked me if they could help me and i said yes where can i stay here and she looked at me like i hadnt asked something pretty simple and then someone came up behind her and bent over because she was sitting in a chair and they said in the person’s ear “the lights are back. Over the lake” and the person looked a bit more confused then smiled at me and said “sorry one moment” and stood up and walked away behind a wall to talk to the person. The stapler just sat there on the desk staring at me, it had a rubber or plastic bottom that was curved a little and it was metal and it was quite angular and sharp looking and had a little bit of a cheeky edgy jutting out from the front of its jaw tip.
I had left the police station and the stapler was in my hand and it indeed had a healthy weight to it, and it felt even better to put it in my pocket where it made my pants sag just a little bit from its pleasurable weight. My heart was beating very fast from both the act and the fact i now had the stapler. The door opened behind me and i turned and stood very straight and normal and the persons that were in the police station smiled and nodded at me as they walked quickly to their police car and they said “sorry something’s come up”. I nodded and got into my car and watched them drive away. It seemed to me that in a way they had said it was ok to sleep in my car in front of the police station so I went to sleep, cradling the stapler in my hands but it was covered with my jacket so no one would see it if they were maybe standing outside my car in the carpark at night looking in at me as i slept.
I woke up and was cold and the world was dark red and the police car wasn’t back, I turned on my engine and then felt my heart race as i realised the stapler wasn’t on my lap any more. I jumped out of my car and heard something clatter and was filled with sedative relief as i saw it there tumbled so serenely on the floor of my car, nestled in amongst the wrappers. Before anyone could see i scooped it up and put it my pocket and got back in my car and drove to a supermarket to wait for it to open because i was hungry. Because i had fallen asleep again it was later in the day when i went into the supermarket and after i woke up it took some time to decide to leave the stapler in the car rather than to carry it on me. I put it in the boot at first, but assumed some one had seen me put it there so i got back in my car and drove around the street that the supermarket was on and as i did i stowed it in on seat between the seat cover and the real seat itself with its presumably virgin cloth. Inside a child was crying and no one seemed to know where their parents were and the child was just standing there in the cereal aisle crying and there was a little puddle of red at their feet because they had a blood nose. As i was paying for my food i heard a sirens outside but then they went away and then when i was eating my cereal in the car i saw more police cars drive past with their sirens too. I felt like i had nothing to fear because i could fill the stapler digging into my ass under the seat cover they wouldnt ever think to look there i don’t think.
It was too late in the day to keep driving, so i decided i would sit in the park. When the sun was setting i went to a mcdonalds restaurant and ordered a hamburger and some chips and a soda drink and it wasn’t very busy there. Because there wasnt many people around i sat near the ordering area and to be near the people who were working at the mcdonalds resturauant they seemed to be talking alot a bout a teenager girl who had gone missing overnight and about the police driving to the lake and maybe thats where he had taken her and they all seemed to know that there was a specific person who probably took the girl. Both times after the park and after the mcdonalds restaurant i was filled with relief to feel my butt touch the stapler that was still so safely and snugly secured nestled under the seat cover. I also thought very hard both times about possibly taking the stapler out from the seat cover and taking it for a walk in my pocket which made me breathe quite heavy but then i decided with all the police cars driving around it really wasnt worth the risk as nice as it would be to do that. I decided to drive back to the police station as they hadn’t actually answered my question yet but no one was really around when i got there so i just fell back asleep in my car again.
I grabbed beneath my but and sqeezed its comforting hardness as i was awoken by a police officer tapping on my window in the red lightness. They told me i couldnt sleep there and i said i knew that but i had tried to ask them the other day where i should go so i was just waiting for an anser and honestly i was a bit annoyed so i actually said where the hell else was i supposed to go and i don’t think they liked that because they frowned and sort of touched around their belt area and told me to get out of the car and when they did they asked me who i was and I told them and they asked if i knew any one around here and i said no and they said do you know Amanda Goulborn and I said is that the girl who is missing and then they asked me to come inside to the police station and i said i would in a moment i just had to do something but they said no i couldnt and i guess i looked like i was goint to do somehting because they grabbed me and held me quite forcefully and took me inside and at least they closed my car door for me because if a crow or a rat or some other creature or a homeless person when into my car they would definetly steal my stapler. Also when they closed my car door i knew at least they didnt know where my stapler was so thats good.
After they had asked my questions for a few hours and i had slept in a jail cell for a few hours some one came into the room and said “you can go now” i walked back to the front ot the desk that had held my stapler and I asked where I could sleep around here again and the lady there looked sad and tired and said she didn’t know but that if i didnt have any where to stay to get out of town and then a person came behind her and said “we went over all the footage, he was exactly where he said he was`” and she looked even sadder and confused and i smiled at her because i knew i had gotten away with it again. I couldnt drive for a few moments because i just sat there sitting my on stapler while little happy tears ran down my cheeks and scars. Eventually i drove to the church i had seen the yesterday and the carpark was quite full and there was lots of posters on the notice baord next to the doors and of course i couldnt go actually into the church but at least with so many people around I could just lay down in the back of my car for a little while and not be pestered by the police and rest even though it was quite annoying hearing all the people singing and talking about how much they loved the teenagers who had been found dead over the last day and that they missed them. I laid down face first on the long back seat of the back of my white sedan with my head down in that bit where people normally put their feet not that my car had ever had passengers and i reached my arm forward all the way foward to the driver seat and i slipped my fingers under the dainty little seat cover with her rough top side soft interior and i touched the hard soft stapler that was there and ran my fingers over it and that helped a lot with blocking out the singing and the speeches.
It was dark when i woke to gun shots. I waited till it stopped, waited a little longer then looked. There was still plenty of other cars in the car park but the service had finished. I was not sure where all the people had gone. There were more gunshots as i moved my body down into the space where people’s feet normally go and i very slowly draped by body in the empty wrappers and old clothes that were on the floor. It pained me to have to move my hand away from the stapler so when i was as covered as i could be i reached my hand under the drivers seat in an attempt to reach under and up the seat but there was some sort of mechanism blocking my hand so I couldnt actually reach it all the way to the front of the car. I wrapped my hands over me like they put people into coffins in shows and waited.
I let myself wake slowly with the sun. I listened. Heard nothing and crawled forward into the driver’s seat. I started the engine and drove as quietly as i could but i couldnt really control how loud the engine was. There was several people laying on the ground in front of the doors of the church which were slightly ajar. A few people slept on the grass around the carpark too. I drove around the cars that were parked in the middle of the road. There was five of them i had to go around by the time i got to the gas station and one was a police car. As i parked next to the machine that you use to fill your car up with petrol i noticed that a window was smashed in the service station, and not wanting to take any risks i took the stapler out from under the seat cover and put it back in my pant pocket with a shudder. I filled up my car with petrol. I had to push the big glass sliding door open to get in to pay. I had lots of posters on it with teenagers faces on them. A man was laying on the ground with blood all around him, and there was another man behind the desk where you pay doing the same thing.
I looked up at the camera behind the paying counter and waved and shrugged and smiled. I wasn’t too sure what to do, but then it hit me with a wave of sadness. I paused. Looked back up at the camera. Nodded, gave a brave smile and took the stapler out of my pocket. I put it on the counter, gave the camera a final wave and walked out without looking back. It was hard, but it was the right thing to do. I drove out of the town. There wasn’t any other cars on the road and i could see a fire was burning in my rear view mirror.
