The Human Condition

hardware store car park when I found that another crowd of ragged, dishevelled people had gathered around the front of the building after I had disappeared inside. I took my time and moved around quietly, hoping that they wouldn't notice me. I used a trade entrance at the rear of the building to load up a small truck and was able to load everything before any of them had seen me. Once I got home I parked the truck at the back of my house and threw the timber and other items I'd taken over the fence. I left the truck where it was just in case I needed to use it again.

    The figures in the streets had become increasingly inquisitive and, for want of a better word, nosy. I couldn't move without huge swathes of shuffling, lethargic bodies tripping towards me. They appeared washed out and empty and, although they were easy to brush to the side, their unwanted attention made me feel uncomfortable. If they continued to come, I thought to myself, the house might end up surrounded by incalculable numbers of them and I might end up using the hardware store truck as a means of escape. I couldn't imagine leaving. I decided that it was more important than ever to make my property as strong and secure as possible. I set about barricading and strengthening every door and window, even every vent, no matter how small, insignificant or unreachable it appeared.

    I began with the front of the house. My property is already separated from the road by a knee-high brick wall with a low iron railing on top and a strong iron gate. It seemed sensible to try and increase the height of the barrier, to completely block the house and myself from view as far as was possible. I sank a row of six-foot concrete posts and fence panels into the flower bed directly behind the wall and I used nylon rope and chains to secure a split panel onto the gate (which I also locked with a hefty padlock I had taken from the store). The front of the house was the hardest place to work. The relentless interest of the people on the street was unsettling and disturbing. On more than one occasion I had to push them back to get them out of the way. I asked them to move back but the bloody things were incapable of any positive response. In the end I just shoved them off my drive and back into the crowd.

    I did a beautiful job on the ground floor doors. In a moment of inspiration I decided to build a second timber frame around each entrance and fitted new doors on top of the existing ones. Solid wooden fire doors, separately hinged and able to open independently. Perfect. I did something similar with the windows, making wooden shutters that completely blocked out the light. I couldn't help but make a terrific amount of noise as I fitted them. I had no option but to drill into the masonry around the windows and doors. From the top of the ladder working on the front of the house I could see over the newly raised fence and I was able to see the dramatic effect the noise was having on the crowd of people in the street. Some of them began to bang and hammer angrily on my new gate. At times the noise they made threatened to drown out the sound of my drill. I was almost relieved when the battery pack ran out.

    It took the best part of two days to make the house as secure as I wanted it. By the time I'd finished I was exhausted. I worked whenever it was light, knowing that I would have plenty of time to stop and rest once the job was complete. At six-thirty on Tuesday evening � more than a week since all of this had started � I sat out on the lawn next to Maddy and her mother and looked back at the house with pride. They would have been impressed with what I'd achieved, I was sure. If nothing else they would have been proud of the fact that I had survived when so many others had fallen. Perhaps Janice wouldn't have been too keen on the aesthetic side of the alterations, but she'd have surely appreciated their functionality. I sat between the graves of my wife and my daughter with a can of beer and the remainder of my daily rations and finally allowed myself to relax. The food and drink tasted better than ever. I had a normal appetite for the first time in days. Rationed food wasn't so bad after all, I decided. I had a fairly wide selection of tastes and flavours in each day's supply. I fully appreciated that my choices might lessen and become substantially more limited as time progressed but, for now, I was doing fine. Tired, but fine.

    I slept well last night.

    This