Twudikk

Intuition tells me I am at my old childhood home, although much of the environment is altered. I am inspecting the floor by the fire, looking at it in great detail. The fire is an old fashioned electric effort with moulded, coloured logs and mounted in a plain rectangular timber frame. The tiling to the front of the fire unit is lumpen and misshapen as if forced up and displaced from below. This seems to worsen as I look at it, the subfloor now seemingly stretched and exposed, the tiles further buckled and broken. The damage is not limited to the tiling and I notice, to my absolute dismay, that one of our front windows is cracked in by the frame. My mother and I, both deeply upset, hug each other, lamenting the costs of this unforeseen damage- 

I deduce that this ongoing damage has been caused by something acting from the outside of the house. My two brothers and I go out into the (dark) street to investigate. To our left, a few houses down from us, a 'gas' van is parked, visible in the orange glow of the streetlights. The van's back door (to access the trade materials) is sitting open. A heavy-ish guy in his mid-50s – he has tousled hair and sports thick NHS-style glasses and wears sturdy, reflective clothing – wanders over to it and my brothers and I take turns to remonstrate with him. It transpires he has been doing some “essential” gas supply upgrade in the area, drilling and adding extra pipework, and we are outraged that he is doing so without (at least) notifying the homeowners. I call the guy “a f**king moron!” to his face – of course, I instantly regret it, knowing that by insulting him I have weakened our case against him. He just takes of his glasses and smirks. This attittude of quiet amusement further fires the flames of my wrath and I bristle with intense frustration-