Consequences. (a short story)

Chapter one.

   Each day in Gary’s life were much the same, he lived very much to a routine, on week days he would go to work, always leaving home at the same time, he would catch the same bus, getting him to work at much the same time. You could set your watch by him, he would leave work at the same time, catch the same bus home, and arrive home at much the same time. He would cook his dinner at the same time each night, do the washing up at the same time, shower at the same time and go to bed at the same time.

   On the weekends he would do the same things as the previous weekend, at the same times. This was not to say that he was obsessed, if something prevented him from doing something at the time he would normally do it, he would not get agitated, he would just move on and get it done when he could. But for the most part he did do the same things at the same time each day of the week.

   This behaviour extended to his working day, ten o’clock was time for a cup of coffee, twelve o’clock was lunch time, and three o’clock was time for another coffee.

   Why Gary lived his life in this way was anyone’s guess, his upbringing was not very regimented, quite the opposite. He was brought up in a very progressive house hold, where there were no set times for anything, no rules governing when to eat or go to bed.

   Gary was in his mid thirties, lived alone in a house he had inherited from his parents, who had died in a plane crash some years before. He was tall and thin, some might say wiry, he had short blond hair and always looked well kept, sort of stylish. He worked as an office manager with a small firm of solicitors, located up stairs above a chemist shop in the main street of a small suburb of Sydney.

   His work was not particularly taxing, he just looked after the office, kept everything running smoothly, and just made sure the solicitors were happy. Most of the work taken on by the solicitors was conveyancing but they did do a little crime work, mostly traffic related. He had been in the same job for just over ten years and had seen a number of changes in that time, mainly with solicitors coming and going.

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