Times of Austerity Ch. 02

The pair carrying the box set it down and began to strip off the cardboard that covered it to reveal a different, shabbier layer of the same material beneath and then opened the top in the manner of a coffin to allow access to the padded interior, which only served to reinforce the comparison between the object and a funerary casket.

Meanwhile the first man made a rudimentary check that the mermaid was essentially unhurt and in one piece, quickly satisfying himself that this was indeed the case. Then he casually pulled her arms behind her back, ignoring her cries of protest and binding her wrists in the same way as he had the man at the door. He did not bother to bind her tail, there being no point in binding one limb as opposed to two, so he settled for taping her mouth and leaving it at that.

His part of the task complete, he waved the other two men over and they wasted no time in taking the mermaid beneath the arms and by the tail so that they could carry her over to the waiting box. She struggled only weakly, causing them no problems, and soon the lid was shut over her so that the box could be sealed.

The last thing they saw of her before that was done were her eyes, wide and confused as the light was extinguished for her.

They made their way out of the house with the same detached manner, simply walking past the young man who was still laid out in the hallway.

As they returned to the van, they looked for all the world like a trio of delivery men who had carried a new appliance into the house and were now leaving with the old one. There had been nothing to see and no sound allowed to escape from their labours that would have cast doubt on that being the truth of the matter. And as they drove away, not one of the neighbours on the way out to their own cars and on the way to works even batted an eyelid.

It was almost as if the van and its occupants vanished into thin air, as though they had never existed in the first place.