Harold turned the key in his front door and pushed his way into the hall. All around him, the accumulated clutter of fifty years of bachelorhood stood in chaotic piles.

Expertly negotiating his way to the kitchen he balanced his bag of groceries on a small space on the table and began sqeezing its contents into the varous remaining nooks.

The telephone rang. The conversation was short. Harlold put the phone down and sat still for a long time. Redundancy. Just like that.

All of a sudden he got up and began piling objects into a bin bag.First he threw away some old papers and magazines, then books, plates, food. It felt good. All through the night he worked and by morning his house was utterly empty. Outside on the kerb lay a small mountain of discarded objects.

Harold stepped into the street, the sun was rising and birds were beggining to sing. He stretched and took a deep breath. Then he began walking. He didn’t know where, but he knew he wasn’t coming back.