It was always starting things that had got Graham stumped. He liked to think he was an assertive, willful individual, who knew what he wanted and always went for it when he knew it, but it was always starting things that got him caught. So not an awful lot happened at first, when he decided to run away.

Perhaps some elaboration might be more helpful. Graham Burricombe was thirty three, and, on reflection, not particularly happy about it. He lived somewhere in the middle of England, so managed to avoid the “Southern Fairys vs Northern Monkeys” arguements that had inevitably cropped up in his time at the University of Manchester. He hadn’t moved very far away from home, taken up a graduate placement scheme that had taken him absolutly nowhere, and eventually resigned himself to a telesales role. Unfortunatly, he had turned out to be sufficiently good enough at the job to stay put, but a 2:2 in Sociology and no other useful skills had meant he couldn’t go anywhere else.

Depressingly enough, these weren’t the worst of his problems.

For now, however, the worst of his problems could damn well wait. It was Tuesday afternoon, a decidedly quiet time for the week, for no discernably good reason, and this evening was the one evening a week he had anything approaching a modicum of freedom, and he was damn certain he was going to enjoy it.

“To hell with it, I’m buggering off early today!” he declared, to absolutley nobody in particular, and promptly spent two hours telling himself how there was absolutly no point hanging around with no work to do, since he had somehow met his sales targets for the day, and he’d enjoy the extra afternoon off, and how he deserved it, quite frankly. By the time he’d finally steeled himself to set off, however, it was long gone half five, and everyone else had gotten round to actually going.

Mildly embaressed, he grabbed his coat and briefcase, and set off. He didn’t need a briefcase, since all he really needed for his job were his computer and the automated dialling system, but he rationalised that the one day he didn’t bring it would cause a flurry of paperwork to wing his way. In the interests of keeping his desk clear, therefore, he kept his briefcase close to hand and contented himself with carrying around newspapers.

He didn’t actually have a car. To be short, he didn’t have his own car. Miranda had one, god alone knows what for, but since he couldn’t drive, it wasn’t much help. Therefore, he was forced to take the 185 route bus every single day, trying to console himself with the fact that he wasn’t damnaging the environment, but still more than faintly embarassed by being stuck with the last of the old ladies exploiting their free bus passes by travelling exactly nowhere, the usual gaggle of young boys coming back late from school, and even the odd temp from his office, not quite sure whether to talk to him or not. Much as he would like to think he was better than them, they would do his job for a couple of weeks, do it passably, and then go on to something much more interesting. He however was stuck. With a sigh, he hopped on the bus as its doors opened, and flashed his bus pass at the driver. As ever, the driver asked to see it, despite the fact that he’d been riding the same bus every day for nearly ten years now.

After half an hour enduring a group of young lads discussing who they’d beaten up the night before, he got back to his house on Wilburn Road, fought with the lock that, despite having been fixed five times since they’d moved in, never actually unlocked without bodily kicking the door, and stumbled in as the door finally decided to let him in. Without Miranda’s overbearing presence filling the house, it seemed decidedly empty, despite being four bedrooms and three storeys. Graham hadn’t quite worked out why they needed such a large house when it was just him and her, but once again, she’d commanded, he’d objected, she’d started mkaing accusations about his fidelity, and he’d folded like a poker player holding, not two cards, but a jack and a small picked halibut.

So they had a large house, at the moment an empty house, and Miranda filled the rooms with… well, he wasn’t quite sure what. He knew some rooms had ornamental things in them, and some had books, but he had lost track over the years, and as long as she didn’t spend all his money, he could live with it. His domain on Tuesday evenings was the lounge, in front of the telly, with a twelve pack of beer. Not exactly what made life worth living, but certainly better than being whipped the entire week.

He cracked open his first beer, and flipped on the box, to find the news on. Graham grunted in annoyance, before flipping over. It wasn’t that he didn’t care what was going on in the wider world, but it was his night in, and he didn’t need to hear the same news story night after night: Government not doing very well, American foreign policy leaving much to be desired, war, famine, strife. It would be a lot easier to feel for the suffering of the world, if he could hear about something that wasn’t suffering for five minutes. Much as he maligned the American media, he had to admit, there was something to be said for the “waterskiing squirrel” stories they ran at the end of every news broadcast.

Instead, he flipped over to Channel 4, where some mindless teen drama was playing itself out. It didn’t require much thinking, leaving him free to focus on more important things, like where he was going with his life. At the last count, the answer seemed to be “absolutly nowhere”. He was stuck in a job he didn’t like, with a girl who’d crowbarred herself into an engagement, and only spared him the horrors of being technically married because they just couldn’t afford it, the only advantage of his job whatsoever, and he was too much of a coward to do anything about it all.