My usual strategy of ignoring a problem, a strategy I call the ostrich solution, doesn’t seem to have paid off. The hessian sack at the back of my wardrobe has not left by its own volition, instead, it just sits there working on enhancing its rank, pervasive odor. It really smells, a unique but definitely most unpleasant fetid stench, that reaches beyond the perimeter of my flat and into the corridor outside. Just the other side of my door, whilst they have been waiting for the elevator, I have heard them muttering, comments about a foul smell, and judgments discussed as to who the strange people are that call for me at all sorts perverse times of the night. The smug, self-righteous bastards, that don’t have an errant sack to deal with.

The pressure is mounting as even I have come to appreciate the threat to health this sack poses. I think to myself, ‘if they are so put out by the smell why don’t they come inside and help me out?’ But something inside gives me a cerebral slap’ alerting me to the fact that it could have profoundly dire consequences if I were to expose my sack to the other residents.

I sit on the bed looking into the wardrobe’s darkest corner, still not sure what to do. Should I call the police before dealing with it? what if it’s a bomb? Does the fact that it is in my wardrobe make it entirely my responsibility? Even though I have no recollection how it got there? These are all very good questions which I cannot answer and lack the ability to cognitively reason through.

I decide against a call to the police. If there is anything in the sack that is illegal, then it being inside my wardrobe would be construed as incriminating, but this all hinges on knowing the contents of the sack.

I thought my anxiety had peaked thirty minutes ago, instead it continues to ramp itself up to hitherto unfelt heights, my adrenal glands are shredding themselves, my endocrine system is taking over, I’m just a sack of hormones mostly telling me to run, but oddly there’s also a hint of masturbation, which I decide is inappropriate, for now anyway. My skin prickles as my pores start to open, and allow me to sweat fear. The base of my skull thumps as my heart pounds blood at an ever increasing pressure around my body, a high pitched almost ultra-sonic whistle pierces continually through my ear drums, but all I can do is just stare at the sack. At an almost immeasurable velocity fate directs me down a dead end, there are no options, no way out, I must face the sack and whatever it contains.