Department of Misfortune - Flash Fiction Story

I mean nobody wants this job, do they? Do you think I want to spend my days dishing out punishments? Judges get paid. And…they have twelve people to decide guilty or not guilty. All I have are two eyes and a heap of responsibility weighing on me. Back in the day there was at least a bit of glamour with the job. A pretty dress and some sparkle. But not now…

Now, I’m parked outside some creep’s house at 2am in a hoodie. A hoodie! No glamour, no money and not even a box of donuts the cops get on their TV stakeouts. I could eat as well, I’m starving.

There’s movement. A twitch of his curtains. I strain my eyes to read the name on his file. Bernard Bernardson. His ma was having a laugh, wasn’t she? His file is stamped with a large 2. Grade 2 violations are serious. And, looking at the thickness of this folder, my report will be the proverbial nail in his coffin.

I mean, I can’t lie. The punishments part of the job I don’t entirely hate. I did apply for the department of misfortune after all.

I get out of the car, pull up my hood and crouch, the front of the house still in view. Another scissoring of the curtains. I’ll never understand why people think that makes them inconspicuous. I stuff my hands into my pockets; the air a tapestry of frosty spiders’ webs and nightmares.

Light spills out of his front door, then he’s gone. Grade 2 Bernard Bernardson is on the move. Fuck’s sake, he’s got a dog with him. Of course he has. They think having a dog makes a good excuse for being out at this time. Right out of the creep 101 handbook. Yet, I know full well there are millions of dogs fast asleep right now with no desire to roam the streets.

I follow him, light on my feet. He’s faster than he looks, grunting out his exertion in billowing plumes.

Three streets away, he stops and ties the dog to a lamp-post. I could write him up just for that – Grade 7 infraction. The dog lays down and rests its face on its front two paws.

Bernard slowly approaches the end house. All the lights are out and the night is holding its breath.

He moves closer.

I move closer.

He looks up and down the street, not seeing me, then fiddles with the lock. Every instinct is telling me to act now. Pounce. Punish. But breaking and entering is only Grade 5. I hear the lock give a click and he slowly pulls down the handle.

I follow him up the stairs. Three doors. A bathroom; a home office then a bedroom. A woman sleeps. I watch the peaceful rise and fall of her chest, unaware of the monster lurking in the hall.

“Don’t worry,” I whisper, my words made of dream and dust. “I know just the punishment for him.”