I Should Have Locked The Door

This story is inspired by an incident in the Terry Gilliam film when Robert De Niro unexpectedly appears. It is nothing like the film except that it preys on our insecurities.

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I got to my apartment, slammed the door shut, went up the stairs, and plugged in my laptop. As well as a nine-hour day at the office I still had to finish off a report for tomorrow and that would be another few hours. These days it was just work, sleep and maybe grab a sandwich, in no particular order. I hadn’t cleaned the place or washed up in weeks and I was coming to the end of my clean clothes. Maybe at the weekend, I would do something.

Then I heard something. Had someone come into the house? I then remembered I hadn’t locked the door and this was not the most select of living areas in the city. My apartment was on the third floor of the block and there was a combination pad door to get into the block, but it shut slowly so it would be easy for any thug or hooligan to slip in undetected. The flat had two floors and my “office” is on the second floor and there was movement downstairs, I looked down and the lights had been switched on. There was somebody there. I was scared.

I went quietly back to my “office”, I had a computer and a phone. Could I text for help? Yeah, I could do that. So I sent both texts and emails to friends:

“Please Call The Police, There Is Someone Downstairs In My Apartment and I am very scared”

I kept quiet and hoped that no one would come upstairs looking for stuff.

Then there was noise from downstairs. Was it a drill? There was definitely something with a motor running.

I checked my phone and email, and there was no signal. I looked at my computer and there was no internet connection. My texts and emails were still waiting to be sent. No one was coming to save me.

There was a lot of noise downstairs and I could hear the water pipes like when the washing machine was on, what the hell?

I pushed a chair against the door and then locked it, I had never used the door locks before and wasn’t sure they could stop whoever was in the apartment.

Then my heart sank and my stomach turned, someone was coming upstairs, they were in the bedroom and moving about and then that motor, I shrank into the corner. The motor stopped.

There was noise from the bathroom, taps running, toilet flushing, and some bangs, then quiet.

Then the handle on my “office” door turned but it was locked. They tried a few times, there were muffled voices and then they went downstairs. There was a little relief inside me, maybe I would get out of this unharmed.

Then there was some noise followed by quiet. It was like they had gone, I had survived, I thought.

I pulled the chair away and opened the door. I walked to the bathroom and it was like it had been tidied up, everything in the right place,, maybe I tidied it and they didn’t mess it up.

I then went to the bedroom. The bed had been made. I definitely didn’t do that. There were no clothes on the floor and it looked like it had been hoovered. This was weird.

I ran downstairs, the front room all tidied and hoovered, remote control the arm of the chair, bin emptied, everything where it should be, nothing missing. I looked through my vinyl, and all my records were still there.

Thought to the kitchen, all the washing up done and draining on the sink, and the washing machine was now drying the clothes in there. What was happening? Who had been in my apartment?

I walked to the front door and saw a business card:

“Wheel Of Fortune: Guerilla Cleaners” but there was no contact information on it. The back was blank.

I had been hit by guerilla cleaners, and my apartment was pristine.

Then I remembered I had a report to write, but I didn’t need to clean up so I rang and ordered a Chicken Dansak, Today had been unexpectedly good.

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The incident in Brazil is when Harry Tuttle (De Niro) comes to fix Sm Lowry(Jonathan Pryce)’s air conditioning, a guerilla heating engineer.

Crazy facts about Brazil: the form 27B/6 is based on a number of an apartment flat where George Orwell wrote 1984 at. The film greatly parodies the heck out of Orwellian horrors, bureaucracy, and authoritarian rule and Gilliam admitted that he didn't read the book but knows the story when he directed and finished Brazil