The wind almost pushed me back inside the house as I opened my door. The man hadn’t waited for me at all. I was in the bathroom at the time I heard him knock, and that was only five minutes ago. Looking down at the brown paper bag, I yanked it up and headed back inside, kicking the door behind me. I walked out of the hall into the front room, loosely carrying the bag to my small broken coffee table. The lack of a thudding sound surprised me, as if it had only been recently that I decided to cut my diet and not buy so much.

I played with the bag, pushing it around, procrastinating but not ruminating. Ruminating was another word for worrying. Sally said she’d be here at four, so I had a full half hour until it was dinner. After a bit, I put on my spectacles and surveyed the shopping order I had made the previous morning. The post-it was crumpled from when I spilled coffee, making the biro looked kinda surreal. I almost jumped looking back at the paper bag; small details were exaggerated and were pulling my attention. Dust and hairs, probably floating around my couch where my dog had been sleeping. Where had that mutt vanished too? Even strange, unknown marks resided on the bag. Small red flicks on the top of the bag. Odd.

Opening up the bag, I began to lay out the ingredients my earlier self put on the list. Carrots, check, broccoli, check, meat-free sausages. I rummaged around in the bag. Missing, I thought, looking toward the door. Damn. Bangers and mash was Sally’s favourite. I stared at the potatoes I pulled out, unamused. Check, I guess. Three quarters of my shopping received. It was quite upsetting to be honest. I wanted to make a good impression this week; after all, she promised me the until the end of the month.

Bark. I heard my dog outside the window, even if it did seem a long distance away. The wind blew through the small window into my room, giving me shivers down my back. Should fix that damn window sometime soon. Or never. I chuckled to myself, looking at the brown bag and picked it back up to put it in the bin. Something wrong. It wasn’t empty. I slowly made my way to the small broken coffee table and placed the bag back down, before placing myself back in my seat. I smiled. It could be the sausages, and if so I could have just been day dreaming or something when checking everything off, though I swear I had taken everything out. I put my hand in. Something didn’t feel right. It felt odd, like it was a piece of raw chicken that hadn’t been wrapped in anything. Wet and sweaty and gross. I took my hand out, feeling rather sick. I hadn’t eaten that roadkill ever since Sally came into my life half a year ago, and felt I had almost been blessed with the disgust of my old food habit I had as a young boy. A warning not to eat anything like that, as it’s simply too disgusting. I pulled on a leg, and fished it out the. No. Something was wrong. What was that?

AAAAAAAAA.

I don’t know whether I should call the police a mangled hand and it’s making me feel really bad and it has my dog’s collar in it’s grasp.