Let The Right One In

The thought police exist. I should know. I've had one around for morning coffee.

Usually I relish the facade of human interaction of those who come by my door. I get great big butterflies of pleasure from slamming the door on Mormons, charity workers and sales men. It truly makes my week.

Not on this day however, maybe never again . . .

I was rudely awoken from an cold-sweat inducing nightmare about something I can't remember anymore [I dream a lot of dystopian bollocks] to the coldiererer-sweat inducing thudding of authority at my door. Crusty eyed with sleep, delusional, naked, unwashed or shaved I stumbled my way down stairs like a cave hermit and peered through the curtains. The man standing with a black suitcase under his arm was instantly recognisable. Balding, white shirt under grey jacket with a simple blue tie and the look of a buffoon. Heavy black bags under each eye. Soulless and dead eyes. This was the man I'd let into my home two weeks earlier around this time of morning to try and organise the separation of my benefits claim from my ex-partner.

It was the Compliance Officer.

COMPLIANCE. OFFICER.

Read that again.

COMPLIANCE. OFFICER.

It's like the Government isn't even trying to hide it's totalitarian grasp over civil life anymore. George Orwell is not turning but SPINNING in his grave as a rate of 192 r.p.s.

You see recently me and my ex separated yet we still live together under the same roof. It's massively convenient if you can make it work - you know each other well, each others habits, you've formed a routine for house work around each other and you'll laugh at each others jokes even when they're shit [plus we have another nine months on our contract]. It's an unfortunate fact of life that these things happen so you might as well make the best of it.

Back then what we wanted him to do was turn up, look around our house and say "Yup. Two bed rooms. You're not dicking each other. The paper work will be done by Monday." resulting in our joint claim being split back up into two individual claims, one for each of us for those who can't count. This is not what happened.

As I unbolted the door and stood aside to welcome him into my home it was like watching myself in slow-motion, as though my own eyes were the projection screen of Fright Night creature feature and I sat alone in the dark auditorium looking out, internally I was screaming "NO! DON'T LET IT IN! DO. NOT. LET. IT. IN!"

I'm no longer sure if he ever blinked during the time he was in our home, or if he had a shadow for that matter. I regret not putting up more mirrors. You can never be certain with these government types.

He sat and sort of roosted himself into the arm chair not once asking to have a look around our home as we expected him to. We spent an hour being told that a government body would decide just how 'single' we both were and that to change our status of our relationship would take time, paper work and might even leave us worse off and wouldn't it just be easier if we kept our claim as a 'couples' claim as that's probably what the government would decide we were anyway. Did we really want to change the status quo?

It was like being sat in front of Sir Humphrey Appleby crossed with a corpse. Myself and my ex worked out that we had three choices:

• The first was that we continue to push our claim as separate individuals living under one roof. Because that's the truth and we would be entitled to more money as individuals. Money we need now we have separate lives. 
• The second was that we accept a payment of a couples allowance, which we already get and don't want because we are not a couple. 
• The third option was to . . . sort of . . . I dunno. Wait and see?

After he'd left I noticed that he'd not drank any of his coffee . . .

That was two weeks ago. On Thursday of last week he remained true to his threat and came back. Cut to my above naked hermit shenanigans in paragraph two.

Ex and I had already told him our decision, out of the three options, over the phone that very same day in the hope that not only could be speed up the process of our monies being given to us faster but that we wouldn't need to see him again. Compliance Officers know no such independent thought, that is after all their job - it's all in their title. Still . . .  he turned up anyway.

This time I swear that he'd lost any of that buffoon charm his face retained during his first visit. All that remained was the resemblance of a human skull. He refused the offer of coffee. Then he forced me to answer a series of questions about my life and my relationship to my ex, who in our family knew we had split up and how being single had changed our lives etc. He then wrote this up in the form of a mock statement - as if I'd said these things directly, which I hadn't, read it back to me [as his handwriting was illegible] and finally made me sign my name in agreement that the statement was accurate with a smile on his lips that would make the Devil check the fine print.

Honey, Did It Just Get Colder In Here?

Then he burst into a body of bats and flew out the window. That night we burned the chair he'd sat in.*

It was amazing to behold. Never before have I been met with such genuine and blatant cold-hearted bureaucracy. The way that he tried to put doubt in our mind if we were in fact single or not was outstandingly brazen. Constantly pushing his point that it was the decision of some faceless group of judges some where in the bowls of London who would decide our fate, not us. Not the individual but the State.

I've relinquish my love of the door-to-door salesman's knock. I cower behind the sofa when the Mormons come to preach. Now I relish only the option of communication with the outside world by call centre. At least I can be sure they have a soul, you can hear it gradually slipping away.

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*So I might have exaggerated the bats but we did burn the chair.