Wax

Prologue

It is that time of the year again; leaves are red and crisp, the ground toasted but the air spicy with a chill so slight, it smelled of cinnamon and cayenne—a combination so deadly in hot chocolate that it could light, in the coldest of hearts, a single flame. Gentle is the breeze that cleared the roads of maple crisps, sweeping them against the curbs where they sat in a pile of umber, as though burnt from the touch of summer.

A passing black hackney sent these flying in an array and falling like snow, landing on a sidewalk that, in a couple hundred feet, would lead to the entrance of an old apartment building in the middle of East Dulwich. Traditional, but not unkempt. There was a car parked in the middle of the driveway, beside a red motorbike of a shade so electric, it stood out against the grey darkness of its surroundings.

These did not allow for the hackney to pull up directly in front of the apartment building. It stopped some distance before the iron gates and, without a second to waste, popped open a rear door. Out stepped a young man of winter eyes, frosted from a lack of warmth in which he'd attempted to make up for by the layers of clothing he tended to wear on days like these.

He turned to face the mammoth tomb of anxiety that was the grey building, adjusting the umbrella hooked on his forearm and the stunning leather briefcase he held in the same hand. The other had the screen of his phone displaying the given address he'd checked for the third time since the beginning of his ride here.

"Hi. Hello," he called out to a passing stranger who brushed past without a sliver of response, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket as he brisked off. Ah, thought the visitor at once, who hadn't noticed the wireless earphones before calling out. He was plugged in.

He searched the rest of the street for a sign and then, around the building for a name but there was none. The iron gates were unlocked and perfectly welcoming, which also did not necessarily mean it would be perfectly permissible to do so, all whilst being perfectly unsafe for the tenants inside.

From the looks of it, there was no reception area or anything resembling a lobby of sorts, where the guard house or relevant security would be positioned on standby and the visitor, practically made of order and manners, could not bring himself to slip past the open gates. This, too, made it so that he had little to no options to properly confirm his whereabouts.

"Excuse me," he'd chosen to open with, pausing to re-think the tone he was used to speaking in.

The grand decision of his had been to consult a group of children having fun at the playground across the road, presumably after school. Unthinkable for the visitor, really, since he'd only ever studied after class or perhaps dropped by the library or his favourite second-hand bookstore for some quick shopping back in his days of youth and adolescence. There was a time he'd crack eggs or whisk batter with a game controller and be slapped a rating for his virtual culinary skills; a time where he'd race on a sunset beach, collecting mystery boxes with a companion, battling out for that prime spot before the finish line. That was a long time ago.

"Sorry. I don't mean to startle you," he added upon observing the state of their eyes upon turning his way. The disruptor of playtime. "And I know you shouldn't be speaking to strangers, but perhaps your parents might be around somewhere? I'd simply like to know if this is—"

And that was all it really took for the little ones to start scampering off; scattering in different directions and calling out to their mothers as soon as the visitor approached the expanded sandbox that contained the swings and slides. Well then, he waited patiently, I suppose the plan worked.