Service This!

Casino's are nasty places. They pump the oxygen in, making everyone feel good. People drink. People have fun. People look nice. The casino has a cousin. An ugly cousin. A cousin that magnifies the seedy side of casinos and uses it as it's own personality. The Services.

Each time you go into a services, the stark, unkind lighting pierces your eyes. Whilst there are no clocks in Casinos to know how much time is passing, in the services you can't help being reminded that time is moving on and one day you will die. You will die a sad, lonely desperate death. You'll be placed in a coffin and strangers will stroll by, seeing if you house any decent snack-based bargains.

I don't know if that makes any sense. This does. You know the guy that works behind the counter in the services? Malcolm? He's there when you roll into any of the numbingly identical services across the country. It's two in the morning. His dead eyes bore into you as you debate whether or not to spend an additional 50p and get free a miniature Cadbury's Cowboy that'll stick to your dashboard and sway as you slow down and take off. The sallow complexion and the chewed down fingernails of Malcolm the counter attendant make you feel uneasy. Like you want to run away. run away and never come back. The man you see before you is nothing more than a real representation of the debt-riddled casino punter. That's what he looks like on the inside.

Of course I mean no disrespect to Malcolm. He only works there as a means to an end. Back home, he's got a boat, a couple of kids and a dog. At the bottom of his garden he's got a little shed that he potters about in when he can't sleep. He's making a yacht. Not a real one, but a tiny one. He's not sure how it'll ever fit into a bottle. He's afraid to ask, in case someone thinks him a fool. Next to the shed, he's digging a hole. a big hole. "It's for a pool" Malcolm says. It's not. It's a shallow grave. Well, it'll be deep in time. Its for burying the bodies of people who linger to long at the Cadbury stand, pretending to ponder a further purchase, but really just judging him. It's not even his name tag. He's not Malcolm. He's Ray.