The man sat, twisted on the chair in front of us.
He was clearly agitated, veering between frustrated anger and incoherence.
Life had not been kind to him and his behaviour and choices hadn’t helped him.
We were the outlet for his frustrations.
We were the staff in an MP’s office. We dealt with these sorts of frustrations on a regular basis, doing everything we could to help. We made it a rule that we would never turn anyone away and we always promised them that we would do everything within our power for them. We couldn’t guarantee success, but we were on their side.
The man got up and walked around the office shouting. Then he’d sit down again and the cycle would repeat.
It was only when he mentioned that he sometimes carried a knife that we started to panic a bit. The door to the room was between the man and us. The windows, two storeys up from the busy High Street did not offer any possibility of escape.
Stuff suddenly felt very real.
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