Deflate
Devonshire Square, London, E1, 2003
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Inside the Square Mile of London sits the City. Inside the City sits a Square. Inside the Square sits a building. Inside the building sits a basement. Inside the basement sits an office. Inside the office sits a desk laden with files, paperwork and a computer screen full of figures. Behind the desk sits an overworked man counting down the hours untl Friday night when he will find happiness at the bottom of a pint glass.

Just above the man is a window. The window is opaque with dirt and looks as if it has never been cleaned. If one day a window cleaner were to wipe away the layers of dust the man would be able to see his view. The view isn't very pleasant, it reveals just the sand-coloured stone of the adjacent building.

One day a green beetle appeared on the windowsill of the man's office. If the man looked up from his computer screen he would see that the beetle had cleared a patch of dirt from the window; just enough to reveal that the beetle was gently tapping and pointing at something on the wall behind him.

If the man's eyes were then to follow the direction that the beetle's arm was pointing in he would see that a shiny black beetle had undone the nozzle of the building opposite which, little by little, was beginning to deflate.

The nozzle was so tiny in comparison to the building that it would probably be years and years before anybody noticed that the inside of the building was being slowly sucked away by the air outside...

...probably nobody would ever notice at all.
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