CS11 — The File of Paul Depp
Paul Depp woke to a gnawing headache and the sour tang of regret thick on his tongue. The light slicing through the threadbare curtains seemed unnaturally bright, like a police spotlight fixed on his face. He groaned, pulling himself upright in his boxy, beige-walled flat, furnished with an array of mismatched charity shop finds that told the story of years spent somewhere between indifference and inertia. His left arm throbbed.
He squinted down and froze. A deep scratch ran from his wrist to his elbow, jagged and raw. Dried blood crusted the edges. For a moment, Paul’s pulse quickened. Someone must have attacked him.
The events of the previous night were a swirling haze of pint glasses and indistinct conversations at “The Crooked Crown,” the kind of local pub that smelled permanently of damp carpet and warmed-over gravy. Beyond that, his memory fractured and failed him.
He stumbled into the bathroom, splashing cold water onto his face. In the mirror, his reflection stared back, pale and lined, an unremarkable face save for the faint shadow of a bruise on his temple. “What did you get into last night, Paul?” he muttered.
From the kitchen window, his heart sank further. His car, a battered silver Vauxhall Astra, was smeared with graffiti. In large, angry letters, someone had scrawled “PRICK” down the driver’s side. The wing mirror dangled limply, wires exposed like severed nerves.
Paul tightened his grip on the sink. Someone was targeting him. But why?
Paul worked in the Department of Municipal Archives, a title that sounded more glamorous in his head than in reality. He imagined himself an unsung linchpin of society, a protector of bureaucratic truths, though his role mostly involved cataloguing outdated policies on waste management.
The promotion he’d coveted for years — Senior Officer, File Classification — had gone to Harriet Baines last month. Harriet, who brought homemade flapjacks to meetings and had a framed picture of a Labradoodle on her desk. Paul, meanwhile, kept his workspace deliberately sterile, envisioning it as a cold, enigmatic hub of espionage. He’d even started signing off emails with “Regards, P. Depp” for an air of intrigue.
That morning, he sat hunched at his desk, ignoring the familiar clatter of keyboards and the faint hum of the office kettle. His mind churned over the events of the past 12 hours. He felt watched. Exposed. Who had a motive to sabotage him? Harriet? The nosy bloke in flat 3B? The binmen?
He checked his email. Nothing of note except a mass mailout about parking permits. He glanced at his phone. He’d forgotten he even had a video doorbell until the app pinged with a “motion detected” alert. He opened the footage.
The grainy night vision clip showed a man — him — jabbing at his own front door with his keys. His movements were frantic, agitated. At one point, he stumbled and dragged the sharp edge of the key down his arm in a misguided attempt to steady himself.
Paul recoiled from the screen. “That’s not… no, that’s not me,” he muttered. But it was. The clock in the corner read 12:43 a.m. Why would he do that?
The day passed in a fog of paranoia. Paul darted suspicious glances at colleagues, as though they might have secretly installed cameras in his flat. On his lunch break, he patrolled the multi-storey car park, peering at every vehicle, looking for more graffiti. His behaviour earned him strange looks from passers-by, but he didn’t care.
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By the time he returned home, the tension had grown unbearable. His flat was unnervingly silent. Too silent. He tiptoed from room to room, wielding a mop handle as a makeshift weapon. In the kitchen, he found the fridge door ajar. A half-eaten sandwich — his sandwich — was perched on the counter.
He stared at it, stomach churning. “Who’s been in here?”
The following days turned into a labyrinth of confusion. Paul found a series of peculiar clues: a smashed garden gnome in the neighbour’s yard, shards of glass embedded in his shoes; a spray paint can under his sink that matched the colour used on his car; a battered tennis racket he didn’t remember owning leaning against the wall.
The pieces didn’t add up — or maybe they did, but in a way Paul refused to accept. He spent hours constructing elaborate theories, scribbling diagrams on the back of council brochures, convinced someone was framing him. But who? And why?
One evening, he came across another video clip on his doorbell app. The footage was worse this time. It showed him — again — sneaking into the neighbour’s garden with the spray can. His movements were furtive, almost purposeful, as he painted crude smiley faces on their patio furniture.
Paul’s stomach dropped. “No,” he whispered. “No, no, no.”
His mind spun back to the promotion. The late nights obsessing over why Harriet was chosen. The escalating bitterness. The drinking. And then… the blackout. Was it possible he’d done all this himself?
The confrontation with the truth came slowly, like a reluctant sunrise. He unearthed receipts crumpled in his pockets, showing purchases he didn’t remember making: a claw hammer from a DIY shop, a packet of energy drinks, a can of fluorescent orange spray paint. His bank app confirmed the transactions.
Paul sat on his threadbare sofa, staring at the evidence spread before him. The scratches on his arm. The graffiti. The sandwich. It all pointed to one perpetrator: Paul Depp.
He let out a bark of laughter, sharp and humourless. The irony was exquisite. He’d imagined himself a shadowy figure, outmanoeuvring invisible enemies. In reality, he was a middle-aged admin worker having a breakdown, vandalising his own property in a fog of self-pity and lager.
As the realisation sank in, Paul leaned back and let out a sigh. He’d cracked the case.
And yet, as he stared at his reflection in the darkened TV screen, a flicker of doubt remained. What if this was part of someone else’s plan? What if Harriet had planted those receipts? What if — ?
Paul shook his head, already reaching for his notepad. There was a new case to solve.
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This is my entry for CS11 — anyone can join in — to get involved please visit https://medium.com/challenging-stories/challenging-stories-challenge-11-afa7f6034277 I had a lot of fun with this weeks challenge — a mundane spy story and thought it would be fun to weave in what I loved about the paranoia of Philip K Dick’s A Scanner Darkly and the amnesia motif of the Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum, all in a hum drum setting.
