Free Gurriers by Kevin Brennan

myself, as I navigated my bike through the little gap in the gate, beginning my quest by seeking somewhere called the Pepper Cannister on Mount Street Crescent. The music lifted my spirits, the sense of adventure made me feel good, the anxiety made my nerves tingle.
    The people I had encountered today intrigued me. I was still broken-hearted and miserable, but now I had a whole lot of other stuff going on also. Now that I was a courier, life was not as bad as it had been a few hours ago, before I joined this most interesting of occupations.

4
First Work
    Down the end of Lad Lane as far as the archway? Grand! This is Baggot Street; I knew that already but just to be sure to hammer it into the memory. Small Street directly opposite -check! Mount Street Upper is at the end of that - no problem!
    One step at a time Sean and we’ll have this sussed in no time, I thought.
    Clear to cross Baggot Street and away down I went. I saw the sign for James’ Place East and memorised for future use.
    So far so good, the buildings in front of me now are on Mount Street Upper according to Vinno, so upon turning right, I guessed I should see a big old church in the middle of the road - and there it was. The name Pepper Canister made a lot more sense to me upon seeing it. I drove up to and around it, as if it was a roundabout until I saw a statue of a girl swinging from a rope tied to the top of a pole like they used to in the old days and I knew I had arrived! There was a plaque on the wall and I deduced that this might hold the name of the building so I manoeuvred myself close enough to read it. The plaque read, “Pepper Canister House”.
    “Eureka!” I shouted inside with delight. I had just found the first location of my career as a courier. This job was going to be a doddle.
    I parked my bike beside the main entrance to the building, deciding not to use my heavy duty chain and lock since I was not going to be too far away from the bike for too long, opting to just use my disc lock.
    This is an ingenious little lock, which immobilises the bike by attaching onto the brake disc, making it impossible for the wheel to turn. The beauty of the lock is that it is small enough to fit in a jacket pocket, but its drawback is that it is easy to forget that the lock’s there, and attempting to drive off without removing it leads to an invariably disastrous effect. Most disc locks come with warning stickers that should be placed beside the ignition as a reminder to double check before pulling off.
    Having secured the machine, I scaled the four steps leading to the main entrance and pulled the door open. There was immediate eye contact with the receptionist - a serious-looking schoolteacher type in her 50s who wore too much of the wrong type of make up.
    Okay, Sean, helmet off and radio down, I reminded myself and then it hit me. When I reached my hand over to turn the radio down, I realised to my horror that I had failed to turn it on when I left the base. This could be disastrous. What if Aidan had been calling me?
    Panic raged rampant as I frantically tried to work out my best course of action.
    Should I call him to explain why he wouldn’t have been answered had he been calling me or just turn it on now and hope that he hadn’t?
    The first thing to do, I decided, was to get it turned on anyway, but at low volume because I was in a reception. The faint beep was comforting as I clicked the dial clockwise a few degrees, but no other sound came from the radio. I turned the dial a few more degrees, anxiously hoping for some sort of aural activity. Nothing! I had been walking towards the reception whilst preoccupied with my radio and was almost at it with my helmet still on under a ferocious glare from the receptionist. I quickly turned the dial a few more degrees before employing both hands in the process of removing the helmet.
    I smiled at her as soon as the offending item had been taken off my head, but that had no effect on the intensity of