The Bench: The Blindspot

The sound of the red jersey hitting the bottom of the bin was a soft, synthetic *thud*. It was 1984. The boy, then known as Rodrigo, stood in the changing room, the smell of damp concrete and disappointment clinging to his skin. He had been cut. Too slow, they said. Not the right fit.
He didn’t hate the Redcoats—not yet. He just wanted to play.
When the Bluecoats recruiter approached him an hour later, the invitation felt like a lifeline. “We don’t care about the stats,” the man had said, his voice dripping with a camaraderie that felt like a warm blanket. Rodrigo didn’t ask about the team’s “in-game politics.” He didn’t ask why their practice sessions involved more shouting than ball-handling. He pulled on the blue jersey, the fabric scratchy and stiff, and felt, for the first time, like he belonged.
Twelve years later, the veneer had peeled away. The expulsion from Sixth Form had been the final, jagged fracture in his academic life. He had shed the name “Rodrigo” like a moulted skin, adopting a identity that felt harder, less permeable. He had stumbled into ownership of Jenkins Motors—a wreck of a business that mirrored his own sense of inherited resentment.

**1996.**
Todd, pushing thirty and anchored to the workbench of his garage, stared at the engine block of a car he hadn’t touched in years. It was a phantom project—a rusted-out shell that served as an excuse to hide from the house.
Two small boys were playing on the lawn just outside the open garage door. Their laughter was high, melodic, and entirely unfiltered. To anyone else, it was the sound of a normal Saturday. To Todd, it was an invasive noise that set his teeth on edge.
He took a long, slow pull from a lukewarm beer, the glass sweating in his grip. He winced, his left eye twitching rhythmically, as he listened to them scramble in the dirt. He wasn’t working on the engine; he was just listening to the neighbourhood exist without his permission.