Moved

“It’s a hard world,” Brandon muttered to himself, as he contemplated the events of the past week. Life had become a house-moving hell for Brandon Jackson, his wife Katherine and their son Raoul.

It hadn’t started that way, but as Brandon contemplated the world from the front seat of his tired white Honda, he decided he’d had better days. In the rear view mirror he could see the two moving trucks which contained the sum total of his family’s belongings. Maybe things would get sorted on Monday, but as things stood, they had no where to go.

It hadn’t helped that the Queen family had arrived at the Bluecastle address early, before the Jacksons had even had the chance to say a final farewell to their home. Nor had their indifference done much to endear them to the shell shocked Jackson family.

Ever desperate to find a silver lining Brandon hit upon the notion that at least they has two trucks worth of stuff – but that just made him feel guilty. But, the two trucks themselves were something to get positive about. The truck rental company had worked tirelessly to rearrange their scheduled hires to accommodate an extended use of the trucks over the weekend. Maybe things could have been worse.

Even so, Brandon couldn’t understand what would motivate the kind of dispassionate stubbornness displayed by the vendor – sure the settlement hadn’t gone through smoothly, but there was little risk to Wayne and his company in letting the Jackson’s take possession over the weekend. It wasn’t as if Kerr Laboratories was actually using the premises any longer.

In a strange twist of fate, Brandon had actually met the owner, Wayne Kerr, at the truck rental company. So it was more personal than it might have been. In fact, if anything, Brandon was even more surprised that his family has been left out on the street.

Finally, Monday arrived. As Brandon ticked off in his mind the people that were now not available to assist with the move, he realised just how many people had helped that Friday just past. From baby sitting to moving, cleaning to meals, they’d received a lot of help. The impression was only reinforced when another crew of people arrived to help with the last phase of the move. Maybe the world wasn’t such a hard place after all.

With minutes to spare Brandon returned the trucks in time to avoid another day’s hire. The Truck company couldn’t have been more empathetic. The owner even softened the blow of an extra 3 days hire by eliminating the charge for kms and diesel. Brandon was amazed. After all that had gone on he had begun to harden himself to the inevitability of an uncaring world. A few dollars made a big difference.

That night a friend turned up to view the new home. As he left he slipped an envelope into Brandon’s hands. “It’s to help with trucks,” he said, his insistence forestalling Brandon’s instinctive decline of the offer. “I really appreciate this,” he said instead.

“Maybe the world was not hard,” Brandon mused, as he sat on the new verandah watching the sun go down. “It’s a beautiful world,” he decided, “with a few hard people”. Faced with the cast of thousands who had helped the Jackson family that weekend, Brandon decided that one hard person was not enough to become hardened over himself. “One hurting person,” he amended.