Another grey morning. Out of milk again, so I pick up a faux bacon roll from the kiosk by the tram stop, and make a coffee when I get in. Important to have something in your stomach for the first job. Not just for your health, it doesn’t exactly add to the dignity of the occasion if your stomach’s rumbling.

Only Ted and Harold are in the squad room, Thomas is already out on a job. They’re starting early, must have a lot to get through today. The light above the door blinks, the buzzer goes. Harold’s number 2 today. I’m number 4. He lumbers to his feet, unlocks the cabinet, checks out a piece, carries out the requisite tests, leaves the room. He really needs to lose some weight. This is the worst part of the job. Not what you might think, most people think it would be the business part, the messy bit, but that’s ok when you get used to it. You don’t have to clear up afterwards anyway, we got cleaners for that. You just have to make sure you do a nice professional job. Knowing it's all for the common good, for the good of the Party, you want to do your best. 

Harold’s left his paper. Let’s see what’s going on in the big old world. Full of stories about the war. You’d think we’d have won by now. Been going as long as I remember, and we don’t seem to be any closer to an end, one way or another. A new push on the western front coming. Now there’s a thing: announcing it in the papers like that. Won’t that play right into their hands? The enemy I mean. They’ll have their spies, they’ll get hold of a copy of the paper, course they will. Then they’ll know, be able to prepare. No wonder we never get anywhere. Not the Party's fault, it's the generals, they don't seem to know what they're doing.

Oh look, a story that's not about the war. The birth rate’s declining. We all have to do our bit. Not me, thank goodness. I’d have to get married first. None of us dispatchers are married, come to think of it. Funny. We’re all miserable bastards, perhaps that’s why. But have we always been like this, or did we get like that because of the job we do? All been doing it a while. The squad room’s always pretty quiet, nobody cracks any jokes, nobody has a conversation about the war, the declining birth rate, football, anything. We just sit here.

Buzz. Ted makes his preparations, leaves. Only me now. Wonder who I’ll get? Last one was a female. Young, pretty. Don’t like these ones so much, the ones that look as if they should be starting out in life. Not that I like any of them, just that some are a bit easier to take, they look even more miserable than me. Sometimes, in the dark heart of the night, when I can’t sleep, I see some of them again. Their faces. I don’t like that. Been happening more and more recently too. I should go and see the doc, get some pills. Don't want to let the Party down, they've treated me well over the years.

Buzz. Here goes. Get my piece, the heft of it comfortable, familiar in my hand. Six-point check and in the little holder it goes. Out along the corridor, peeling green paint, cracked lino floor. I’m so used to the process I could do it with my eyes shut. Wonder how many times I've done this? Let’s see. Twelve years and three months, round about that. So that’s 168 weeks, knock off three weeks a year for holidays – 132 weeks. Five days a week, that’s, what, over 600 days. Two a day: 1200 times! Blimey. Wish I was on piece rate.

Who’s on the door today? Gillian. She’s a miserable cow. ‘Morning Gill. What you got for me today?’

She looks at her clipboard. ‘Smith, W. He’s just gone in.’

All business is our Gillian. No small talk. The courtroom’s crowded with the usual thrill seekers, what sad lives they must have. He’s already started, reading out names from his list of people he’s denouncing. Quite a long list. I take my position, hands clasped behind back, eyes forward, in the approved fashion. Finished his speech, he puts the piece of paper away and raises his right hand. He looks up at the picture, the huge face gazing benignly down on the court, says he loves Big Brother. Quite the emotional moment. For him, anyway; me, I’ve seen it before. 1200 times to be precise. It’s my cue, though. I take his arm, gently, and lead him from the room, out of the special door and into the Corridor. I see that he’s got tears running down his face. He doesn’t look sad though. Happy if anything. Seen that before too. Not every time, but often enough. Makes it a bit easier for me, thinking that they’re in a happy frame of mind. 

I walk the prescribed two paces behind him; half way down the Corridor the gun’s in my hand, without any memory of me taking it out. It’s just there. I slide the safety, raise it so it’s almost touching the base of the skull, and, angled at the regulation 45 degrees, pull the trigger.

A nice clean job. Almost no blood splatter. No brains on the wall. He drops like a sack of spuds, right at the door, which opens immediately. The cleaner places the sheet over the body of Smith, W, and starts to clean the little bits of blood off the white tiles. I turn, head back to the squad room. Wonder what’s for lunch today.