Chairs, heavy TVs predating flat screens, and even the occasional snooker table that would take five people to disassemble and move are all right. But boxes, I hate boxes. Six years on this job made me dislike wardrobe boxes most of all. They were like bloody upright coffins. I brought the last wardrobe box to the master bedroom upstairs. Mrs. Baker thanked me but the look that she gave, however lacking in consonants and vowels, told only of disgust. She seemed to have a problem with my tattoos, ponytail, and piercings, as though the removal company I worked for also planned to move in with her and we'd see each other everyday. I knew she thought that I was up to no good just because I looked a certain way.

The Bakers appeared young to me but all their years seemed to be peppered with stuff. Opening the door of the van was like letting loose of contents that wouldn't be exhausted. Box after box after box – and perhaps Mrs. Baker's disgust was reasonable, even at the rate we were going she might have to see me everyday till the work was done. God how I hated them. I threw the boxes marked "fragile" into a corner when I knew that nobody was watching. My back ached and I wanted to eat my lunch just to get hold of that cold drink in my satchel because they didn't offer us any.

Nobody else wanted to empty the wardrobe boxes; not Mrs. Baker who owned most of the contents, not Mr. Baker whose mind didn't seem to be in this 'moving houses' affair, not Max the leader of our team who was showing off again by directing everyone and chatting up the couple with his removal company experience. I could tell he was just stalling for time and trying as much as possible to excuse himself from helping lift the heavier furniture. He was always on at me, shouting my name into my ear "Peter!!!" If I stopped working even only for a second, "Peter do this," and "Peter do that," he'd say.

Mrs. Baker had so many clothes but her hangers were of the disposable kind, the kind you get when you have your clothes back from the dry cleaners, made of wire and knotted into a sharp edge just below the hook. I managed to cut my palm with one of the knots. It bled and I wiped it on one of Mrs. Baker's jumpers. What kind of people spend so much on stuff without buying a proper hanger?

I was angry as I filled up the upstairs oak wardrobe with the dresses. It wasn't my job to arrange her fucking clothes for her. Hundreds of dresses made of cotton, satin, silk, viscose... I had to admit they were pretty but I couldn't find any remembrance from this outing. At one point I got attracted to an embellished brocade dress with puffed sleeves. The sleeves puffed more as I moved closer to touch the dress, as though it were crying out, take me, take me. I threw the dress up on top of the oak wardrobe to separate it from the others.

The last one I put in the wardrobe was a nude lace v-neck evening dress. I thought, now this is more like it. I let it off the hanger and put it inside the wardrobe box again, this time on the floor in the corner where it wouldn't be noticed. Max shouted from downstairs to ask what was keeping me, trying to impress again at my expense. He asked if all the wardrobe boxes were now ready to be brought back into the van. I called yes and he told me to hurry. If you would hurry yourself, I wanted to yell back but I stopped myself. I would get the dress later at the depot, once everybody had gone. 

I threw the hanger of the lace dress under the bed. Poor Mrs. Baker would probably wonder what it was doing there. I could already picture her asking my boss about her missing lace dress, if she would notice that it was missing at all. She would probably think it was the man with tattoos and ponytail and piercings who took it, the one who had unpacked her wardrobe for he seemed strange and that she wouldn't be surprised if he would be found out soon with a box of lace dresses stashed somewhere. She would probably realize it was missing at one in the morning, for she seemed to be the type who would think of dresses at one in the morning, and scream to absent-minded, clueless Mr. Baker, "That removal company robbed us of one lace dress!" She would imagine me wearing that dress at night and she would suspect I'd wear it clubbing. and no one would guess it didn't even belong to me and I wouldn't have any nose rings and I would wear my hair down, and I would be a box with my lid shut and maybe people wouldn't look at me at a certain way because I would look the same as everyone. I would fit in it, yes, I would fit in.