069. Free tumble dry with every soul washed

“Niko. NIKO. What do you call THIS?”

Niko looked up, through the steam and suds, to see his father’s anger. “You call this clean? It’s filthy. Mr Hartsuyker is coming back for it at three.”

He brandished the grubby soul. There was a tear down one side of it, and a black streak across the middle. They couldn’t give it back like that.

“I’ve washed it twice, Dad,” Niko said. “And it’s been soaking since Tuesday.”

Niko’s Dad scratched at the stain with his waterlogged fingers.  “Did you try chlorine?”

Niko nodded.

“And bleach. Did you bleach it?”

Niko nodded again.

“Well we’ll have to use an acid bath, I spose.”

Niko shook his head. “I already tried, Dad. The stain won’t budge.”

The two men started at each other. In the ten years since they’d started the “Bare Your Soul” Laundromat, there’d never been a stain they couldn’t remove, not until now. Whatever Mr Hartsuyker had done, it was bad.

But when he arrived to collect it at 3pm, Mr Hartsuyker looked Niko in the eyes and asked him how his day had been. He smiled gently as Mrs Parkins from the retirement village pushed in front of him, and then helped her carry her clean soul and her dry cleaning to the car. And when he went to pay, a picture of two snuggle-toothed blonde toddlers fell out of his wallet. He was nice.

So, while his Dad was serving another customer, Niko threw the soiled soul into the scrap-soul basket and gave Mr Hartsuyker another one from the lost property room. Of course, it was against the rules – people were supposed to keep their souls for the rest of their lives – but so was jaywalking and putting your recycling in the rubbish bin. It wasn’t doing it that was the problem. It was getting caught.