TRUE XMAS TALE

so the door isnt letting me go clock in, i cut thru xray where a bluedress is checking the red drawers on the crash cart and come out by the Costa.
and when i come back thru the stubborn door a four foot plastic snowman stands there with the paint on his hat and scarf worn off, all shiny round the edges.
he wasnt there SECONDS ago. 
i eye him.  an urge to smash his plastic face rising.
i go make coffee.  i smoke.  colleagues come in.
THERES A SNOWMAN they say WHERE DID HE COME FROM?
i say BY THE CAFE?  I KNOW.  JUST APPEARED.
NO, UP BY THE BOGS.
i'm in the corridor looking up to the corner with suspicion. there he is.  right at the end, looking at a liquid fire extinguisher.
innocent and sinister.
closer.
we work. its busy.  endless stream of unwashed fleece clad drivers file in till the packages make a messy mountain.
i'm deep in paperwork and ink stamps when a bluedress stops by, asks for a light, says WHOSE SNOWMAN IS THAT?  IS IT THE PORTERS?
i say DUNNO and give her a lighter i wont see again.
i wheel pallets in and out, organising, choosing an order and there is the snowman outside the door to the porters lodge where the smell of cooking kippers is overpowering.
hes halfway up the corridor.  
closer.  
pale and old, rejected.  
innocent and sinister.  
closer.
and in the afternoon when the flow has subsided and i'm in a soft chair in the office across the way with a bar of fruit and nut and another cup of coffee talking about that driver who looks like Uncle Bulgaria who wears a Masonic ring on his knuckle and has no sense of humour, i notice a dirty white outline peeping round the fake pine door frame.
JESUS i say WHO KEEPS MOVING THAT THING?
i'm up out the soft seat and am staring him out close up.  
his smile is a faded moulded mockery of seasonal joy, his eyes wont meet mine where ever i stand.
JESUS i say.
at some point he's gone.  i worked the last push, got stuff ready for lock up, pile papers under the teddy bear in some else in-tray and he's gone.
not even in the alcove full with a tangle of condemned trolleys and chairs.
i go to clock out by reception where sad relatives sip coffees outside Costa and hide their worries in over priced baguettes and over sized muffins and guys on drip stands shuffle around in pyjamas reading the Mail.  
door behaves and i wrap up in grubby cycle clothes in the changing room by pharmacy.  
SEE YA SEE YA SEE YA SEE chorus my departure.  i'm heading to the stairwell by the office where the bike is locked to the metal handrail by abandoned contractors sheeting and an ancient wooden ladder tied with frayed yellow rope.
of course there he is.  snowman.  innocent and sinister and right in front of the fire exit.
i get out of there.
if hes there tomorrow, i WILL smash his plastic face in.