Balancing Act

It had been a bad day.

He took out a piece of paper and a pen and set out a table with two columns: Pros and Cons.

Next to the paper, he set down the small tin with its skull warning logo and its stylised picture of a dead rat.

In one column, he listed his job at the factory and his unpleasant boss. He added his debts and almost constant feelings of boredom and frustration.

In the second column, he wrote down his fellow workers on the line and the names of his two kids - he hadn't seem them in months, but, still... After some thought, he wrote "lots of unpleasantness". Going back to the first column, he underlined the words "frustration" and "boss".

He sat, quietly, for some time and then picked up the tin and put it back in the cupboard. Not today. It wouldn't be today.

But tomorrow... tomorrow he might decide that, yes, it was the day for his boss to die.