Lucien from CAP

It was the usual boring Thursday for Michael.

Shower, breakfast, watch the news, swear at whatever politician was being a dick on the morning news.

Fire up the work computer, review his Inbox, Calendar and todo list, check in with his team and then settle down with a cup of coffee and his favourite music station to make a start on the day’s work.

The clock ticked on, and it was exactly 10:30 because the news had just started on the radio with people either complaining about or singing the praises of the recent budget from the Chancellor of the exchequer when the doorbell rang. Michael wandered down the stairs and opened the front door.

Standing on the doorstep was a man in his 40’s, well dressed, neat hair and suspiciously well shone brogues. He was holding a clipboard. He smiled at Michael and said “Good Morning sir”

Michael braced himself for the “hard sell” that he felt was coming, would it be Double Glazing (he already had it), High speed Internal (he had that too), some new form of charitable giving for disadvantaged aardvarks with tongue issues.

The man paused and then said “Let me introduce myself” he handed Michael His Business card, it read

Lucien Corven
Consultant Lesser-Evilist
“I will keep you on the less immoral path or your money back”

The man continued, “It has been noted than in the rich tapestry of happenstance that you will be faced with a moral quandary and I am here to help. In this instance the CAP is waiving its normal charge and is offering my services free of charge, gratis, zip, nada moola!

Michael was momentarily stunned “What? … CAP? … moral Quandary?”

Lucien smiled and replied “C.A.P. is the Committee of Agathokakological Possibilities.
Agathokakological is probably not a word you have heard or seen before, and do not worry you are not alone in that, it means “composed of both good and evil” . CAP is the group of representatives that you can think of as the “Auditors of the lesser of two evils“

Lucien glanced at his clipboard. “At precisely 14:17 this afternoon, you will stumble across information you absolutely, positively should not know. A truth with the explosive yield of a small thermonuclear device. You will then have to decide whether to reveal it… or bury it.”

He leaned in conspiratorially.

“And either choice is the wrong choice. That’s why I’m here.”

“Let me see here… ah. Yes. The truth is regarding your neighbour’s son, one Jamie Harper.”

Michael frowned. “The kid with the terrible haircut and the vape permanently glued to his hand?”

“The very same,” Lucien said. “In CAP terminology, this incident is classified as a Category 2 Domestic Chaos Event. Not apocalyptic, but with significant potential for interpersonal fallout, WhatsApp group warfare, and generations of lingering passive-aggressive hostility.”

Michael blinked. “What does the little sod do?”

Lucien held up one polite finger. “I must not reveal the truth itself. That would constitute interference. However,” He checked another form. “I am authorised to prepare you emotionally.”

He cleared his throat.

“You will shortly discover that your car was involved in an unauthorised extracurricular excursion. There may have been… an impact. Followed by amateur covert surface correction.”

Michael stared. “So you mean he took my car on a joyride and fucking crashed it!”

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Lucien said smoothly, “but your tone suggests you’re grasping the shape of the thing.”

“And his parents covered it up?”

“Astonishingly quickly,” Lucien noted with professional admiration. “CAP has highlighted their teamwork, albeit in the service of mild wrongdoing.”

Michael groaned. “So, I have to decide whether to confront them?”

Lucien winced sympathetically. “Yes. And each option comes with its own flavour of misery.”

Lucien flipped the page.

Option one:

“Confront them. This leads to parental fury, teenage meltdown, the likely spontaneous ignition of the neighbourhood WhatsApp group, and a complete breakdown of the fragile peace on this street. The Harpers will resent you for roughly three generations.”

Option two:

“Say nothing. This allows Jamie to believe he has successfully executed a criminal-level cover-up. He will escalate. At some point he will progress to a level of stupidity that cannot be buffed out with a mobile dent-repair service.”

He snapped the clipboard shut.

“And that, Mr O’Donnell, is your quandary. Neither choice is morally superior. Merely… differently awful.”

Lucien smiled pleasantly.

“My job is not to tell you what the lesser evil is.

My job is to prevent you from choosing the greater evil out of sheer panic.”

He handed Michael a small card titled Emergency Moral Support Line.

“Call if you need coaching. But never call about boundary fences or Leylandia Hedges, they are just too awful and we do not do them anymore.”

Michael was halfway through making a cup of tea, strong, because he felt he’d earned it, when the doorbell rang again.

He froze.

He had just spent an hour dealing with the Harpers, their son, and an improvised neighbourhood tribunal conducted on the pavement. He was emotionally bankrupt. The last thing he needed was another salesperson trying to flog him insulation.

The bell rang a second time. Cheerfully. Purposefully.

Michael closed his eyes. “Oh, for—”

He opened the door.

Lucien stood there with the same immaculate hair and aggressively shiny brogues, looking like he had stepped straight out of a different, much more organised universe.

“Good afternoon, Mr O’Donnell,” Lucien said brightly. “I’m here for the post-quandary assessment.”

Michael stared at him. “What?”

Lucien consulted his clipboard. “The Post-Quandary Assessment and Debriefing Conversation, or PQADC. Every mortal who completes a CAP defined ethical bifurcation receives one. Part of our quality assurance programme.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” Michael said.

“It means,” Lucien said patiently, “that I’m here to tell you how you did.”

He stepped past Michael and into the hallway with the comfortable authority of someone who didn’t technically require permission.

“You chose confrontation. Bold, bracing, and, if I may say so, deeply uncomfortable for all involved.

On the plus side: Jamie has experienced a formative lesson in accountability. He will now spend the next three weeks believing you possess supernatural powers of crime detection.

On the minus side: Mrs Harper has added you to her internal list of ‘People I Am Very Nice To While Secretly Plotting Their Downfall’. She keeps it on her iphone ,That list is longer than you might expect and your name is both in a bold font and underlined.”

Lucien nodded as if all this were perfectly normal.

He produced a tiny rubber stamp from his jacket pocket and thumped it onto a form.

“CAP officially classifies your decision as: Quandary resolved, Severity Grade C-minus. Congratulations.”

Michael blinked. “C-minus? I got a C-minus on a moral decision?”

Lucien shrugged sympathetically. “We grade on a cosmic curve. No one gets As except cats. They’re very efficient moral creatures.”

Lucien tucked the form back into his folder.

“There is just one more matter,” he said, producing an envelope with Michael’s name written in elegant handwriting.

Michael hesitated. “What’s that?”

“Your next assignment,” Lucien said. “You didn’t think this was a one-off, did you? Once a mortal attracts CAP’s attention, we usually find they have a… streak.”

“A streak?”

“A tendency,” Lucien clarified. “To wander repeatedly into ethically ambiguous incidents.”

Michael stared at the envelope.

“I don’t want a next assignment.”

Lucien smiled kindly. “No one ever does.” He straightened his tie, stepped back onto the doorstep, and added:

“We’ll be in touch. Try not to break anything important ..”

Then he vanished, not dramatically, but with the quiet dignity of someone who has a full afternoon of moral crises to get through.

Michael closed the door and opened the envelope, he read.

Dear Mr O’Donnell,

Congratulations on completing your Category 2 Domestic Chaos Event.

Your next morally ambiguous situation has been scheduled for:

Tomorrow, between 08:00 and 18:00.

You will shortly find yourself in possession of information that:

• You did not ask for
• Should not reasonably be yours
• Will cause distress in either direction of action.

Please note that CAP does not permit direct intervention, bribery, mind-wiping, or strategic arson.

Your upcoming dilemma is classified as: A Refuse Revelation Dilemma

We wish you the very best during this ethically perplexing period.

Try to remain calm, hydrated, and aware that perfection is neither expected nor statistically possible.

Warm regards,

Lucien Corven

Senior Consultant, Lesser-Evil Division

C.A.P.

Michael thought “What do I have to refuse?” and then a single word, repeated repeatedly,  that word was “Fuck”

The next morning Michael had intended nothing more ambitious than taking out his recycling and possibly not definitely sweeping the drive, he might if he felt a bit wild.

The weather was doing that indecisive British thing where it couldn’t commit to sun or drizzle, so it gave him both simultaneously. He trudged down the path with his recycling in his arms and lifted the lid of his blue bin and froze.

It was full.
Almost completely full.
Which was odd, because he hadn’t put anything in it since Tuesday.

He frowned, opened the general waste bin.

Also nearly full.
Suspiciously full.
Uniformly full.

All the bags were knotted in the same way, neat double loop, turned under once.

Not his style.

His knots were more “enthusiastically chaotic”.

Something prickled at the back of his neck.

He glanced down the street.

Nothing.

He crouched, poked one of the bags.

Not his brand of bin bag either, these were thicker, darker, better quality. Someone with aspirations.

Michael muttered, “Oh, no. No. Absolutely not. I am not getting involved in another neighbourhood fight”

He turned, went back into his house and slammed the door.

He headed for the kitchen, strong coffee was needed, but something on the edge of his vision made him stop.

At first, he thought it was a shadow moving.

Then he realised it was a person.

A figure in a dark hoodie, pushing a wheelie bin with the furtive posture of someone who knew, on a spiritual level, that they were doing something wrong.

They paused at each house, lifted lids, and rummaged with practised efficiency.

Michael’s jaw dropped.

He watched in mounting disbelief as the figure:
opened Mrs Patel’s bin,
deposited a heavy bag,
patted them down like tucking a child into bed,
closed the lid,
glanced around, then moved on to the next house.

Michael stared.

The figure repeated the operation with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker and the moral flexibility of a raccoon.

He whispered, “You’ve got to be bloody kidding me.”

A polite throat-clear sounded behind him.

Michael yelped and spun around.

Lucien stood there, clipboard tucked under one arm, brogues immaculate, as if the pavement refused to dirty them.

“Good afternoon, Mr O’Donnell,” Lucien said pleasantly. “I see you’ve discovered your scheduled moral predicament slightly ahead of time. Very proactive of you.”

Michael pointed helplessly. “He’s…he’s stuffing his rubbish into everyone’s bins! You meant REFUSE not REFUSE” he frowned what he just said made sense when he composed the sentence in his head.

“Yes,” Lucien said, nodding as if this were a fascinating weather pattern.

“Your neighbourhood is currently the site of a Category 1B Petty Social Entropy Event. Highly volatile. Surprisingly dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Michael spluttered. “He’s a bin bandit!”

“Indeed,” Lucien said, consulting his notes.

“And according to CAP projections, if left unchecked this behaviour will lead to:

• three council fines for Inappropriate Items in Bins
• two shouting matches
• one petition
• The collapse of the neighbourhood’s Christmas lights competition.”

Michael stared he could see the bullet points clearly in what Lucien had just said.

“…oh fuck!”

Lucien gave him a sympathetic smile.

“Fuck indeed … History turns on small hinges, Mr O’Donnell. Never underestimate waste management.”

Lucien clasped his hands behind his back.

“You have, as is customary, two options.”

He gestured with his clipboard toward the hooded figure, who was now meticulously rotating a bin to hide a scratch.

Option One: Confront the individual.

“Immediate justice! Righteous indignation! And the guaranteed ignition of a feud that will outlive us all.”

Option Two: Remain silent.

“Allow the entropy to spread. Let innocent neighbours shoulder fines they did not earn. Watch as the delicate fabric of community trust frays like an old dishcloth.”

Michael pressed both hands to his face. “Why is this my problem?”

Lucien shrugged. “Cosmic probability. You have the ideal temperament for lesser-evil decision-making.”

“I absolutely do not.”

Lucien patted his shoulder with the sympathy of a doctor breaking unwelcome news.

“I’m afraid you do, Mr O’Donnell. You’re shaping up to be a natural.”

The hooded figure was two houses down now, performing a suspiciously elegant three-point turn with Mrs Baker’s recycling bin. Every movement suggested this was not their first illicit round.

Lucien stood beside Michael with the patient resignation of someone supervising a toddler learning to operate a chainsaw.

“Well,” he said pleasantly, “go on, then.”

Michael turned. “Go on what?”

“Confront him. You’ve already made the decision internally. One can always tell.”

Lucien tapped his clipboard. “Your heart rate has increased, your jaw has clenched, and you’re muttering the word ‘unbelievable’ under your breath like a secular prayer.”

“I am not muttering,” Michael muttered.

But he was already moving.

Michael strode down the pavement with righteous energy, stopping only once to adjust his slipper, because committing to heroism in SpongeBob SquarePants bedroom slippers is difficult.

“Oi!” he called out.

The hooded figure froze.

Then, very slowly, turned.

They looked… startled.

Caught out schoolboy energy but wrapped in a grown adult’s body.

Michael stopped in front of him, chest heaving more from nerves than effort.

“What,” Michael said, pointing at the nearest bin, “do you think you’re doing?”

The man blinked.

Then said, with a confidence he absolutely had not earned:

“Nothing.”

Michael gestured at the bin lid he was still holding.

And the half-shoved rubbish bag.

And the fact that the bag said “Property of Harper’s Fine Foods” in large letters.

The man swallowed. “…Recycling?”

“That’s general waste.”

“Oh.”

Michael folded his arms. “Why are you stuffing your rubbish in everyone else’s bins?”

The man hesitated, then blurted:

“Because my wife watches the bin levels!”

Michael blinked. “What?”

“She says I generate too much waste!” he said, panicked now. “She says I’m irresponsible! That I snack too much! She measures the bags! She counts them!”

His voice cracked.

“She counts them, mate.”

Michael opened his mouth no words came out. This was worse and a little sadder than expected.

The man sagged.

“I just… I just don’t want her knowing how much I eat after she goes to bed.”

Behind him, Lucien murmured, “Ah, yes. A classic domestic behavioural suppression cascade. Nasty business. Very common in suburban Britain. Usually ends in either divorce or a composting obsession.”

Michael shot him a look.

Lucien pretended to study a hydrangea.

Michael turned back to the man.

“Look… you can’t keep doing this. People are going to get council fines. Actual, real fines. With paperwork. And the neighbours will turn on each other like feral pigeons.”

The man winced. “I know, I know! But I panicked. And then I couldn’t stop. It became… like a system. A routine. An underground operation.”

“It’s bins not Mission Impossible and you are NOT Tom Cruise” Michael said flatly. “You’re a bin space burglar.”

The man wilted.

“I’m sorry.”

“And after I tell the others …. ”

The man went white.

“Tell the…….no, no, please don’t! Please! My wife will ….”

He swallowed hard.

“She’ll make me do composting seminars again.” He paused, “There will be pamphlets!”

Michael tried not to imagine what that meant.

He exhaled. Long and slow.

“Fine,” he said at last. “I won’t tell anyone.”

The man sagged with such relief he nearly fell onto the bin.

“But,” Michael continued sharply, “you will take every one of those bags back. Every single one. Today.”

The man nodded vigorously. “Yes. Yes. Absolutely. I will retrieve all contraband waste.”

“And,” Michael added, “you will stop doing this.”

“I will. I swear on my life. And on my compost caddy.”

Michael made a face. “Please don’t.”

The man hurried away, already dragging a neighbour’s bin back toward his own house with frantic repentance.

Lucien stepped up beside Michael, nodding with clinical interest.

“Well done,” he said. “Not perfect, but nothing ever is. A reasonable balance between confrontation and mercy. CAP would classify this as a Lesser Evil Grade B.”

“B?” Michael echoed. “I nearly got assaulted by a wheelie bin while wearing slippers!”

“Yes,” Lucien said. “And you stayed calm. Remarkable, really.”

Michael frowned. “What do I do now?”

Lucien smiled, immaculate and infuriating.

“Now? You wait. CAP will be in touch when the next ethically appalling situation arises.”

He glanced up and down the street.

“In this neighbourhood? Shouldn’t be long.”

Then with the faintest pop of displaced air, he was gone.

Michael turned and walked slowly back to his front door, he thought “fuck” again and then followed up with “I am thinking that a lot lately”

He made a coffee  and waiting for Lucien and his shiny brogues to appear again.