Criticism?

I've dabbled with short stories in the past, but I think this one might have potential for a novella. I'm well aware of my limitations (I struggle with the whole 'show, don't tell' thing). But there is a real story I want to tell here, with a convincing message. But as a start, what do you think? Am I on to something? Is it terrible? Cheers! (Its about 1,000 words so far)



There was a smell. It was a lingering odor that dominated his nostrils and forced him to sit up suddenly. From the vantage point he now commanded, he could see clothes scattered here and there across the floor. The smell, where did it come from? Why was it so aggressive? It was ridiculous. He leapt from his bed, his fat naked body grasping at the outstretched mess staring at him defiantly from their various places. Muttering violently, he discovered underwear, and two odd socks. He pulled on some stale trousers and a tee shirt and left his room.
The rest of the flat was in chaos. On the walls were the remnants of some particularly egregious pizza, his flatmates scattered here and there on the floor in a similar fashion to his clothes. At least he had the foresight to go to bed last night. Some semblance of reason must have remained. He gingerly found his way around the kitchen, tossing empty and half empty beer cans with the disgust it deserved. Most of the rims were full of ashes, overflowing happily and staining the long neglected carpet. He felt sick, hungover. Anxiety and restlessness began to torment him. The fear. A sudden urge to flee, to be gone, it was overwhelming. What was there here? Only chaos. A terrible sense of foreboding, he worried for a moment one of the men would wake up. Vaguely, in the back of his mind he was aware that he needed to go to work.
Out in the street, the world seemed incongruous with the thoughts rampaging maniacally in his head. Cablan wasn’t a pretty town, it wasn’t much of a town at all really. It was a town that some people worked in and some people shopped in, but beyond that it had very little charm. There were hundreds like it throughout Ireland, each as unlike each other but identical in its character. Valiant attempts were made to make it look pretty, the potted plants and well trimmed trees. The old townhouse, a great big derelict building and a favourite haunt of budding teenage alcoholics, remained its old callous self, staring grandly at everybody with the ghosts of long dead Anglo Irish aristocrats smiling arrogantly from its haunted window panes.
He stopped for a chicken fillet roll on the way, the little convenience store pumping out these ghastly monstrosities like a machine. The greasy servant, staring with contempt from beyond his display, the lust for life had long abandoned him. Fred felt queasy. The satisfaction derived from the French bread, coleslaw and fried chicken only temporarily relieving him from his miasma. With each bite he was compelled to roll the tin foil a little further down. Taking care not to drop any of the food, he remarked to himself its unlikely resemblance to rolling a condom back and forth. At this realization he felt unable to continue his meal, and threw the remainder in a bin.
When he finally made his way to work, he needed to clock in. Five minutes late, again. No sign of his manager. He changed into the white overalls they made the Deli people wear and went downstairs again. The supermarket was quiet, almost abandoned. The girl at the till, Siobhan, gave him a wave. She was ever so nice, so positive. He stunk. Not letting anyone get too close to him, for fear he would offend their nostrils like he had his own in the morning, he tried to go around the deli and sit in the big walk in fridge for a while, to calm down, as he was sweating profusely. Closing the door behind him, he helped himself to some cold meats stacked neatly in their little pop out trays. The sweat was now sticking to his face, the cold helping to undo the worst excesses of his torments, but doing nothing for the fluids consuming his face, sitting there like a film of slime he was unable to remove. He cursed himself for not having had a shower, and continued to eat the day old corned beef.
Then suddenly, with a force of violence he couldn’t comprehend, Adrian stormed in to the fridge. With a look of contempt he could hardly describe, he burst into his usual bluster. “What the **** are you doing here?”
Panic. Adrian wasn’t a manager but the bizarre 45 year old man had an irritating superiority complex, feeling that his increased years lended him a natural authority denied by his brusque manner and his incompetence.
“I was just…”
“Stop eating that you little ****, come with me.”
Fred followed Adrian out to the deli area and started to clean the fish display. The smell, so grotesque. Again, it invaded his nostrils and tormented him. The white overalls, which were tight and caused an irritation of skin against skin, began to drag a little. The little metal buttons kept popping out, and he needed to suck in his stomach in order to get them back in to place again. He felt insecure, and ashamed. The more he scrubbed with the useless yellow cloth the more he failed to accomplish anything. Circular motions, indicating effort but really just reflecting repetition, failed to fundamentally alter the oily and greasy nature of the stainless steel container. The ever increasing frequency with which he continued to clean tended only to enhance the greasiness and spread it further. Hot water achieved little, and harder chemicals – even the common household cleaners, such as fairy liquid – were strictly forbidden, perhaps the managers feared contamination, and thus prosecution, and thus failure. But for the grunts, the Fred’s, these tiny indignities were of no consequence. He scrubbed, he circled, and he wiped, and he accomplished nothing.
Adrian strolled over again. He had been packing out the fridges all morning and was tired.
“Why does this always take you so long? Christ but you are ****e boy”
Fred was used to such outpourings and he knew the worst thing he could do would be to rise to it. He muttered under his breath. Liam came to his rescue.
“Adrian, Patrick wants you to meet him in the office.”
When Adrian left, Liam made conversation. He was a funny lad. Around Fred’s age, he spoke to him like he was a younger brother. He felt fond for Fred, and maybe a little sorry for him. He spoke about nothing in particular, and promised he’d call round the flat again some weekend, because the last time ‘was mighty craic’. But Fred, incapable of dealing with this unseemly chirpiness, merely nodded.
“I’ll talk to you later when you’re not so hungover my man, take it easy!”
He walked off. Liam’s red hair was his defining characteristic, as he made his way down through the bread & cakes section he was like a big traffic light, for above all the stands he could clearly make out his long red hair bopping around hopelessly. The faint dance, the air of optimism that his very gait conveyed, all this disgusted Fred, and made him feel ever more disenchanted.