one

The newspapers were still in the road.

The delivery boy never threw them far enough and I was never quite up to walking to the curb in my boxers to get them. Some false sense of modesty or whatever. After a week and a half of shitty delivery I just cancelled it. The news was depressing anyway.

Those papers had been there for almost a month now.

I often wondered if other things could get to be like those newspapers that were disintegrating in the gutter. You know the way newspaper gets all yellow and damp and chunky.

I wonder if people could get like that. If people could just build up in the streets like road-kill and decompose into bloated, spongy piles of placenta.

Sipping my coffee I stood on the porch and watched the rain come down. I smelled clean, but my suit did not I noticed in disgust. I dumped my cold, flavourless coffee in the bushes and went inside to change.

Searching my closet I quickly discovered that I needed to do laundry. Rifling through my hamper and smelling clothes I found little solace. Looking in the bathroom mirror I saw how badly I needed to shave. A sick day in the making if I ever saw one.

I lit up a smoke and planted myself on the couch. Shit on TV. There was a half empty glass of juice on the table and I took a sip. Mmm, room temperature never tasted so good I thought sourly to myself with a grimace.

Just as I settled on some thrilling reruns of Magnum PI, I heard the tire squeal of someone burning rubber nearby.

“Geez, fuckin’ learn to drive idiot,” I said, my mumble preceding another sip of tepid cranberry juice.

Just then I heard a terrified scream from down the block. A car horn blared somewhere near my house. I craned my neck to look through the glass front door.

Getting up, I walked back onto the porch with a puzzled expression. My eyes went wide as I saw the cause of all the commotion.

Down the street there was a powder blue convertible revving up its engine something fierce. Then, with a leap forward and all the pent up force of a wildcat, the car came gunning right for me. I blanched and felt like I was going to be sick. With only a moments hesitation I bolted back inside heading for the back door.

“You better run you son-of-a-bitch!” I heard my attacker faintly shout from his open window.

I saw the blue glow of the TV fly by in my peripheral vision and felt the cold hardwood on my bare feet as I ran faster than I had moved in a long time. Through the hall and the kitchen, a journey that typically took seconds seemed to pass by as slowly as an epic voyage.

My hand closed around the back doorknob and simultaneously I heard wood splintering and glass shattering as a Cadillac came careening into my living room.