This is the final version of the basically only real project of note that I did for ENGlish 2d03 at McMastah Universiteet back in Oh-Four. That’s all I have to say about that.

     Jack pulled neatly into the driveway of his split-level home. He tilted his wristwatch toward him: it was a little later than he should like it to be. Ah well. As he twisted the key out of the ignition, the last yellow sliver of sun passed out of view and under the horizon.

     He trudged along the squares of weathered cement, past the neatly trimmed shrubs to the porch, and nudged the door open with his shoulder. Inside, he kicked off shoes, yanked off his tie, and dropped his jacket toward the base of the coat rack. It was dark save for what dim early evening ambience filtered through the drawn curtains. No yellow glow coming from the kitchen. No succulent meatloaf or fried vegetables on the air, no not even the crackle of cooking. Strange… He checked his watch. Yes, it was definitely Wednesday. Meatloaf day. And no meatloaf.

     Well there’s gotta be a reason. But what do I know about what goes on around here? It’s like I’ve been dead five years and no one thought to tell me.

     He found himself in the kitchen, the light now switched on. No dirty dishes, Bouncer’s red food dish freshly emptied. His eyes came to rest on the ugly old toaster. He grabbed it off the counter and let it drop. The floor received it with a generous clatter and the cord tore out of its socket. He waited. Nothing. Not the wispy, monotone “Clean it up,” he should expect. Just a fly moving slowly across the windowsill, and the ticking clock.

     As Jack bent awkwardly to pick up the toaster, his forehead slammed into the fridge. Muffling his “Jesus f Christ” etc. out of habit, his eyes found focus on the note. It was written in blue ink, with familiarly looping letters and firm punctuation.

     Well. That settles that. At least she had the decency to let me know. He stared blankly for a time, then shrugged, opened the fridge and pulled out one Coors Light and another. Then he trudged along the tiles toward the back door.

     In the dim backyard, the crickets chirped loudly from the garden and lawn. The little old wading pool sat comfortably in the grass, off to the side. Neither Ron nor Liza would miss the scuffed Disney characters chasing each other over the faded blue plastic. They’d grown past it being useful anywhere except in memories.

     Jack let his lips rattle as he loudly exhaled a lung or two full of air. “Honey. I’m home,” he muttered dispassionately, and with a splash deposited his buttocks on the bottom of the half full pool. He found the right angle to cram his legs into the restrictive plastic circle, and cracked open his first beer as the dirty rainwater soaked through his pants.

     Some time had passed. The air had cooled. The sky was black. The second beer was half used up and the arm that held it was draped over the outside of the pool. Jack glanced over and saw Bouncer there on his right, tail wagging, blue bowl clamped firmly in jaw. “Hey buddy, no one gave you water, huh?” As Jack tilted the bottle into his dog’s dish, he noticed its serious eyes were diverted intently past him toward the driveway. He followed the retriever’s gaze and saw a yellow glow filtering through the fence. His eyes narrowed and he tried to focus on a chink in the wooden slats, and what was behind it. Shit. He lurched to his feet. The pool heaved in response to his step and sloshed cold water across his back. A trail of drips followed him back through the house as he fumbled in the pocket of his pants, then coat, for the car keys.

     He walked toward his silver BMW, its headlights carelessly burning a bright hole in the darkness of night. He tried the handle unsuccessfully. Jesus. Who locks the door with the damn lights left on? He bent down and slid the key into the lock. Just as he began to twist it, the field of yellow light on the asphalt, hedge and fence suddenly evaporated.

     ”God. Damn. It.”

     He was about to fling his keys down onto the driveway.

      “Hey you!”

     His eyes widened. What the… Jack was about to wheel around to identify the speaker when a fist caught him across the back of the head, hard. His neck snapped forward and his forehead slammed into the glass of the car window. Reeling, he staggered backwards and sideways, trying to get himself turned around.

     ”Yeah you, fuck you man!”

     The heel of a boot connected with his hip and a sharp pain shot through him. Keys clinked down onto the driveway.

     He raised his hands weakly to block his face against the incoming blows, but he could discern little more than a blur and a shadow. Another blow, this time to the arm. Eventually the figures of two men became apparent, but by then Jack was on the ground, his eyes bleary and his body crunched and stung.

     Thick arms took him under the armpits and hauled him roughly over the driveway. He heard a metal door swing open and latch, and became aware that he was in a van’s cramped trunk. An engine whirred and growled. Jack groaned.

     One of the attackers was looking down at him, impassive. “You really don’t have a clue, do you?”

     ”What the hell are you talking about? What’s going on?” The words were slurred and mangled.

     ”It was a rhetorical question. Don’t answer.”

     ”I wasn’t, I was just asking…”

     ”I said don’t try and answer.” The man’s foot jerked suddenly. Jack’s brain exploded into a sea of blackness.

     Cold, rough asphalt clung to his skin. He was lying stomach down. His breath came in gasps, and his hands were shaking. He was acutely aware of rivulets of water (or his own sweat?) sliding down his side and dripping on the ground. The orange glimmer of streetlights crept in and plied his eyelids open. The world was a blur. It hurt to move. He closed his eyes again and stayed sprawled on the street under the deadweight of night.

     A distant car horn brought awareness sliding back.

     Jack stiffly moved his hands and lifted himself off of the road. Rows of rundown houses and shops extended past him on either side and spun dangerously around him. He was naked. And more injured than his memory could account for.

     As the world steadied itself, he noticed a weathered sign above the door of a nearby building. “Ned Pepper’s Pub” in faded red lettering and the light was on. He gritted his teeth and moved across the pavement toward the door, which opened loudly. Except for the man behind the bar and a mouse he thought he saw scurry behind a jukebox, the room was empty.

     The bartender’s eyes widened in disbelief as he caught sight of the new arrival. “Holy Jesus. What in hell happened to you?”

     Jack approached the bar “My wife left me today. She uh… She took everything.” The sharp grime on the floor stuck to the soles of his feet. “Can I get a shot of whiskey?”

     ”How you planning on paying?”

     ”I’ll owe you. C’mon; I’m good for it.”

     ”Yeah? How many people do you already owe? Got many outstanding debts?” Jack stared blankly. “Nevermind, you can have it on the house. And you’re lucky there’s no other customers for you to be scaring away, otherwise…”

     Barely a second after Jack held the shot glass in his trembling hands it clattered onto the counter, empty. He swallowed, and for a few moments worked to get control over his breathing. “What time is it?”

     ”Does it matter? Hell, what time do you want it to be?”

     ”I…”

     ”It’s 7 bloody minutes to twelve. Happy?”

     Not particularly.

     He pushed back out into the street. A fog was creeping along the ground, feathering upward, and illuminated by orange streetlights. He had no idea what part of the city he was in, but certainly one far from the stale safety of neatly clipped hedges, double garages and ornamental front-porch lion sculptures.

     After several minutes, or maybe hours, he had adjusted to the pain of walking, pushed it somewhat into an isolated compartment of mind. Jack was vaguely aware of changes around him: buildings elongating and clad in corrugated steel, sidewalk crumbling into sharp, irregular gravel. He was more aware of his vibrating mind, and the distorted images of the evening and night that rewound and replayed around him.

     God. What did I do to deserve this?

     What did you do not to deserve this? Linda’s dark eyebrow arched conspicuously and she regarded him, her arms folded. The smell of meatloaf flowed from the kitchen, and the kids scrambled after some doll or other in the living room. And goddamnit why can’t you admit you never loved me?

     Jack’s next footfall stuck to the ground and he lurched to a halt. Grimacing, he shook his head and in the process bit his tongue, hard. He stood still, staring bitterly at the ground, swaying lightly in the breeze. A thousand petitions, complaints and justifications spiralled through his thoughts, latching onto everything and nothing and culminating meaninglessly in a desperate, wheezing sort of groan.

     He trudged onward, shifting focus back to the pain. The new pain in his tongue developed a camaraderie with the familiar pain in his feet, hip, head, body, everywhere. His thoughts, the road, the fog, the buildings all mashed together into tangled fuzz as he plodded down the disconsolate street.

     Sharp, clear twin beams of light cut through the morass in his head, jolting him to wide-eyed momentary stillness. In a moment, the blaring white had torn his mind’s aimless glaze to shreds. A lumbering roar followed heavily behind and Jack had just enough time to turn towards it and see the immense mass of folded and gridded steel barrelling toward him. A frantic horn blare, and finally the whimpered screech of ineffectual brakes. A moth on a searchlight.

     He carefully drew in a paper-thin breath, felt the sweet air dive vividly into his lungs. The first thing in years he’d really, actually felt. He closed his eyes, and made up his mind.

     The air shuddered.

     ”Holy fuck! Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

     Jack stood frozen in front of the truck’s towering metal grille; he let his arms drop and his eyes open. “I guess not.”

     The driver was leaning out of the door of the cab, her eyes wide. The two regarded each other for several moments, mouths moved but no words formed. Every molecule in Jack’s body was buzzing. Eventually, he spoke. “Uh, sorry about all this. Do you have something I could maybe eat?”

     …”…I probably have something back here. A sandwich or chocolate bar or… or some pants. Christ! Look, you’re pretty beat up, I’ll call you an ambulance.”

      “Nah. I’m good, I think. A chocolate bar would be great!”

     The driver, hand already on the phone, might argue, but she wouldn’t change his mind on this. She rummaged in the back of the cab, and eventually approached him warily. “I got some cookies. Chocolate chip, at least.” She held out a wax paper wrapped packet. “Well… Have a good night. And take care of yourself.”

     Jack took the package. “Yeah. Thanks a lot.” His giddy daze was only beginning to fade. After the too late “You, too” trailed off, he vaguely tracked the red taillights off into the misted dimness.

     Before he could think to do it himself, his hands were unwrapping and his mouth was burying itself in the sweetened crunch of the cookies. The wax paper floated forgotten to the ground, but every crumb was accounted for. He licked the last bits from his lips and teeth. That was a really good cookie.

     The various pains were tempered somewhat by this small nourishment. His limbs were still tingling and the awareness of his own body felt more widespread than the space should have allowed. Slow, careful steps turned him through a full rotation. The pitted pavement gave way to gravel, ditch and fence, then a dark barrier of trees and swaths of rolling meadow. He slowly realized he had no idea what direction he’d been wandering. Alright! Well. Life gives you a lemon… right? He laughed.

     Heavy blue was soaking up into the sky from the horizon. Jack bit his lip, picked a good direction and he ran. Like Forrest fucking Gump. He left the road and stumbled into the swampy ditch, scrambled through the long mess of reeds and wild scrub. He cleared the squat line of barbed wire easily and crashed through a dam of spiny branches. In the field beyond he dashed onward, forcing each step against the rising scarcity of oxygen and building ache in his legs.

     After running as far as he could (probably not very) he collapsed into the soft weave of grass on a hillside. He rolled onto his back and lay soaking in the dew, gasping for breath and savouring every one he managed to catch. All his senses were singing.

     A point of pressure on his chest roused him and he found the big eyes of a border collie peering down at him. “Bouncer?”

     The dog stared back blankly and shifted its paw back to the ground. “It’s great to see you, buddy!” Jack ruffled the tufted fur between its black ears enthusiastically and it sat down next to him. “Look, I shouldn’t have fed you beer. I’m sorry. That was careless.” He put his arms over the dog’s lanky shoulders and gazed across the lightening meadow with a half smile. And all that other shit, too. As if I can have control over it. But I will, and I won’t let this happen again.

     Jack shifted back onto his side, laid his cheek against the cool grass and drew his knees toward his chest. As his breathing evened and sleep calmly laid itself over him, the first yellow sliver of sun crept over the horizon.

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