—Ohhhhh boy. It was that time of the month again. You know, when you’re feeling uber paranoid for absolutely no reason, when insomnia uppercuts your jaw, and when your own body decides one day to quit its day job and move over to welfare. On TV, a search party was formed for a previously kidnapped eight-year-old, and your heart whiplashes a marathon because IT’S YOUR DAUGHTER!! until you remember no sperm of your own has ever met with its female counterpart-- the famous egg. At least your sweat beads smell of Man Roses and Shark Repellent because of how much you’ve been showering, trying to get rid of that mass of pain and negativity that’s completely possessed your entire being.
It was a beautiful day outside, almost too Truman Show-like. Andrew stared directly at the sun for no more than 4 seconds, making sure there weren’t any camera crew camping inside of it, filming his every step and broadcasting it to a more futuristic world that he’s been snatched out of. No storm- he was safe. It was important for him to absorb the vitamin D molecules at least once a week, considering the blue-ish neon lights in the 6th basement floor weren’t exactly up to par with the nature of the sun. Or the yellow-ish neon lights in the science classroom of the highschool he’s known for so long, covered by the billions of dumb questions, dumber chuckles and dumbest jokes he’s ever witnessed.
Andrew was just that; a pawn in the game of Life that took a wrong turn after rolling a seven instead of a four. Skip the popularity card! Skip the wedding card ( or tear it in two after winning it )! Skip the prosperous and secure life! Is that an entrance to Hell over there? Hey, who cares if it’s not even the same game anymore, that’s where your character belongs. And it’s not like it was really obvious or anything that he’s stepped into a realm that was aiming to kill him- losing your job is something that happens to many people. A perfectly good, slightly used knee was a little less typical to break, but it happened. Looking like an unsuccessful necromancer? Now that took effort from the destiny demons to screw around with. Who knew life was such a great stylist? Just be born and the rest will be taken care of!
Maybe that was why the old lady on the opposite side of the street was staring at him. She’s probably thinking that he’s going to drain the life out of her if he gets too close ( and by close, it’s more like ten to twenty meters away ). He pulls a slight bit on his collar, letting his throat size up because what the fuck is this smell? It’s not quite rotten-- he knows more about that than he can admit-- but it’s dirty. It’s dense. It’s staring right at him, the dying lady. Like someone cleaned a whole room with chlorine bleach, but forgot the infectious lump of maggots in the corner. The door to her house is wide open, any passerby could hear the screeching of the television, the news anchor screaming at them, guilting them into donating money to the poor children in Africa, exposing the drug abuse of the high-class, joining the search par-- click! Just like that, silence. And just like that, the senior stomps back into her home, doing that eye-widening thing old people do at Andrew and shuts her door; ah, but not before snatching tiny, eight-year-old hands off the frame.
—Ohhhhh boy. Your non-daughter daughter. Please, dear God, tell me I’m the star of a show that’s been going on for forty-one years.
“You-- you!”, he’s doing that pointing-finger thing that all teachers do when they’re trying to pick on the student that’s not focused, except his finger is shaking, and he doesn’t know if it’s because of the insomnia, the coffee, the old lady, or just because he’s about to fucking puke. “Is that your grandmother? Do you live around here?” He places a hand around his mouth-- what if he says too much? What if it’s just her grandchild being annoying as per children do?
No, no. He has duties to do, as a non-father father. No police will be involved, no problems will be caused. It’s just an old lady; another body he’ll be picking clean in a few days probably. “Not to alarm myself you--but I think there’s a girl in that house that’s not- supposed- to be there.” He took a deep breath, almost blurting out it’s my daughter. It’s not. “Let’s just check it out, in case, you know?” @crudist
