Day 46*

Getting a late start tonight, want to start a new story but will instead continue to take this one in a ridiculous action-movie sort of direction.  We'll see what changes.  I'm not going to make it to 1,667 today I don't think (just because I said that I probably will fly by that mark easily).  Just not feeling it for some reason.  I should really read dianetics again.

Note to self:  Use word "teeming" at some point.  Teeming is great.  I'm going through this self-education-red-grammar book soon.  I think my grammar is ok but could be more sophisticated.  This year already I've cut back on using "which", "seems", "because", and "but", although "but" more than any of the others tends to err on the side of the unavoidable.  Also, met my match today with Jorge Luis Borges "On Writing", which is far far far too literary for me.  I have to buy it and conquer it, now.  Yes; I am incredibly boring.  (Notice the semi-colon usage)

            The man with the tattoo ran through Charles’s mind as he stared up blankly at the TV set.  The icecream bar was already melting in his hand, the store was unbearably hot for being indoors.  He looked at the air conditioner in the window, rumbling and hissing.  A belt inside spun with a malfunctioning whir. 

            The TV broke to commercial, a fat man with a mismatched suit shouting in front of lawnchairs about a liquidation sale.  Charles checked his watch, it wasn’t even noon yet.  He dreaded going through the bothersome process of turning in applications again, slowly recalling the work it took him to land this job.  His precarious position was already disappearing, and he only received two checks! 

            The car was missing a person in the passenger seat as he exited through the weight operated doors.  He dropped his sandwiches on the ground, and reaching down to pick them back up he noticed someone was missing from his car.  Odd, he thught, there were no other cars in the parking lot.  He stepped out of the parking lot onto the dirt road and turned around, dirt kicked up in each direction.  He scratched his ear lobe, unwrapped an icecream bar and tied his shoe with it in his mouth.

            He got bak in the car and searched the front seat for a sign.  A broach was sitting on the floor in front of the passenger side seat, he picked it up and squeezed it between his fingers.  He could never recall Anne wearing a broach.  There was no sign of struggle or forced removal, she had been there a moment earlier and seemed upset with him.  She probably just took off.  But she wasn’t out on the road walking.  There were tire tracks all around but the treads didn’t indicate any age, and even if they did Charles didn’t have the first idea how to track a car. 

            A languidness surged over Charles whole person.  He eased the car back out of the spot with mixed emotions.  The dejectedness he felt over being abandoned was dejected by a temporary suspicion he felt over the suspicious nature of Anne’s disappearance.  The fire was already an afterthought.  He pulled the car right back in and went back up to the desk, where the UPS guy had already left through the back and the other man had changed the channel to a morning talk show.

            Police cars surrounded his tiny apartment when he returned.  He circled the block and parked in the alley across from the viatnamese market, faces of strangers that looked vaguely familiar encircling him.  The whispers circled around him like flames in complete darkness, sirens blaring from a distance and lights blurring as they speed by in both directions.

            The window to his apartment was broken and quite a bit of commotion was going on in its vicinity.  Police tape blocked off the lobby, and the old man from across the hall was out harassing the police officers with noise complaints.  Air raid sirens sounded, circumventing the hubbub of the streets and drawing the attention back away from Charles.

            He inquired quietly what was going on in the building, the police officer responded with the succinct answer, “Been a break in.”  He looked up with a quick turn and then stood sentry some more. The image of the man with the scar and toothpick fluttered like a butterfly towards Charles and landed on his minds nose, and as much as he wriggled his nostrils it did not reposition itself or fly off.    He ducked under the tape and gestured toward his apartment with the broken window, to which the cop said “Go ahead, then”, and apathetically turned toward the street again.  It was as if by standing vigil over the street he was preventing the scene to change in any way. 

Over the sound of crickets he could hear the intermittent calls of CB radios, and he reached his hand blindly around the corner and hit the light switch.  He sensed a presence in the apartment, hanging his keys up cautiously on the novelty moose themed key ring holder apparatus.  He knew he should turn around and go heed the cops advice by the door, but by then this presence might desert him.  Charles backed up into the bare unaccented wall, slowly backing around it and peering parallel with it at the rest of the room.  The stove was lit, and a box of macaroni shells sat on the cutting board.

The man with the fish wasn’t on the counter.  He must have ran off and hid in the bathroom when this indistinguishable figure set up shop on the futon.  Charles stepped awkwardly around the corner, nearly losing his balance and having to catch himself.  The sound of water boiling filled the air, like tiny bubbles popping in a cauldron.  He reached up and pulled himself up to his feet on the kitchen island, scanning the room in a panaramic.  The shades Anne had erected flowed freely in the night wind, the old man was out hassling officers by the opposite entrance.  Only one light in the doppleganger building across the window was lit.

A shallow breathing hummed from Charles favorite chair, it spun around abruptly as Charles squished across the shag carpeting.  A red blanket with arm holes and a V-shaped neckline arose toward him, and then settled into an upright sitting position.  Charles opened his mouth but nothing came out, and halfheartedly attempted to wave for the attention of the police officer outside the window but gave that up as well.

“Charles, do you know why I’m here?”  A gravelly hollowed-out voice projected from a malformed, skeletal head.  If this mans head were a structure, it would be an abandoned hornets nest.

Charles wondered to the extent that his wits would go.  He puzzled over the question with ostensive contemplation, closing one eye and biting his lower lip.

“Is it about what I do?”  Charles said, when he finished this statement he felt like he had pulled a long string that had been clogging his ear that he hadn’t even been aware of.  A freshness filled his face above his nose, behind his eyes. He sucked in air through his newly ventilated cavity.

The man shook in response, the mask nearly falling off of his face.  Charles wondered why he had broken in, what his intention was, but suddenly his mind was clear.

“You’re a lot more important than you might think,”  The gentleman paused for effect.  His speech was affected, as if he had been hired simply for his grotesque appearance.  A loud car related bang shot through the darkness, and the man flinched momentarily and then sat completely still again.  “You are the x-factor.  You may be feeling like you’re missing something in your mind.  Do not be alarmed, it is not gone.”

“But if it’s not gone, where has it went?”  Charles stated rhetorically.

“It is what makes you normal.  You can’t perform your objective if you have it.  We needed a clean slate, an open opportunity.”

The man rose and gingerly walked across the shag carpet, straining and holding his lower back.  “If you don’t mind, I’m going to make this macaroni and cheese.”  

I don't know about you, but I think that's the best one yet.  Maybe the rest of this novel is salvageable.  I'm gonna send this moron on some crazy adventure.