The wind howled with mad fury, and the heavy rain beat down from above. Kirk’s clothes were soaked and heavy, slowing down his movement. Shivering, he pressed on. The noise of the people chasing him grew louder with every step he took. A blue bolt of lightning lit up the sky. Before him, he could see a steep, jagged cliff. There was nowhere else to run, looking down into the pitch darkness below, despair filled his heart.
Above him Kirk could see the silhouette of a helicopter marked by small red blinking lights. The giant searchlight on the bottom of the machine soon scanned the ground all around. Eventually, the bright light blinded him. Forcing him to cover his face with his arms and hands as the sound grew closer.
The cellphone sitting next to some car keys and a small stack of beer cans lit up. It filled the darkness around it with a burst of light and sound. There was a series of beeps, followed by a lengthy pause and then another series of noises. A few seconds later, it stopped, and the room became dark once more. That cycle repeated itself, happening several times. Though it only did what he had programmed it to, the half-awake body in the next room thought about how nice it would be to throw the blasted cell phone right out the window and curl up once again for more rest.
At first, he tossed and turned, trying to ignore the sound and go back to sleep. Eventually, though, he gave in and rose from the bed. Kirk ambled through the dark out of his bedroom doorway and into the hallway. For a second, his gaze fell on the closed door at the end of the hall, which would have been his daughter’s room. Shaking his head as if to clear his mind, he turned in the other direction.
Walking a short distance, he ended where the living room began. Having reached its entrance, he stopped and fumbled on the wall to hit the light switch. After a moment, his hand found what he was looking for, and the room was awash in light. Squinting from the brightness, he stood there collecting his thoughts.
Without waiting for his vision to adapt fully, he moved forward into the large room. Overestimating the distance to the coffee table, he stubbed his toe on one of its legs. A small string of profanity and a half scream followed. Picking up his injured foot, he inspected it to assess the damage done. It throbbed in intense pain, but didn’t seem to be bleeding.
“Great, just great,“ he muttered to himself while biting his lower lip.
The alarm on the phone started again, which made his body lurch forward. Leaning over, Kirk picked up the cell phone. With a scowl across his face, he hit the notice with his thumb several times to shut off the alarm. In frustration and anger, he threw the cellphone at the couch a little too hard. It bounced off the back cushion, leaving the phone precariously positioned on the edge of the sofa. Kirk sighed, looking down at the phone.
Turning slightly, he headed back to the bathroom to start his morning routine. Quickly he ran an electric shaver over his face. The reflection looking back at him through the mirror came as no surprise to him. Being thirty-five and out-of-shape, he was used to being dissatisfied with his appearance. More than anything, though, his reflection only brought a wave of resentment towards himself and the feeling of guilt. Emphasizing it was the permanent frown residing on his face. Reaching up to his short hair, he brushed it by moving his hand across the front until he was satisfied with it.
From there, it was back to his room to find some clean clothes. Picking a shirt off the top of the pile, he gave it a quick smell before pulling it on and buttoning it up. Then he did the same with a pair of pants. It took a while to find matching socks, but after some searching, he was successful. Once dressed, he made his way into the kitchen and grabbed the last clean bowl. After pouring some sugary cereal, he opened the refrigerator and saw that it was mostly empty with no milk at all.
So dry cereal it is, I guess that’s not the worst thing, thought Kirk picking up a few pieces out of the bowl and popping them into his mouth. In between crunches of cereal, he thought about how to spend the next few hours of his day. Mornings were not the best time for him, or at least that’s what he would tell anyone who would listen to him. Those days, there were fewer people around for him to talk to. Due to his downward spiral, that had caused him to be alienated from almost everyone.
Good, who needs people anyway, he thought while grabbing another bite of cereal. There was still a roof over his head, and he had food to eat, even if it was dry. Thinking about that, he smiled a little, feeling that he was doing just fine on his own. Besides, all of his so-called friends had all left him when he needed them the most. Deep down, he knew it was because they didn’t know how to handle the situation, but right now, he wasn’t going to let reality mess up his pity party.
The fact was he didn’t know how to handle things either, but it’s different when it happens directly to you. Unfortunately, you can’t just escape from being you because things aren’t convenient at the time. Kirk had been married, or maybe he still was. It wasn’t clear how that worked. Two months ago, his wife, Madalyn, had passed away because of complications during childbirth. So within minutes of each other, he had lost both the love of his life and his newborn daughter.
They left me all alone, Kirk thought, as he walked back to the couch. With a heavy sigh, he sat down on it and leaned back into its cushions. That caused the cell phone to fall onto the carpet. Watching it with his eyes as it fell, he didn’t bother to try and catch it.
On its descent, he caught the coffee table in his peripheral view, and it reminded him of his toe, which no longer was throbbing. This brought the second smile to his face for the day as he realized the pain was one of the few things he could still feel. This was short-lasting, as his head filled back up with negative thoughts.
That event had changed him, as it would have for anyone. Kirk was confident he would never be the same again. How can I be? Life had walked up to him, punched him in the gut, and then laughed as he fell to the ground, moaning. Knocking the beer cans off the coffee table with a shove, he watched as they collected onto the floor where several others were already. Kirk hadn’t been drinking this heavily since college, so he was a little surprised that his head was clear.
Nothing seemed all that important to him anymore. Why should I care? Even if you do everything right, you can still lose. What kind of life is this? It was just something he had to endure, and so he did, day after day. Finishing the bowl of cereal off, he walked over to the kitchen and tossed it casually into the overflowing sink of dirty dishes. I’ve got to clean this place up, he thought with another sigh.
Returning to the couch, he leaned over and grabbed his cell phone from the floor before sitting down again. With the phone now in his hands, he looked down at it. Immediately he noticed several messages, which he had somehow missed earlier that morning. Kirk also noticed that the battery life on the phone was only at thirty-two percent. Going through the notes on the device, he frowned as one of them jumped out at him.
It was a message from Madalyn, she had only asked him to pick up some milk from the store on his way home, but he couldn’t bring himself to delete it. Breathing in, he pressed the message to hear her voice again, which was probably the hundredth time since her passing that he had. For those few seconds that her voice played, it allowed him to feel like she was somehow still with him, though he knew she wasn’t.
Carefully saving the message from Madalyn, he deleted the next couple and then found the most recent one. Damn, work called earlier. While he was scheduled, it was not for several more hours. Building up his courage, he tapped on the voicemail notification and held the phone to his ear, listening to it.
Kirk heard. “Hello, this is Rick,” which caused him to sigh once more. Rick was his boss, and while he wasn’t the biggest jerk, he certainly didn’t have any Best Boss awards. “We need you to come in early today.” Just great. “We are very short-handed, and you are already on the schedule.” While it was true that he would have to go to work sooner or later, that didn’t mean he wanted to.
Just fantastic, I have to go to work early. Kirk let the information sink in while simultaneously trying to figure a way out of it. The look on his face changed to anger, and another string of profanity escaped his lips. There was no way out of it. Kirk had to go in. Maybe going in now will buy me a little goodwill at the office, he thought, trying to turn the situation around in his head. That thought was supposed to cheer him up, but it just made him want to groan more.
Kirk was an office worker at Great USA Foods, whose main job was to arrange contracts between food suppliers and his company. It was his job to get the best price he could from the suppliers. Then his company acted as a middle-man selling the food to restaurants and various other entertainment locations.
It wasn’t an awful job, and at one time he had enjoyed the work. Kirk had even been salesman of the year, once, which earned him a decent bonus on top of a good salary. After the incident he had just lost all interest in it, no longer giving it his best effort with everything going on. Initially, he had put in for a promotion to upper management to help pay the bills after his daughter was born, but work, much like life, had become a burden since that day at the hospital.
Walking over to his work shoes, he slipped them on and found himself ready to leave. Kirk reached out with a deep breath and turned the knob of his front door, which led out into the apartment’s hallway. Stepping outside, he let the door slam behind him before turning and locking it. Then he took the short walk over to the elevator.
Once there, he pressed the button to take him to the parking garage. Several minutes passed, and he looked down at his phone to check the time. Deciding it might be quicker to take the stairs, he moved to the side door and began the descent to the parking area.
Each footstep rang out as he made his way down the metal steps. It was only three flights of stairs, but it honestly felt like a lot more. Too many days of staying in one place, combined with too many nights of ‘one more slice of pizza’ has finally caught up with me. Upon reaching the door-marked ‘Parking Garage’ he opened it and stepped through. The metallic tings of his shoes that he had made each step in the stairwell changed to a much heavier sound as he walked onto the cement floor.