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Just finished this today. I know there's a lot wrong with it, but I wrote it so I can't tell. Tell meeee
All I wanted was some bread. That’s it; no high ideals, no axe to grind, nobody even owes me cheddar. There was not a single thing present in my life that would indicate what the rest of my day would bring. The only thing that might even come close to explaining it would be to say that I am the unluckiest man on earth. Yet even that is not true; my life has been average up until this point. I was not outstanding in any way excepting my previously stated desire of leavened wheat. Still, even though the rest of my life has been nearly the definition of regularity even in terms of chance, I must turn to the commonly blamed Lady Luck, that fickle mistress, for an explanation of this catastrophic 24 hours. The only other semi-reasonable explanation would be some kind of force beyond my control was actively working against me.
Like most days, this one started off rather blandly. It being the weekend, I had decided to sleep in to a healthy 9:30 AM. I took my morning shower without incident and even got as far as clothing myself and entering the kitchen before the end of my world began. It all started when I opened the drawer I keep bread-related items in and was met with naught but a lonely bag containing only a smattering of crumbs. Incredulous, I looked closer only to confirm my fear. I had used the last of the bread last night and had forgotten to pick up another loaf. Such irresponsibility was usually not like me; on most occasions I buy a new loaf as soon as the old one is finished.
I’m sorry if all of this trivial activity and bland self-analysis bores you, but you must understand just how ordinary my life was. If someone was forced to listen to an entire days worth of my routine, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the poor person would bodaciously be bored to tears.
In any case, after a few moments of contemplating the breadlessness of my being, I finally set my mind on a course of action; I would walk to the nearest convenience store and buy a new loaf. Toast wasn’t going to make itself, after all. I congratulated myself on my decisiveness on my way out the door.
It was at this point that the train almost hit me. I may or may not have let out a high pitched shriek of terror.
I should clarify; there was a set of tracks nearby my apartment so, while such a thing occurring is very rare, it is by no means unbelievable. It also meant that there would be no waking me up with a train whistle at all hours of the night, at least until they got this mess sorted out. I try to find the silver lining, even if the cloud did just attempt to kill me.
The locomotive had already leapt off the tracks by the time I got out of the front door of the apartment building and was screeching towards me at an alarming rate. Unfortunately, in my panic I temporarily lost the ability to pay attention to anything other than the tons of steel careening at me and was immediately clothes lined by a stop sign as I turned to flee. The force of the blow knocked me flat and sent my mind spinning into subjects dangerously unrelated to the rapidly approaching many-wheeled death.
Fortunately, luck was still with me at this point as the train stopped mere feet before my prone body; either that or some sort of deity had taken some kind of strong dislike towards me and wasn’t going to let me get away with a simple near-death experience. For the sake of my own mental well-being, I refuse to believe that any being, even a divine one, could have a sense of humor sick enough to plan the kind of day I had.
I took a few seconds to admire how gracefully the earth was spinning around me, temporarily oblivious to how close I had come to death. Almost a minute passed in this state before my situation hit me like a train. I will not say whether or not I shrieked again as I frantically scrambled backward, but I will remind you that such a reaction would not be unusual or laughable in the least.
After I recognized that my life was no longer in danger, for the moment at least, I once again considered my options. This was made much more difficult by the adrenaline being pumped into my body. My decision-making process was quickly interrupted by the train coming to life and lunging at me again. That’s what it looked like to me, at least. In reality, a second train just behind the first hit whatever snag had derailed its forerunner and followed in turn. This second derailment was soon followed by the second train slamming into the first and pushing it towards me again. Fortunately it was much slower this time and I had time to jump onto the front of it before it could run me down. It should be noted that I did this more out of a panicked reflex than any conscious decision.
Holding the train in an almost-literal death grip, I nearly didn’t notice when the train came to a stop. I say “nearly” because it is difficult to ignore being thrown from your perch on the front of a train when it comes to a very sudden stop. The sidewalk was quick to break my fall, inflicting yet another blow to my already aching head.
Moving very carefully just in case either of my recent injuries had managed to damage my neck, I looked up to get my bearings. The train had deposited me directly in front of the convenience store I was heading to. At the time I was convinced that this was a sign that I had passed some kind of test, although I now suspect that it was the previously mentioned malicious deity having a cruel bit of fun.
“Crazy Train” was playing inside the store. At this point, I wasn’t surprised.
Reasonably confident that I had no serious injuries that would be exacerbated by movement, I lifted myself off the ground and dusted off my clothing. This done, I considered the convenience store. It would be a shame to waste all the effort and terror I had just been through and not get what I came for. On the other hand, I doubted that the police would be very pop flyin' with me if I left the scene of something like this. The store was right there, though. It was hardly leaving the scene at all.
Having convinced myself of the legality of the action, I entered the store and immediately regretted it.
“Get down or I’ll shoot!” yelled a man as he pointed a gun at my head. Again more out of a terrified reaction than a decision, I complied. It is possible that my throat was beginning to be a little sore from shrieking out of fright, but I’m afraid that what little pride I have left will not allow me to confirm such a thing.
“Y’all one’o them queers?” the man demanded, violently jabbing the gun in my face. Unfortunately, what he meant as a motivation to answer I took as a request to start babbling in panic. He retorted with a blow to my head. In the back of my mind I wondered if it was possible to become used to such a thing occurring with regularity.
Eyeing me suspiciously, the man pointed towards the back of the store where a small group of people were huddled together, apparently hostages. I guessed that I was to join them in hostagedom.
It was tough going due to the world starting up its spin cycle again, but I managed to walk to the group by keeping a firm grip on the shelving units and collapsed before them. The cool tile felt very nice against my face and I considered taking a nap. The inadvisability of such an action was immediately apparent however, and I decided against it. Instead, I heaved myself up with a groan and faced my fellow hostages. I knew most of them since I had been shopping at this particular convenience store for several years.
The cashier girl asked about my head.
“Oh, it’s fine,” I replied. “The train outside was much worse.”
There was silence for a few moments.
“Is that what that horrible sound was?” one of the men asked, awestruck. “Surely you must be joking.”
“Two of the things, actually.”
Understandably, it looked like the rest of the group had more questions for me, but they were interrupted by the man who had hit me hitting me again for “talkin’ like a queer.” I suggested than men who frequently punched people might themselves have issues regarding their sexuality, albeit with much stronger language. He seemed to consider this statement and then kicked me. I must admit, I deserved that one.
Once I recovered from my most recent injury I inquired what all the concern about “queers” was. It was explained to me that an article in some tabloid had claimed that wheat bread caused homosexuality. Apparently several leading politicians had dubbed white bread “The food of America” in retaliation to the “gay agenda” talked about in the article. Upon hearing all this, several citizens had taken it upon themselves to rid their neighborhoods of this menace and amass white bread for themselves, cumulating in the hijacking of the convenience store. The natural tendency towards hoarding guns of those who would actually be afraid of bread turning them gay had made the whole thing rather simple.
I asked if the bread shipment normally came by train and whether or not the shipment would have come that day. When I got a reply of affirmative I conjectured that these men had derailed the train to stop its shipment from reaching the city.
As I took in all this information, my already addled mind found the whole thing a little overwhelming and I leaned back on one of the shelving units to rest for a moment. Apparently during the takeover, one of the armed men had managed to shoot a significant portion of the base of the thing, leaving it severely unsteady. When I leaned back, I pushed the already tenuously balanced shelf over the edge and it tumbled into the man standing behind it who cried out before falling to the ground. He did not move after hitting the floor.
There was a stunned silence for a beat, and then my fellow hostages broke for the door. I lagged behind due to my injuries and the fact that I took a little bit of time to walk by the man to grab one of his guns and kick him in the head. I realize that this was a rather juvenile thing to do, but I can’t find it in myself to care. It made me feel better.
I cautiously stepped outside the store, bracing myself for whatever horrible thing was going to happen next. In defiance of my expectations, absolutely nothing happened. I did not follow the cliché and sigh in relief, however. That would just be asking for disaster. In retrospect, I had done nothing previously to ask for disaster other than when the man kicked me and it had still found me with regularity.
As I slowly walked past the train, some wretched piece fell off and once again hit me on the head. At this point I decided it would be easier to simply fall unconscious rather than continuing to put up with his abuse, and promptly did.
~
I awoke several hours later with a splitting headache. Before I could bask in the inability to remember what had put me in such a state the whole thing rushed into my brain.
Only after I had spent a little while bemoaning my day did I notice my surroundings. I was in a nice, soft bed in a clean room. A room that was not my own; I definitely would have remembered putting about thirty pictures of myself around the walls. Before I could examine the room any further I heard the doorknob turn to allow a portly woman into the room. She seemed delighted when she saw that I was awake.
“Oh thank God you’re awake!” she exclaimed. “I was worried about you.”
“Where exactly am I?” I inquired, gesturing around the room.
“Oh, just my spare bedroom,” she replied. “Do you like it?”
“It’s… nice,” I said, nodding towards the pictures.
“Well, this isn’t exactly the way I imagined you finding out, but… I’ve been following you. I’m fascinated by you; everything you do. You’re so handsome and charming, I just can’t help myself. It was like a dream come true when I found you in the middle of the road like that! And now that I have you alone in my house, well…”
She smiled coyly, and it was at this point I decided to call bullshit.
“No! No more! This is completely goddamned ridiculous! This whole day has been nothing but cheap slapstick and half assed references to popular culture, and I’m sick of it! I’m not taking this anymore!”
Getting that outburst out of my system, I threw back the covers and leapt out of bed. Despite the protests by the woman, I pushed past her and opened the door to the room. I fully expected the ironing board trap that came swinging down to catch me if I tried to escape and nimbly dodged around it. Well, I didn’t predict that exactly, but I knew that something was going to happen.
The woman quickly grabbed a nearby sledgehammer and attempted to hit one of my legs in order to stop me and finish up the most recent pop culture reference. I avoided this as well and slammed the door in her face.
With that out of the way I left the house and made my way back through town, stopping only once at a grocery store. Nothing else went wrong on the way. When I finally got back to my apartment at 1o’clock in the morning, the first thing I did was make some goddamned toast.
Nowadays I have made it my mission to find out what caused my day to go the way it did. The author of the tabloid article was my first suspect, but when I found him that illusion was washed away immediately. The man could barely string two sentences together, let alone orchestrate a plot to ruin me.
I kept looking with no success for a long time until now. I think I’ve found him. Some hack going to school in Missouri. His writing style is suspiciously similar to the contents of that day. I will find him; and I will make him pay.
Last edited by Doormaster on Sun Feb 07, 2010 5:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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