Frank's Bad Day Part IV

Out of the corner of his eye, Frank saw something to his right reflect
in the dim light. There, out in the street, was large dull metal coin
lying where he had woken up. It must have fallen out of his pocket
when he got up. Frank began to hurry towards the coin. Meanwhile, a
small black creature, the size of a small monkey crawled out of the
storm sewers. It was about sixteen inches tall and was covered with
greasy fur that went in every direction. It was hunched over and
rested its knuckles on the ground as it watched Frank hurry to pick up
the coin. The creature then started jumping up and down and screaming.
It was a noise that was a mixture of a rabbit dying, and hyena
laughing. An amazing volume of sound came out of this small creature.
Finally, it bolted towards the coin. It was closer to the coin, and
was running at full sprint now. Frank calculated he might not make it
time and prepared to jump so he could tackle the creature to get the
coin. He could hear the bus getting closer in the distance. The
creature got there first and snatched the coin up and continued
running full out. It began chattering something that sounded like a
high-pitched laughing taunt.
Frank leapt into the air and came down hard on the asphalt, only
managing to grasp the creature's tail. The air brakes on the bus let
out a hiss as the bus stopped next to the bench. Frank heard the door
"whoosh" open. The creature shrieked and turned around to attack Frank
with a fury that caused him to forget it was only 16 inches tall. It
was a blur of claws and teeth and the worst smell Frank had ever
encountered emanating from every pore of the creature's skin. Because
of its small size and speed he could not keep grasp it properly
without being scratched or bitten. Frank finally slammed the creature
to the ground and had decided the coin wasn't worth it. At the almost
the same moment it hit the ground a weather-beaten wooden oar pinned
the creature to the ground at its neck. The creature was gasping for
air.
A loud booming voice that seemed attached to the oar spoke slowly,
"You know you aren't allowed here.. let go of the coin and I'll let
you go back to the sewers. Otherwise, I'll split you in half…What's it
gonna be?". The creature let the coin fall to the ground and finally
spoke.

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**Visit John Homan's weblog @ http://casadejuanito.blogspot.com  ***

Frank's Bad Day - Part III

Frank sat down on a bench by the bus stop. He was confused and tired and not sure what to do next. At 2:59 pm this afternoon he had stopped at his favorite coffee shop to get an iced coffee on his break from the call center. The attractive hippy-chick barista was there and he had lingered five minutes trying to make some points so he could finally ask her out. As he ran to make it back to the office, he stepped off the curb and directly into the mosquito splattered grill of a city bus. He then proceded to bounce off a Little Debbie delivery van. After that it had went all black for God knows how long until he woke up here... "Wherever here is." he thought.

"I don`t think it`s Heaven, and though its drab and depressing, it doesn`t seem like it`s bad enough to be Hell. It`s nothing like anything I learned in Catechism, or from Sister Mary Margaret at Theology class at St. Jude's High School. Maybe I'm lying in a bed in the ICU at Cook County and am having a Morphine-induced hallucination...still, I've got a pretty good imagination, you'd think I could do better than this. I mean seriously, it looks a civil engineering project between a very drab neighborhood association president and someone from the IRS. Whatever it is, I want out...or at least find somewhere a little less mind-numbingly boring to hang out until this ends. I wonder when the bus shows up around here?"

Frank looked at the bus stop sign for some kind of schedule and found this:

NEW-ARTS Bus Schedule

7:30 am

8:30 am

Noon

1:00 pm

4:00 pm

5:00 pm

7:00 pm

9:00 pm

All times are local-please change your watch upon arrival.

Please have your NEWAR token or SMI pass-NO EXCEPTIONS

It was 3:50 pm according to the nearest clock on the street. Frank felt in his pockets, and he had nothing-no wallet, no phone, no change-absolutely nothing. He squinted to the west and could see something moving on the road. The bus was early...

Frank's Bad Day - Part II

Oblivion is not easily described. Asking someone to describe oblivion
as anything beyond a great void of nothingness seems like a creative
writing assignment given by a sadistic, overly tenured English
professor to wide-eyed freshman. "In 10,000 words or more, thoroughly explore the concept of oblivion, using at least 4 classic sources and 3 contemporary sources, comparing various religious, nihilist and existentialist philosophies. This assignment is due by next Wednesday. It is worth 30% of the grade for this course."

Frank was in oblivion. Besides the utter lack of stimuli, there was no ability to ponder his condition, only a numb sensation that he still existed and nothing more. He couldn`t ponder the passage of time, neither any dimensions of the space that he existed in. It was like he was a baby again and the entire universe was playing a really long game of Peek-a-Boo. Whatever amount of time passed, Frank finally felt a new sensation. He was cold. Not the crisp cold of winter that
energizes you to move, but the kind of cold you feel when someone takes your blanket when you were sleeping comfortably and you begin to wake up earlier than you would like. You lie there hoping you don't have to get up, but not really resting either. You are in a state that does not have the benefits of wakefulness or of sleeping, but simply don't care enough to change. This describes not only Frank's condition, but much of our own lives; between the sweet sleep of death and the wakefulness of a life well lived, we sleepily shiver in mediocrity, not caring, but not satisfied either.

Finally, with nothing else better to do, he awoke. Opening his eyes, Frank stared into a slate gray sky. It seemed like dusk, but without a colorful sunset, just a vague, almost unhappy light reflecting from an indistinct horizon. It was cold, as if it was the end of fall just before winter began in earnest.

Struggling to his feet, Frank tried to determine where he was. He was in the middle of a street, but it was silent, deserted and clean. It led so far into the distance that it looked like an exercise in perspective in an art class. The street was faced by non-descript storefronts painted in the most boring hues of grey, olive and brown. Even those stores with display windows showcased drab wares that only seemed to be available in the same insipid monochromatic hues as the
rest of this world. There were no street lights, no cars, just the odd bus stop with benches and trash cans in the same monotonous palette. The only thing that was close to being out of the ordinary was the large antique brass clocks mounted on dark metal stands on every third street corner. Wherever he was, it was nothing like Chicago, with its cluttered streets, noisy traffic and garish storefronts. It was an altogether depressing landscape that could have sucked the perkiness out of the leader of a high school cheerleader's booster club.