Day 8
Today, I decided to shed the shackles of my own mental cracks, which have chained me to undeniable fault lines and wrecked my stability in rhythmic quakes still crashing against my reason like the surging waves of an incoming tide. Though weathered and eroded to a version of myself that would no longer recognize my former self, today I chose to smile.
Leaving the intertwined branches of paved limbs and houses in suburbia, I ventured into an area of once thriving retail. My search, though taking longer than I intended, was fulfilled when I came across a Wal-Mart. This venture, spurned by a desire for a variety in sustenance, led me towards the rear of the store.
Perhaps I was also urged on by memories I’ve yet to cast aside of fishing trips with my father as a child. I was the child, not with my father when he was a child. That would be impossible. Of course, given my current circumstance, who am I to argue with plausibility.
I digress. I found what I was searching for among an assortment of fishing gear, and barring the constrictions of finance, picked exactly what I’d come for, the IM6 Lightning Rod, “top of the line” as my father had always said.
“Pure fishing,” he’d also planted in me, a seed that lay dormant only to have sprouted today’s adventure. Should I use that word, adventure? Perhaps exploration is slightly more apt.
With a smile on my face, and the rod and reel in my hand, I’d headed back to the exit. It was at the doors that my world stumbled away, once again, from pleasant semi-normalcy. I felt it quite clearly this time. Something grabbed tightly onto my shirt at the back of my neck, pulling the collar tight against my throat.
Several choked coughs squeezed out beneath the strain as my upper body tilted back. I quickly spun to face the store behind me. My eyes searched from empty registers to vacant aisles for some proof of….of something, anything.
Shroud in the silence of desolation, the sparkling ghost town of my world peered back. My breathing sped up and I felt my head waver, and then every thing stood still. I know, how does something without movement suddenly become still? Maybe it was only my own breathing and thoughts, but for a moment a celestial pause button was pressed. An instant later, that same heavenly remote released the pause button and mashed fast forward.
I turned and ran from the store, spinning and nearly falling when the automatic doors failed to open fast enough. Thinking back, I can’t decide if the fact that the automatic doors were still working is relevant or not. Is a man taking a piss off the coast of Japan relevant to the water purity in Arkansas? On the molecular level, isn’t it, even if it’s in the tiniest of percentiles?
I’m sorry. Again, my mind tends to break the tether from coherent thought more and more these days.
I ran until my legs and lungs would no longer allow. When I finally stopped and took a few minutes to catch my breath, my eyes traced the new surroundings, nothing familiar to be found.
Walking step after step in directions that accumulated to only chase away the fading day, I carried my only possessions; my new pole and this notebook.
If granting nothing else, perhaps physically stressing myself so thoroughly will lend itself to inviting a good night’s rest.
With that thought, I’ll retire from this pen and chase whatever dream sleep sees fit to deliver me. Perhaps there I will find a perfect lake bountifully stocked.
Great, I just realized I didn’t get any bait, or even a hook, and I’m not sure I house the nerve to go back for them.
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