Written Word Attempt- Short Story

This was written months ago. I'm not going to lie and try to make you all feel better. There is something in the works; I'm re-imaging a piece I wrote years ago in high school, hopefully that'll be finished soon. For now, here's something to tide you over until it gets done.

It's called 'Alone'. There really isn't much to it. Nothing really new or exciting was attempted in this one. It is a touch more down to reality than what I'd usually write. Most of my short works tend to be fantasy or at its most real, magical reality, so in that way this is a depart from my usual world.


Alone

He sat in his car, gripping the wheel tightly in both hands, with the radio turned to some late night talk show. The phone in the seat next to him buzzed irritatingly and managed to vibrate itself right off the edge of the seat. He didn't even flinch when it landed with a dull thud on the mat, nor did he look over at it when the illumination it cast around the car faded. All he did was stare ahead out of the windshield while the cold moisture of tears left un-wiped dried on his blotchy face.

The voices on the radio suddenly switched topics. Up until that point he could have cared less about what they were saying, but at that moment he turned his head towards the noise and stared at it in the same way he had been staring at the night sky a moment before. On the other side of those radio waves they had no idea that their inane discussion about the current economic situation was affecting someone.

Now that he was engaged, awake, alive, a functioning member of society once again, he instinctively turned towards the cell phone on the floor as it made its presence known. He leaned over the car and hesitantly took the piece of technology in his hand. Flipping it open he was greeted by the picture of a smiling woman, flashing a peace sign at the camera, her red hair blowing in a wind that has since ceased, her face being warmed by the sun that was no longer shining. The name below it read 'Honey Love'; he only hesitated a moment longer before he punched the accept button and held it lightly to his ear.

“Hello?” His voice was hoarse and shaky; he cleared his throat and tried again. “Hello?”

“YOU STUPID SON OF A BITCH! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? I TRIED CALLING YOU AT LEAST A HUNDRED TIMES AND YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE THE GODDAMN COURTESY TO ANSWER! AND WHAT ABOUT ERIN? YOU'D PROMISED THAT YOU'D COME TO HER RECITAL THAT, BY THE WAY, WAS HOURS AGO...”

He ripped the phone away from his ear and held it at arms length. Even from that distance he could still hear the deafening screams of Honey Love. Slowly he rested his head on the steering wheel in front of him, his free hand pressed against his face as he fought against a fresh wave of tears that threatened him; the hand on the phone was white with his restraint.

Finally the shouting let up and there was silence. Cautiously he brought the phone back to his ear.

“I'm sorry...” It was all he had time to say.

“Sorry? You're fucking sorry? Is that all you have to say? You know I'm getting really tired of hearing the phrase...”

“I know...”

“That one too. It's always 'I'm sorry this' and 'I know that.' Jesus, Rodger, can't you say anything else? Where the fuck were you?”

“I don't really want to talk about it right now.” His voice was strained as he pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

“Oh,” Honey Love's voice became deadly serious. “Who is she?”

“What?”

“Who is she, Rodger?”

“Honey, you know I haven't been sleeping around in years.”

“Don't you dare 'honey' me.” There was a brief pause in the conversation. Both parties held their breath. And then there was an exasperated sigh on the other side of the line. “I've had enough, Rodger.”

“I know, I know.”

“No, you don't know. You really don't have a damn clue just how done I am with this. All I ask is that you make time for me, make time for Erin, and you can't even do that. Instead you're off fucking your whores, like you always do. Either that or sitting around in those filthy ass bars, getting pissed. When I married you I thought things were going to change.”

“I'm trying...”

Another sigh. “You're not trying, you're not trying at all anymore. I'm tried of getting called in the middle of the night, getting asked by some bartender to come and pick you up, because you'd been drinking too much, again. I'm tried of having to explain to Erin where you are every time she asks why you aren't at her concerts, or her games, or her birthday. Rodger, we're not even divorced and yet you still can't seem to make time for your goddamn family.”

There was another pause in the conversation. Rodger was shaking; his shoulders heaved and his breathing was erratic. On the radio they had switched topics yet again. Apparently someone had called in, started talking about how when he got laid-off his wife had left him, and now the hosts were trying to extract the story from him. It seemed that he had spent all his money, gambling it away on the weekends, and there was nothing saved up in the bank accounts; his wife had had enough and so she took the kids and went to go stay with her sister until the divorce papers were finalized. He hadn't seen his son since.

Rodger finally let it all go. A heavy and wracked gust of air pushed its way past his lips and floated across the steering column. On the other end Honey Love gave an equally tired sigh of her own.

“What now?”

“I'm taking Erin and we're going to my mothers. I don't want to hear from you again.”

“Honey, don't...”

“No. Don't. I've had enough. Don't call me again.”

With that the line went dead.

Rodger pulled himself off of the wheel and looked down at the phone in his hand. It flashed the length of the call back at him; 20:15. Twenty minutes, fifteen seconds. That was apparently all the time that was needed to decide that the life you had been living up until that point was a complete lie, that a marriage was beyond saving, that starting over was the only way out from under.

Eventually the light of the phone went off. Even later still the talk show stopped and the sweet crooning of Celine Dion could be heard. She sang about love, she sang about never letting go, but most of all she sang about how she could still go on.

Rodger couldn't.

He reached up to the ignition and turned the car off. Celine went quiet. The car went quiet. It was as dead inside that car as he could make it. The vacuum of silence, that high pitched whining that you can only find inside a contained space when everything has ceased, permeated his thoughts. It made him deaf to the outside world and dulled his senses; he didn't even flinch when a car went by.

With his free hand he took the keys out of the ignition and stuffed them into his pocket. There was the distinct rustling of paper and it seemed to jolt him back into reality. His eyes lit up as he pulled from his pocket a piece of pink paper, illuminated only by the light of the half moon that hung over head. With his cell phone in one hand and the pink slip of paper in the other, he stared at his hands, numb.

The world was decaying around him, as it had done so many Americans before him. He was not a special case; all over the country people were leaving other people, employees were getting fired or laid-off because of an economy gone sour, and there were people who had crawled into the bottle to escape the weight of it all. He wished that doing the same held any sort of appeal; at a moment like this crawling into that vacuum only made him sick.

It was all laid out before him; the life he had spent building and subsequently destroying. It stared back at him as he stared at it. In five minutes he had lost his career and in twenty minutes and fifteen seconds he had lost his wife and only child, the only family that seemed to care anything for him. For the first time he felt the bitter stab of what it meant to be alone. Truly and utterly alone.

Another car passed by outside. Then another. Five minutes later another went by.

Laying the phone and note in the passenger seat, Rodger opened his door. The over-head light flashed to life and then just as quickly shut itself off as he stepped out into the chilly evening air. In a series of motions that had become so automatic, he locked the door, put his key back into his pocket and started out.

The desert evening was cold. It was sobering.

He walked on for a bit, sticking to the side of the road, watching the occasional car go past. Not too many people came out this way. It would be a shock to see someone on the side of the road but no one stopped for him.

Without any sense of hesitation he made is way into the left lane. He wanted to see the cars coming. He wanted them to see him. He wanted to not be alone anymore.

And so he walked on in the chill night air of the Nevada desert. He didn't feel it. Cars passed him, honking, as they drove past on the other side of the road. They hardly took much notice of him, except for those few seconds, and in return he hardly took notice of them.

He took even less notice of the headlights that lit up the piece of asphalt he was staring at. Even the sound of the blaring horn didn't wake him. It wasn't until the last moment that he bothered to look up and stare into the face of the driver, who had lost control of his vehicle and was very obviously drunk. For that moment they saw each other and weren't alone.

There was nothing slow about what happened next. In a second the car hit his shins, splintering them into tiny pieces that yielded to the bumper, and he was sent tumbling over the roof of the car, only to land on his skull on the other side. Intolerable pain shot through his body as blood gushed from his head and ran down the pavement.

Still, he didn't feel a thing. He stared up at the night sky. The driver rushed to his side and moved his mouth in words that Rodger couldn't hear. Slowly and surely everything got darker and darker around him until he was lost forever in a sea of black.

At least he didn't have to go alone.