Nebulous Mooch

Oops again. I forgot to post yesterday. I’m not sure how I managed that. Forgetting to post doesn’t usually happen to me. Anyway, here’s some flash fiction for you. Hope you forgive me for posting it a day late.

Fallen

Sterling didn’t remember hitting the ground. The blacktop pressed against his cheek, cold and unyielding. The blood that had gathered around him was beginning to thicken and cool.

Training his eyes on a black circular shape a few feet in front of him he tried to focus. When his eyes finally stopped blurring he used his right hand to push himself over onto his back. His left arm was numb and lifeless. Looking up there were no stars. Not even the moon was out. He could only see the pinkish neon glow that illuminated the sky every night, obscuring the stars.

He rolled to his right arm and used it to push himself into a sitting position. His head throbbed and his face was stiff with dried blood. There was no way of knowing how long he had laid there. He closed his eyes tightly and inhaled. His lungs refused to fill and he coughed painfully.

Sterling’s mind was like molasses as he struggled to stand. His feet tried to make sense of what he was doing. When he was finally able to stand, he remembered. The isolation he had felt all of his life crept up from behind and he remembered everything.

His life wasn’t the kind of life that appeared particularly bad to outsiders. Drowning in the tediousness of the day-to-day, he needed something more. Sterling lived a life of inescapable loneliness. He had no one in his life to talk to or depend on. He never had. He was never close to his parents or his brothers. They all seemed to live worlds apart. His quiet awkwardness made it difficult for him to make friends. His intense stare scared most people away. He didn’t know what to talk about. Unlike others with his social difficulties he was never good in school. Lacking education and drive he ended up working as a cashier in a convenience store. For ten years he had the same job and was never moved up to manager. He was a disappointment to everyone that knew him and it was time to end it. Stop disappointing.

He leaned on an old white Toyota in the parking lot trying to balance. Then as he pushed off from the car to get the momentum to walk towards the front door of the apartment he left a smear off blood on the hood. He walked through the door, which was standing open to the stairs. The motion sensor lights came on as he entered the hallway. Light bounced off of the white walls sending a flash of white, blinding light deep into his forehead. He gripped the wooden rail of the stairs and stopped for a minute to rest. He closely examined his left arm. A jagged piece of bone poked through the skin just below his elbow. In his head he said a small prayer as he lifted his leg to begin climbing the stairs. He was unsure as to whom he was praying or what he was even praying about. It was more like a chant than a pray. More like counting than chanting. Lifting one foot after another, ignoring the pain that shoot throughout his body, devouring him, he counted his disappointments until he could feel them no more. He was floating. Floating above his pain, both the physical of the present and the emotional of the past. He was lifted by the hand of grace to the top of the stairs.

The red iron door to the roof was heavy but he found the strength to open it. Out on the roof once again. In the starless night he could hear the wind as the city slept. It caressed his face and comforted his walk to the edge like the friend he had always longed for. The first time he jumped he didn’t consider the landing. He should have. Four floors wasn’t’ high enough to kill someone unless they landed just right. He stood at the edge toes hanging over the ledge. He breathed in and out, counted to ten and then stepped off.

Be Sociable, Share!

•