Saturday, September 25, 2010

Career Change

He sat there in his white plastic chair next to his white plastic table. The fan was on above him, his hair gently moving in its breeze was the only motion to be found. On the table sat an empty bottle, the glass next to it containing the remaining amber liquid.

He lifted his arm, made an attempt at grasping the glass, and on the second try, managed to wrap his fingers around it. He raised the glass to his lips, and tossed it, along with his head, back in an exaggerated fashion. He then sat the glass down, heavily on the edge of the table.

In slow motion, he watched it as it fell to the floor. The shards of glass exploding out from the impact, catching the light from the lone window in the almost empty room. Underneath that window, worn in the wood, were the ruts from years of pacing.

He made to stand up, and stumbled back into his seat. Had the wall not been behind him, he, along with the chair, would have fallen over. His second attempt at this too was successful. Standing, he dragged the chair to the center of the room, knocking the table, and the empty bottle over in the process.

Its broken shards joined the glasses on the floor. His bare feet bled as he crossed through the glass. He then walked back over to the wall and up-righted the table, trailing a slick of blood. He reached up toward the wall plate that held the switch for the fan. Once. Miss. Twice. Miss. Third time, the fan was slowing down.

As he walked back to the chair, he began to fumble with his belt buckle, having succeeded in undoing it as he sat back down in the middle of the room. He struggled to pull it off, and, standing shakily on the chair, managed to loop the belt around the fan.

It took three days before someone came looking for him. They found him hanging there, a pool of dried blood underneath his feet from where his feet had dripped. The chair was on its back beneath him.

2 comments:

alphabete said...

Well, wow. I want to know the story behind this because when you said it was inspired by a conversation I didn't imagine it was so bleak!

This is a very moody piece, and what really gets me are the physicality of the ruts, the broken glass, his knocking the things in the room over. Wow, that is pretty amazing. You really put the reader there.

There's a little weird punctuation right here: "He raised the glass to his lips, and tossed it, along with his head. back in an exaggerated fashion." but it didn't ruin anything.

Keep it up, you're good at this.

Jonathan Martin said...

The Period was supposed to be a comma. Fixed it!

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