Manic Monday #7: Click

Just made this one under the deadline. Been a long day and wasn't sure I was going to come up with something. I had the vague outline for this story, but wasn't sure where I was going or how it was coming out. I'm still not sure, it's a little different.



- Click -

Running down the street, sneakers beating a fast paced rhythm on the cobblestones, panting and struggling to keep breathing, arms windmilling at his sides as he trips over an upturned stone and he goes head first towards the ground, screaming “oh shit!” and smashing first his face, blooding his left eye and than catching his right hand and bending back two fingers until they feel like they snapped , shoulder scrapping across the cobblestones and tearing his shirt as his body starts to twist ass over head and his neck feels like it's snapping in half and than he slaps his back hard against the road.

He lays there. Trying to breathe.

- Click -

Dressed in a suit and tie he looks in the mirror and smiles. You look good he says to himself. Damn good. Tonight will be a good night. The ladies will be all over you. He brushes his finger through his hair. Nice, blond, shoulder length it gives him a kind of rock star look he thinks. Too long and he'd look kind of faggoty, which he is quick to assure anyone that even thinks that he's not. He's all man and all he wants is all woman he laughs to himself.

He pulls at his tie, he hates the feel of it around his neck but he knows it makes him look more like a man on the move, someone climbing that ladder of success already three rungs up over the poor slobs below him.

The door behind him opens and he sees an eye looking in at him. “Mom! Didn't I tell you to knock before you just barge in on me!”

- Click -

He's sitting in a bar alone. The darkness makes him feel safer. The anonymity of the place gives him a certain assurance that they do not know where he is. He's been on the run for too long. Everytime he thinks he's one step ahead of them he finds himself looking at their back as they circle around him to move in for the kill. He's tired of running.

The door to the bar opens and the bright light of the outside world invades the blackness to be eclipsed by a body as it enters. He looks up and sees a woman step into the swirling smoke from the cigarettes. Kind of a looker he thinks, long black hair and big boobs in a short dress. Probably a hooker. Does he have any time he wonders, more importantly does he have any money?

She goes up to the bar and orders a drink. It's been a long time he thinks. On the run, hiding like he has, he doesn't have much time to meet women and he doesn't have a lot of money to hire any. His best friend is his right hand when it comes to matters of intimacy. Maybe he has a chance and a little time, maybe he can stop running for an hour or so.

He is thinking these thoughts when she turns from the bar with her drink in one hand and a gun in the other and shoots him square between the eyes.

- Click -

White, all around him is white. It is so white that he sees no distance, no closeness, everything is white, everything is a blankness that invades his mind and makes him want to scream. Nothing. Nothing. And more nothing.

He wants to scream. Does he have a voice? Does he have a body? He puts his hands out in front of him but sees nothing. Where is his hand? It's all whiteness.

Click.....he's running.....Click......he's home with his Mom spying on him......Click......he's hiding but he's found and tranked again....Click......he's back in the lab where he's never really left......Click......where is he?

Who has the remote control that is ruling his life? Click it fast forward, click it reverse, click it to jump from one scene of his life to another.

- Click -

He's an old man hobbling along the path up the hill. He loves this time of year. The sun feels warm on his arthritic joints. Once he would have ran up these hills without a thought, now he can barely manage to hike up the path with his canes. Two canes, one in each hand, using them like a walker which he hates the idea of even having to think of needing.

A young girl walks alongside him. Is she his niece? His granddaughter? He's not sure. His mind is not as sharp as it used to be. Is she one of his captors?

“Tomorrow I might wake up a child. A click and I'm my way through the timeline of my life, not know where I will end up. One day I'm middle-aged, the next I'm an obnoxious teen, than I'm running for my life as a young man....”

The young girl looks up at him. She is walking slowly so as not to leave him behind. She says nothing, merely listens to him rattle on and on.

“I never know how long I will be in one age. I could be this old man for years and than wake up a six year old sitting in the back seat of a station wagon on a cross country trip to visit his dear old grand mother.”

She looks away from him, towards the top of the hill. She wonders if he'll be able to make it all the way to the top, he is an old man, prone to accidents as well as mental mishaps.

“I have no idea why I do this. All I know is that I'm like a ping pong ball ricocheting through time like this. I have no idea who is always chasing me, wanting to capture me and perhaps discover the secret my body possess.”

In the distance three young men were looking towards the old man walking up the hill with the younger woman and started after them. The young woman saw them approaching and reached into the pocket of her top and withdrew what looked like a remote control device for a t elevision set. She watched the three men come closer but did nor say anything.

They reached the top of the hill and paused. He needed to catch his breath even through it was a slow climb and not very steep. She looked back and saw the three men closer and than she t urned and looked at the old man and than she pressed a button on the remote control.

- Click -