Silvertroll

The Van

The damn buzzing phone.

I wake up in pain to find it's still a predawn sky above me.

Last night, after going on a personal record-breaking bender, the Silvertroll had sent me another link but I avoided clicking it. I knew what it was, and what the video showed. I close my eyes and try to go back to sleep, but the unfriendly, posture-breaking park bench is not helping. I decide to watch the damn video stream. Yesterday's embarrassment has now faded, so my curiosity compels me to analyse just what went down. I still feel pathetic about it. Without a good debriefing to evaluate how I got this wrong, and how I got my ass kicked, I figure I'd have less of a chance to catch the Silvertroll. 

Time is slipping away. I bring the phone inside the blanket and do a search. The veejay posting the video goes by the pseudonym 'The Cyberbully'.

Fitting.

"Holy cow..." comments The Cyberbully over the stream of me fighting the Laptop Man. "Ouch, Ouch, Ouch," The Laptop Man gets the upper hand. He is well-balanced with his feet, using his momentum to put me to the ground.

Fucking rookie mistake.

Another thought strikes me.

Who the fuck is this Cyberbully, and how did he get to filming this?

The angle and zoom indicates the person who shot this had to be in close proximity. I rack my brain, pushing it to recreate and visualise the scene, but the only face I can recall is the girl who came to my rescue.

After scaring off the Laptop Man, she smiled, nodded and strutted off down the street, her precision with her red shoes next to none. 

Pathetic.

I get up, frustration adding to my restlessness. My verdict is to get back in shape. I could have taken on that guy. I grew up fighting. I was into martial arts, a gym junkie, its just that the last few years of my life had been consumed by...

... an insidious form of age-related laziness.

I hide the blanket in a plastic bag, place it under the bench and walk put into the shadows, over to the public fitness equipment bay. I begin with stretches, then a few push-ups on the parallettes. The grey morning sky finally lights up the entire park, revealing the morning joggers going about their business.

After completing my three sets, cheating during the last, I decide to join the joggers and cyclists on the narrow path. Within a few minutes, my muscles are burning, my chest unable to draw in enough oxygen. I slow down, to catch my breath, determined not to surrender to my poor state of fitness. The river is close, its waters offering some form of tranquillity to my soul. When the cells in my body become accepting of the trauma, I sprint across a footbridge. I stop and look across at the serene body of water. A vast mirror, hiding the slime, garbage and shopping trolleys that lurk underneath.

Reaching the opposite shore, I follow the river until it resembles a canal. I stop at a parking lot, thinking it a good point to turn and go back.

To what?

A bright orange sticker catches my eye, stuck on the windscreen of a white van. I jog up to the decrepit vehicle.

Abandoned.

Faded paint, patches of rust, interior full of rubbish and milk crates, to me this is a decent treasure find. It can clean this up, hot-wire it, surely, and use it as a base of operations.

Shelter.

Transportation.

My day is starting to look promising.