Striptease

Captivate

[A Few Hours Before]

[Charlie]

"Hey, man, that was one hella run. See ya next week?"

The voice of one of my old pals from the army, a service I had left only mere months ago to pursue the opportunities that were waiting beyond it, spoke as we slowed down to a mere jog alongside the sidewalk.

It was hot that morning in New Hampshire, hotter then its usual weather in springtime but I wasn't one to complain about it.

There were worse things in life than being a little sweaty after a good six mile run.

Like, just as an example here, being trapped in a small, metal room with a dozen other sweating dudes in the middle of the fucking desert while you're all trying to sleep except nobody can sleep when there's fucking gunfire going off just outside your hidden camp and you've only been there for half a day!

Like I just, just an example right?

Except it wasn't just an example or a flipped perspective….That used to be my life and now, I had to head back to a semblance of normalcy dealing with everyday people.

After dealing with shit that most young males shouldn't ever have to deal with for so many years, I was forced back into a society that rejected the notion of me belonging here.

So what was I to do about it?

That's an easy enough solution that any drunk can figure out.

I drowned out the screams, the gunshots, all the pain, in whiskey, scotch, any sort of hard liquor that could get me drunk enough to the point where I blacked out.

Where nothing made sense anymore and the only thing that mattered was continuing to fuel the raging fire inside of me.

The burning anger that couldn't be snuffed out or suffocated to death.

Most of the time, the liquor did the trick but sometimes, I didn't feel like shooting my liver to shit so here I was.

Running.

Again.

Except this time I wasn't running to escape death, I was running for the hell of it because it's supposed to be good for you.

Or at least, that's what the doctors told me.

Good for me.

Yay.

"Yeah, somethin' like that."

I said over my shoulder towards the old army pal as I had just spotted my car and was beginning to make my way across the street towards it.

After all, I didn't want to stick around for chitchatting, I just wanted to grab a fucking shower in the luxury of my own home because I was sweating as much as a roasted pig out here.

Waving goodbye to my old friend, I must've not been looking where I was walking, or perhaps some God out there had orchestrated this to happen on purpose because I have not been a good man in my life, because the next thing I knew, car headlights were flashing at me, tires were screeching and the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the windshield of a car before flopping to the ground was heard from miles away.

At first, it seemed like something that might've happened in the movies or to someone else I once knew.

But then the pain hit.