A Tourist in Mayberry

Late August - Disappearances

Writer's Weekly: If you use a prologue, people will know you are an amateur. Forget the prologue and just jump right in to your story.

Damien was in a deep sleep, a sleep without dreams probably caused by the six pack of beer from the night before, when the roar of a vacuum cleaner woke him up.

"You gonna sleep all day?" came the higher pitched scream over the noise of the vacuum.

A scream back. "If I can help it. Dammit, Mama."

Mama stopped the vacuum long enough to pull a sock caught in the suction out and yell at her boy. "Quit that cussing. It just shows your ignorance." Mama was an expert on ignorance. "Time to get your ass outta bed and go look for a job. You ain't laying around here no more like some dumb ass while I work two jobs. Get up."

Damien was not that dumb, but he was dumb enough to quit high school. He exited formal education in middle school by only showing up every third day. He made it official the day he turned sixteen. He spent the next year quitting the real world and life altogether by playing video games all night and staying in bed all day. He did exactly what he wanted to do and became exactly what he wanted to be - worthless and good-for-nothing and completely dependent on a mother who worked two jobs while he slept and played.

"Get up, you sorry sack of shit."

A week and a half later when she filed the missing persons report, Damien's mother recalled her last words to him were: "You sorry sack of shit." In her own defense, she told the officer taking the report, "I was only trying to get him to make something of himself."

Damien's last words to his mom before he vanished were: "Ok, mama, it is only 2:15. Give me five more minutes, and I'll get up." Just to add insult to injury, he added, "Make me a sandwich for when I get up."

Two hours later than five more minutes, Damien got up and dressed in some jeans he found on the floor and his least smelly t-shirt. When he couldn't find his sandwich in the fridge, he headed to the Dairy Center to see his girlfriend, Sienna. He was going to find his buds and his girl and get some free grub.

Damien enjoyed taking things that belonged to other people. It was his hobby. As soon as he got to the Dairy Center, he stole a pack of cigarettes off an outdoor picnic table when someone turned their back. Since he prided himself on his reputation for being smooth, he asked the someone for a light. Someone lit his cigarette. Damien looked around for Sienna. Where was she?

Sienna was in the bathroom for the third time this shift, it seemed like she had to pee all the time now. She looked in the mirror, pulled a piece of loose hair out of her eyes and captured it with a bobby pin. Sienna was a natural blonde, with an unnatural teal blue streak in her hair that framed her face. Her round, baby face gave her an innocent appearance which was misleading because she was not innocent. She was Damien's on-again, off-again girlfriend since she was twelve and then naive to the ways of the world. She was not so naive now as to believe a boyfriend was all she needed for happiness and contentment. She wanted more out of life, and she was working hard to get the more.

Sienna was named for a specialty dye used in a long-since-gone sock mill her mom worked in when she found out she was pregnant. Sounds fancy, her mom thought.

Sienna was not fancy.

Sienna grew up in a dilapidated trailer in a decaying trailer park just out of town, and she was currently trying to pull herself out of poorness by working hard to save some money and working harder to get A's and the occasional B in school. To fuel her dream in times of darkness, Sienna created a mantra she said to herself each morning before she got out of bed: