Transgression (Prequel #1)

13 - Somewhere to Belong

Honk!

Blinking twice, Alex peered with squinted disarray to his rear-view mirror where the SUV behind him inched closer. Slowly his eyes tracked all the way to the traffic light above; it was green. Inhaling sharply, he released his foot off the brake and stomped on the gas, jerking forward and going on his way. Each passing yellow line on the road felt like a cage he scraped up against. Oncoming traffic mere feet away; an arbitrary barrier between life and death which society mutually agreed not to tempt.

Looping over and over in a state of confusion, Alex drove to work with no sense of awareness. This foreign feeling left him scratching at his leg, dabbing his cigarette in the ashtray; having not placed it to his lips in minutes. Unfocused eyes barely kept track of the rules he was meant to follow, with stoplights acting as checkpoints, a progression of time.

The other grounding factor was the blue tarp partially taped to the outside of his window with a gap wide enough to peek at traffic and see his mirror. A constant slap of the wind beat the tarp against his eardrums making it impossible for him to ignore. Tangled in a web of nightmares that plagued the entire weekend, he shuddered. Slouched in his seat, one leg tapping lightly, he drew a long breath from the smoke and reduced it to a stub.

The butt hit the pavement, but his hand remained in position, stiff and trembling. He couldn't stop thinking about that boy, and this little sensitive puncture under his ribs. Acknowledging the wound, it pulsed with pain as though aware. He flinched, tightening his shoulders and scowling. Many visions of death flashed before him as the days following progressed. Since that night, nothing has felt real. Everything was transparent.

The next morning after the fight took place, he entered the bathroom to get changed and noticed something impossible. The strange black bruising was gone, and the puncture hole didn't appear normal. In the way that the skin around it was clean, smooth. A perfect tunnel without seeming torn, fleshy, or bloody. Sickened and perplexed by this, he chose to ignore it. Instead, his thoughts transitioned to something related but not direct.

One such horror that left him muttering in his bed, was a dream of faces he didn't recognize; children all gathering in hysteria. They wept, tethered to malicious shadows that slowly engulfed them and bore the same disparaging eyes. Feeling bloated, he unlatched his belt buckle and let the retention suck the strap back in. Vulnerable, he sighed in relief. At the next stoplight, he lifted his right arm away from the ashtray and gripped the wheel tight.

With two cautious left turns, he finally arrived in the dirt parking lot and rested his car in the usual spot. Before exiting the vehicle, he glared tiredly at the tarp and repeated over and over in his head what time his appointment was tomorrow to get it fixed. All he needed was that check to be dropped off. Today, he lobbed his keys in the center console and jumped out of the car, not even bothering to lock it. Beginning his day with a dreadful strut towards the corner of the building, he made the conscious decision to combat these straying reflections. It was difficult, but he had to concentrate on his work.

The first part of the day went by quickly. Alex was greeted with an unusual smile from TJ and thankfully didn't get much of a harsh look from the crew. Everyone appeared to have a case of 'The Mondays' and just worked like they were supposed to, making significant progress on laying the new flooring. The floor provided, arrived on the back of a massive truck which couldn't fit down the dirt drive. So, the crew had to be constantly watched as they walked all the way from the side door to the truck parked along the main driveway and back with long stacks of wood. Each board required three people to carry it the distance.

That process of unloading the truck ate up much of the morning and quickly exhausted the crew. However, once inside, the pace changed significantly. Now half of the crew had to cut the boards to appropriate measurements, while the other half began laying the spongey impact layer over the concrete. This type of work allowed for banter between Alex and TJ.