Annamation: A New Weird Urban Fantasy (Book 1)

Chapter 1: Group Therapy

Eight minutes late.

Fritz scanned the soaking wet flyer in his right hand. Through the bleeding and water soiled jumble of ink, a headline stood out in bolded Helvetica.

10:00pm. Firm.

He scrambled down the stairwell and inhaled a desperate breath of sooty basement air. Fritz dropped the wet crumpled flyer in the garbage as he approached a coffee pot on a worn folding table. He tapped the edge of the Styrofoam cup with a red straw before flicking it onto the floor.  He adjusted a piece of string knotted around his neck. The bottom half was hidden under his shirt. Fritz felt a draft and turned, still nothing was there. Maybe today. Maybe today will be the day they finally left him alone.

            "Okay. Just this once. Just to see,” Fritz whispered to himself.        

            He swiped the cup in his hand, squeezed and then drank the final drops of the sour coffee that had been festering in the pot.  Its smooth give was a stress reliever, a starchy textured anxiety suppressant. Fritz pulled his coarse long black hair into a messy ponytail as he entered the room. He noticed nine others sitting in ruddy orange or blue plastic chairs, reminiscent of state underfunded outpatient clinics. A woman muttered in a low tone as the other eight leaned forward to listen to her.

            "And that's why—" she said close to ending.  

            You could hear the singular sound of cloth swiping against plastic as they all twisted in their chairs and gawked at Fritz. A man in the circle, wearing a buttoned pre-shrunk denim shirt and a matching smug expression, lifted a clipboard from an empty chair. He read a name off of a list.  

            "Mr. Lang?"

            Fritz looked up adjusting his transparent red frames.

            "Yes?"

            "Please, come have a seat."

Fritz flashed a half-hearted smile as he took a seat.

            "Well, somebody didn’t set their alarm this morning! No worm for you, huh?” said the denim shirted man standing much too upright.”You see, we've already gotten this whole ball thing rolling so to speak. Tell me Mr. Lang, were you not aware that this group started at 10pm?" The cheerful invalid nodded slowly at Fritz. Fritz glanced at all the other members with cryptic and dead expressions sunk on their faces.  

            He squinted at the sticky paper name tag underneath the light denim collar: Dennis.

"Dennis, it's just 10:08," Fritz uttered.

“This membership is exclusive, and—”

Fritz interrupted, “A homeless man passed out flyers at a McChowie’s…”

            "Just take this," Dennis said.

            Fritz looked down at the green sticky name tag. He peeled it quickly and slapped it on his left side. You could hear the sound of his shoes scuff the linoleum floor as he took a seat. The room temperature was sweltering; it was a boiler room basement at the bottom of a learning annex. The others in attendance weren’t exactly a happy bunch. There was a man with a hunch in his back and so many wrinkles on his face it was damn near melting off. A youngish woman sat relaxed against her chair. She had lips so chapped that they could have been fly paper. Unfortunately for everyone, she also took all the liberty to peel the dry skin in full view of the group, lay it on her tongue and swallow it. Apparently, each new piece was more succulent than the last.