Out Of Time (edit pending)

CHAPTER 5

Michael decided he could not just sit there any longer. Jetting up out of his seat he knocked the chair over. It fell without a thud. The silence of the chair hitting the floor, on top of everything else, was enough to move him past fear and confusion and into the natural progression of anger. Not wanting a constant reminder of how good the real world was while trapped in this limbo Michael yanked the picture from the wall and tossed it across the room. He watched in disbelief as the thick air worked on the picture and it steadily lost speed. By the time it struck the far wall it was moving too slow to be damaged by the throw. Like the chair it struck silently. Unlike the chair the picture never met the floor at all, after striking the wall it just hung there, held up by the thick air.

Emotions are a funny thing. Often they seem to have a mind of their own. Michael had heard many times that happiness was a choice someone could make. He didn’t exactly doubt this. He just felt there was more to it than that. Happiness, he believed, could indeed be chosen. It was however a very fragile choice. It required intense focus to hold on to when being forced or chosen. Actually sometimes it required that focus even when it happens naturally all on its own. Michael believed this was because each and every other emotion loved to take over randomly at the slightest stimuli.  Staring at the picture suspended in mid-air he all but completed lost his anger as bewilderment insisted on taking over. Suddenly that picture turned his mind back to the basketball he originally hoped to forget and he knew it was time to head out there and try to figure out what was going on. After all, he obviously wasn’t going to be whisked back to reality after 10 minutes.

He didn’t realize until stepping off of the front porch that secretly he had been hoping the air would be different outdoors. Every step still required effort, and his lungs still felt like they were halfway to suffocated. The exertion each step, each breath took was already starting to tire him out.  Pausing for breath (even though catching it was not possible at this point) he looked up and down the street hoping for some clue as to what was wrong with the world. He saw nothing more than he did from the window earlier.  Nothing had changed. The cars were all still in the same place, so was the almost bright sun, so were the basketballs.  And still there was no one in sight.

Had the apocalypse happened sometime over the last 10 days? Had it left behind this stale, thick air? Wouldn’t there be some indication if that were the case? Shouldn’t he see the bodies of his friends, neighbors, family? Shouldn’t there be some form of destruction? Every home, every yard, every bush, everything was perfectly intact. Accepting the fact that his eyes were not going to give him the answers he desired he headed towards uptown (or what past for such in their quiet little suburb).

He lived five blocks from the closest convenience store. Five blocks from the nearest newspaper. He hoped to find reports of some kind of pending doom. On the way he saw more of the same. Here there was a baseball hanging in the air in the middle of someone’s front yard. Here were a couple more cars just sitting in the road, here was on sticking out of a driveway at just the right angle to place it in the right lane of traffic were it to move back and join the street. Looking closer at the cars he noticed that much like the sun, the headlights were attempting to be brighter than the rest of the world and failing. As he approached the driveway the Ford was almost in he decided to have a look inside. One quick glance through the side window confirmed his fear. The car was indeed in reverse.

Yes, there was plenty of fear now. There was also anger, and bewilderment. Michael’s emotions had never been so fickle. But then again he’d never been alone in a stale world. Those three emotions were at war with each other. They all demanded his full attention and he was never aloud to feel two at the same time. He was feeling quite tri-polar and, as if the effort required to breathe and walk were not enough, his emotions were very quickly exhausting him.

Leaving the car behind he saw a lawnmower parked in the middle of a half cut front lawn. For some reason this disturbed him more than anything else had since leaving the home. It must have been the fact that behind the mower, all the way up to the rear tires, the grass was obviously freshly cut. It reminded him of mystery stories he had heard as a child. Of towns found empty with no explanation as to why. Dining room tables set for dinner as if it were just another day, no sign of trouble or struggle anywhere. Could he be in one of those stories? Could it be just his town? Is the rest of the world ok? But he couldn’t let himself hope for that. It would still leave him without a family. And besides how could that be possible with the stale air and stationary sun?

Reaching the store he found the door hung open by about two inches. No longer willing to wonder about stuff like why the door didn’t close itself he pushed it open fully (where it remained) and marched straight to the newspaper rack.  Local news.. nothing unusual. USA Today.. nothing. New York Times.. same. Not even an economic concern in the Wall Street Journal. Resigning himself to the fact that he may never know what happened to the world or why, Michael picked up a basket, loaded it with baked beans, Chef Boyardee and bottled water, and headed home.

On his way the lawnmower caught his attention one more time. On the trip to the store he had overlooked something next to the it. Squinting from two houses down he was pretty sure he knew what it was. He did not want to be right, nor did he want to investigate. He tried to convince his legs that he did not need a better view. They carried him to the mower anyway. Sure enough he was correct. There next to the chute on the side of the mower, suspended in mid-air, were the severed blades of grass one would expect to see flying out of the side of the mower.

At that point Michael instinctively knew he had enough information to figure out what was going on here. He could not however allow his brain to try and work it out. This was just all too much. Refusing to think anymore, not allowing himself to look anywhere other than where his feet were taking him, he finished his trek home. Emotionally drained from everything that had happened since his “ten minute adventure” had started, and physically exhausted from the effect of the thick, stale air, he headed straight to his bed room. Having never been comfortable in their bed without Natalie he stripped off the blanket, grabbed his pillow, and headed back to the couch. After the lawn mower he had somehow made himself stop noticing the world around him. He was oblivious to the fact that the blanket he had just yanked off his bed was not laying on it flatly.

Instead of seeking answers he wasn’t even sure he wanted anymore he let himself drift into sleep. There, in his dreams, the answers came to him.