Calamitude Jackson

chap. 3

There is still a little bit of sunlight shining on the scene below me.

A man with a megaphone is standing in the center of it all with my father.

I can see the man's wide white smile even from the second story. He's smartly dressed in a black suit and an ugly shade of purple tie. He looks like he's in his thirties. I wonder what decisions he made in his life that got him where he is now. Standing in a millionaires front yard, with a megaphone, telling the millionaire's head-case son to "turn himself in".

He is staring right at me.

"You don't want to go disappointing your father, now do you?" Mr. Smiles asks.

Looking at my father I see he is also wearing a suit, as he usually does. But his suit looks newly ironed and is dark blue as opposed to Mr. Smiles' more casual attire. He tries to look as proffessional as he can and he succeeds in doing so, along with emitting a certain air of seeming distant and cold, which is a much more accurate description of him.

I try looking at him but he won't meet my eyes. It seems like he should be fussing with his tie like most men who are feeling significantly nervous do. But he doesn't do that, not once have I ever seen him adjust his tie. It seems to always already be properly fitted and comfortable enough to suppress the need to muck about with it.

Ties are his favorite accessory, always have been. I've never cared much for them myself which was another let down for my father. I guess it's another one of the many things that makes us so polarizingly different.

So instead of moving his tie around he stares at something else, avoiding my gaze. A deliberate action that hasn't the need to be masked with the fidgeting of someone's clothing.

In answer to Mr. Smiles' question, I nod.

Impossibly, his smile seems to get wider. "All right then," he points at me, "See, I knew you were a smart young man. Well, come on down."

I think this over and decide to just head down there. I've caused enough trouble today. But the nagging feeling of, I don't know what is sticking to me like a leech from a dirty river.

I turn around and start heading towards the nearest flight of stairs. My legs are a little wobbly from running so visciously earlier.

With a horrible shaky sigh I march downstairs, feeling like how I think men walked up the steps of the hanging platform. My feet drag and my arms hang limply at my sides. My soul is so tired. Almost as an afterthought I'm reminded of Kajac.

Now I know what the emotion that I couldn't think of earlier is. It's wrongness.

I rack my brain for his presence but don't find it anywhere. I even checked under the rug. Twice.

Feeling too much like the dejected doll at the store that was manufactured wrong and only came out with one eye, than a human should ever feel in their life.

My uniform's jacket is getting too hot so I merely take it off and throw it onto the floor while I'm still walking. Not even caring too look back at it.

I imagine it resembles a sad, little rejected lump of cotton in the middle of a large, dark opulent hallway. If I had looked back, I would have related to it too much that I would have thought it was my reflection in the mirror.

During all my depressive thinking I must have drifted off because all too quickly I find myself in the foyer. Deperate, I looked around me like a rabbit in the middle of a field, getting startled at every sound. The great oak front doors open, revealing the scene that I saw from a higher viewpoint.