Wade sat eating a pie, it was his favourite food but lately it was becoming a bit bland for him. He ate it everyday at least once each day but he thought that if it weren't for him drinking it with soda of all things he would've lost taste for pie. He paid and left the cafe full but not quite satisfied. He lived a lonely life, all on his own in this place, pie wasn't the most important thing in the world to him but sometimes he felt it was all that was left for him.
He looked down as he walked studying the cracks and lines in the concrete path. In an instant he cocked his head up at the sound of yelling. He was startled as a car swerved off the road, tipped a blue sedan and nearly hit him, he stood up without a scratch, luckily for Wade. But unfortunately for the unruly driver his own car wasn't in as good a state. The driver door opened revealing a bearded man inside, before he could run ten feet he was confronted by another man with a similarly dented car.
"What the hell are you doing driving around like that?"
"Just mind your own business I was just on a nice Saturday afternoon joy ride!" the bearded man replied
"I smell alcohol on your breath." the other retorted
"What's it to ya!" Said the man clearly drunk
"You're under arrest." The other pulled out a police badge. 'Ouch! Must be tough for the drunk guy.' Wade thought. He gave his shoulders a single violent shake and turned on his heel to leave realising the danger he was in.
Wade continued walking on the concrete path home, shoulders shaking ever so slightly all the way. He had OCD, focusing intensely on a single pattern or sequence helped him cope and right now at this moment he was mesmerised at the cracks and lines in the cement. He only looked up occasionally to see incoming people and to see if cars were coming when he crossed the road. It was hard and even boring to do but it's better than lying in the hospital or for everyone to look at you like you're crazy when you're jittering and spasming.
He got home after sunset. He turned on the TV after a bath and tuned in to the evening news.
'A burglar has been lurking about the suburbs of Carn, he is described by witnesses as a tall white male with short cropped hair, a dark complexion, a black tattooed left eyelid and tattoos running across his left hand........'
"Pity." Wade said to himself, shaking his head. He wasn't quite scared because he had faced burglars and muggers before. But he wasn't so sure about tonight. It was a tough neighbourhood but he got used to it. He shook his head again disappointed at the thought.
After clicking through channels, head shaking all the while, for a mind-numbing thirty minutes he turned off the TV and retreated to bed.
He made his way to his bedroom just a few feet from the living room. This entire house was cramped. He reached for the doorknob with his thumb tapping away at each finger. He willed it to stop and turned the knob.
As he lay in bed he unconsciously watched shapes dance in his field of vision, circles and crooked lines and curves as he focused he felt himself get calmer. Floaters were one of the many things he focused on to calm himself. He heard deep sounds, thuds and clicks and sharp twangs. They sounded like the electronic kind of sounds you hear just before you completely plunge into sleep. They became more frequent the harder he focused and then he noticed other sounds, sounds only a human could make.
An angry grunt opened Wade's eyes, he turned his head by impulse and saw the doorknob jiggling. One more tick and his head struck the bed frame and he jolted up, fully awake and aware. The man opened the door and lunged at Wade who rolled off the bed, landing on his feet. The man flew at Wade in the dim moonlit room.
"Please I don't have any money." He begged
The man responded by putting a large hand around Wade's throat and lifting him off the floor.
Wade countered with a kick to the groin sending the bulky intruder's arms to his crotch, bending into a crouch.
In the direct moonlight from the one window the burglar kneeled in pain, Wade could make out a dark spot around his left eye. He knew for sure that he didn't punch him there, but he also knew that only one other person had that same mark, the wanted burglar.
The man reached out to the dazed and scared Wade with a heavily tattooed left hand. Wade mindlessly put up his own hands and blocked his face in fear. He knew it wouldn't help against this brute but he couldn't think of anything else.
All he could hear was his own breath, he waited for a strike that would never come. In the dark silence of his mind he was strangely calm, still confused he finally opened his eyes. The man was in a semi-crouching stance slightly bending over to reach Wade, but he was stuck in place.
Upon looking closer Wade saw that the man was moving but just very slowly, and so was everything else in the room.
The phrase 'Pinch me I'm dreaming' was what went through Wade's head in that moment, he got up and slowly glanced around the room. A few books in the bookshelf hovered in the air as they warped in slow motion to the floor. Shards of mirror glided around the bedside dresser like aluminum foil, the lights on the radio flashed in sequence every three seconds. In the insanity Wade stood with his mouth gaping open, hyperventilating.
He didn't know how long it was but it was enough for him to yell half mad and as he did a light burst out of his own hand and engulfed the man in flames, burning him to ashes.
The light retreated back into Wade as time slowly returned to normal.
A pungent odour lingered in the air as Wade crawled back into bed, exhausted.
YOU ARE READING
Time On My Mind.
Science FictionA man lives with OCD, he struggles to cope in a seemingly dull town. One day a burglary reveals that there may be more to his disorder than he thought and his town, his entire life in fact has more going on than he initially thought.
