"Almos."
It's one letter short of "almost". As in what could have been, what is just within grasp, only to slip through one's fingers. Possibly for what will be? As in, "we are almost there"?
"Almos," said the soft female voice, gentle but insistent. Why could he not catch up?
Pant. Pant. Pant. He was tired of running.
No. Almost means coming close and losing. Always.
He could hear the heavy stomps on the dew-riddled grass behind him.
Such a poisonous word.
Almost.
The dream had taken a strange turn; rather than running up to the edge and then dancing across it, like a frenetic tightrope walker, this time he just kept running toward it. He could see the horizon. Despite the greyness that hovered over the moors in this dreamscape, he saw lavender tinging the line where the sea ended and the heavens began.
He wanted to go there this time.
The stranger ran after him, and he tripped on a rock on the edge. He lost just enough of his balance to make his stomach lurch, but he caught the edge of the precipice with his hands. His grasp was firm.
The stranger, dark and shadowed, lifted his boot, ready to tread on the clenched fingers.
Not this time, he thought.
This time, he let go.
The creak of the busted sofa cushions was the first reminder to welcome Almos back to reality. The second was the smell, which while not overpowering had the odor of someone else's house, the smell of someone close to you but still not your smell.
Not the smell of air and lemon and dandelions.
"He awakes," came the gruff voice from the kitchen. His brother, Mark.
Almos remembered for the 677th morning in a row that he was not waking up in his own home.
"And how does the sleeping beauty feel today?" Mark called over from behind his newspaper.
Almos could read Mark's paper from where he stood [Headline – Hurricane Katrina: 2 Years Later] and frowned. "I'm in the clothes I wore yesterday." He wiped a stream of sweat off his head. "How do you think I am?"
He stripped off his grey sweater to the t-shirt underneath, kicking a couple of empty beer cans at his feet. He could not for the life of him remember why he had a sweater on the night before when it was in the 90s today and humid as Moses. He stretched and his head pounded with a hangover that was a terrible mix of alcohol and an excessive amount of sleep. When he stood and looked over at Mark at the small dining room table he saw Mark was handling his own hangover by tossing back his first Jack Daniels of the day.
"But it's good to see you're off to a flying start," Almos muttered.
"Start, nothin. It's 1:23 in the afternoon."
"What?!" Almos ran through the cramped, dingy living room to yank the shade open. "Agh, light!" His head gave another throb and he tried not to heave.
"Eh, no worries man, you've still got plenty of time to jackass around all day."
"No, I do not. Shit, shit, shit, I've got Saturday school, Mark!"
YOU ARE READING
Little Monsters
Romance*Coming soon.* Almos knows he's met his dream girl. He knows this because he only sees her when he sleeps, which is too much these days, even for a middle-aged teacher. Delia does not sleep much at all anymore. A fallen former journalist, her main...
