Author: Tak

“Do you ever think of those things you should’ve done way back when? Stuff you know would’ve been a money spinner?

I’m not talking your ‘Oh, I should’ve started washing cars in my neighbourhood as a kid’ or ‘I thought of this website where you could connect with old friends, but Facebook got there first’.

I used to live in Japan in the 90s and back then, I bought so much crazy stuff because it was gimmicky or rare and very cool. So much collectible stuff that nerds like me would’ve killed for. I could’ve started a website and sold it to customers back home. I had the skills and I definitely had the time.

Son of a bitch…”

The ball of the pen pressed against the paper, indelibly denting it the longer it sat. He never was good with diaries.

“I don’t need you. I know that. I don’t believe any fully functioning adult truly needs somebody.

I was me before you and I’ll be me without you, albeit a different me, because of you.

But, I do miss you… or the idea of you. As time goes on, I’m less sure of which it is.”

 

The air began to taste metallic.

*beep* sounded the piercing alarm from god knows where.

Five seconds.

That’s all she had left. How did it come to this?

*beep* – four seconds.

Now wasn’t the time for a critique.

*beep* – three seconds.

“You son of a bitch, TURN!” she demanded, grabbing the rusted metal bar with both hands and throwing all her strength into a twisting motion that she felt throughout her entire body.

*beep* – two seconds.

Determined not to die there, she grit her teeth and tried again.

*beep* – one second.

The cry of metals forged together over aeons and now pulling apart with impossible ease, began to assault her senses.

She pressed her hands to her ears as hard as she could.

Over the rising cacophony, she nearly missed the last

*beep*.

She began to scream.

Even the dust seemed to swirl in Martian ways.

The flora and fauna, shipped gradually from Earth for the colonisation effort, helped make it seem more like home. Yet, there was always an underlying, niggling sensation that it all wasn’t quite right.

The morning sunlight scythed between the tiny gaps in the horizontal blinds.

It sliced its way through the still air in the room, highlighting the dust, suspended like planetoids in a miniaturised mobile.

Effortlessly, it found her right eye at the precise angle required to stir her from her pleasant dream about Sandra, her boxing instructor.

“So I’m taking a piss in this urinal at the concert and as the stream slows down, the bloody automatic flush starts, right?

Now, I’m paranoid about the water splashing back on me while I’m standing so close, so I back up quickly. There I am, in the middle of a busy toilet, pinching my dick in my fingers and waiting for the flush to finish so I can waddle back and shake my snake. Are you following me?

I don’t understand why they can’t make it go a few seconds later than it does.”

To her credit, the woman behind the counter didn’t bat an eyelid. Her expression suggested that this wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before. Certainly not at this hour.

“Anyway” he continued “I’ll have a vanilla thickshake and a six pack of McNuggets.”

‘Hey, you know if you need me to fudge your stuff, I’m there for you, right?’ offered Brian.

‘Like, fudge your… your scores or whatever. Your feedback… or whatever.’

He cringed at his own awkwardness.

He grimaced as the keeper of her riding crop cracked against his buttocks, leaving a reddening patch on his porcelain skin.

Steel heels clicked on the marble floor as she stalked deliberately around her suspended prey.

“Ow, fu-” she spat as a leather sole slipped on the polished stone and her ankle cracked in protest.

Assignment’s due on Thursday. Today’s Sunday.

So if I start now, that gives me… Ugh, why do I bring food into the study? I always leave mugs around. It’s not like I’m a messy drinker, but they always leave a ring on the glass. I wonder if I can pick up a set of cheap coasters on eBay?

When was the last time I vacuumed this carpet?

Those books are leaning in ways I don’t approve of. That one looks bent. Didn’t that cost like, $300? Maybe I could sell all my old textbooks on Fishpond.

Wow, is that dust on my guitar? I really should play it sometime. I bet it’s well out of tune.

I’m hungry.

Nope, I’m thirsty. It’s probably that thing where I’m dehydrated and it’s manifesting as hunger. I’m going to look that up on Wikipedia…

The can crinkled noisily as he tipped it to his lips and squeezed it for one last mouthful. He brought it down clumsily, disappointed. His tired eyes jittered as he groggily stared out at the dark waves of the ocean.

The moon began cresting over the horizon.

Briefly alarmed, he imagined the point of fiery red and orange to be the herald of a meteoroid bearing down on his very location on the chilled sands of the beach.

He shivered as the thought of impending inevitability shot down his spine and an unexpected moment of introspection struck…