GuNNhead

Waking up to a mulleted guy holding a gun to your face is a great way to start a very bad day. Firstly it’s disorienting, then it gets worse when your room feels turned around, and for some reason your shower door’s in your room, broken. Only seeing both the door to your room and the door to your apartment smashed-in re-orients you, and you notice that you just woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

“Why’d you do it, man? You can’t just ruin someone’s life like that,” he says.

I recognize him somehow, but don’t know him at all. Familiar face. Before either of us can get answers, I actually wake up. Same side of the bed. Two of my doors are still broken into, however. I launch a quick investigation that’s cut even shorter when I pass by the bathroom on my way to check out the front door and notice an ex-girlfriend inside, wearing one of my towels.

“Oh good, you’re finally up!”
“Finally up? You broke in two of my doors.”
“I knooooow, soooorry, but it was important and you weren’t responding to any of my calls.”
“I never respond to any of you communiques, because I no longer have to. You’re going to pay for this.” I walk away to finish my search of the place. “Come on.” I take her downstairs, where we end up having to wait for the landlord. Apparently the only thing that needs to be on time in their minds is rent.

“I don’t know how you slept through that, I mean, I know how, I saw the empties and know you can black out, pass out, like that, just never knew it was to such and extreme degree. I must have been calling and knocking forever.”
“And the second door?”
“Well, once I was inside and saw your jacket and boots, I just had to make sure you were okay.”
“I swear to grud, women get crazier every year, crazy, crazy bit–” a cat walks by, cutting my thoughts short “Hey- cutie, ” I say to the cat, and pet it. It heads inside, towards the landlord. I didn’t think it was possible for those in their profession to care for things, then it clicks.
“It’s a cute cat.”
“He’s a he.”
“That’s a fucking synthoid and you know it,” I turn to the ex, “come on.”

She pays for the doors, and I march her back up to the apt.
“So, what’s this all about?”
“Oh, nothing now, you know, you’re in such a bad mood. I just really wanted to hear your voice, y’know, see a friendly face, I got worried when you didn’t answer your phone, and panicked.”
“My face hasn’t been friendly since you sliced it during our ‘relationship discussion’ five years ago.”
“Poor choice of words, look, I’m sorry, I just mess things up.”
“I know you do, please leave.”
“I can still call later, right? Is this about the doors? You really need to stop being so sensitive.”
“And now the please is gone. Get out.”

A week or so later I’m at a rooftop party where everyone is wearing those terrible relic Hawaiian shirts. That’s when I see the mullet-guy, I go straight for him when he asks: ‘hey, how goes, man’ in a totally dickish way, smiles and waves. I grab him by the throat, and am about to punch him in the face when out of the corner of my eye I also see him ten feet away, making that very same smile and wave. I realize that I’m strangling someone completely different and let him go. I look around, but can’t see him again. Having made a scene, I grab my coat and leave.

Riding my jetbike home clears my head like 90 miles into a brick wall, and I realize that no matter how important your looks are, you should never steal a time-device from the inventor, especially if you don’t know how to fix it. The memories are fading, but it’s gone from where I stashed it. I call my ex, but there’s no answer.

This entry was posted on January 14, 2013 at 3:33 am and is filed under Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.