The Wrong Way to Wake Up

I awoke with a start, not knowing why.  Light filtered into the room from the thin curtains on the windows, suggesting I had long overslept my normal waking hour.  I started to throw the covers off, but I felt confined, as if the sheets were wrapped around me. Peering beneath the clinging blanket, the cause of my sense of imprisonment became apparent; I was fully dressed, including a zippered jacket.

Then, as I swung my feet over the side of the bed, I saw the footwear embracing my feet and ankles, well-worn high-top work boots with leather laces.

My confusion and sense of alarm grew as I noticed the large black dog sitting beside the padded armchair across the room, panting with its tongue hanging out, gazing intently at me.  The dog staring at me, motionless, was not alone.  Next to it, atop a wad of crumpled newspapers on the chair, a tiny kitten, its front legs and back legs each tied together as a pair with twine, tried fruitlessly get free of the cord.

My bewilderment escalated at hearing a booming female voice outside the room call out, “Bailey, are you up?” It was a voice I recognized, but couldn’t quite place.  “Bailey, it’s time for breakfast. Get up, honey.”

The hinges of the bedroom door squealed as the door burst open. “Bailey, dammit it, get up or you’ll fix your own breakfast!”

In walked a tall, blonde woman, her skin the color of cream adulterated with coffee, wearing a neon pink shirt and nothing else.  “What the hell’s wrong with you, Bailey?!  It’s almost 6:45 in the morning, time you were up and gone!”‘

My name wasn’t yet Bailey.  But this woman, a woman I’d never seen before, seemed to know me by that name.

A year later, I would know all about the dog, the kitten, the boots, and the coffee lady. A year later, I’d know myself as, and be known as, Bailey. It would all come together for me in a volcanic explosion of ecstasy and revenge, much like every other revelation I’ve experienced since becoming the willing target of this woman’s wanton lust.

What comes next, my friends, is the tale of what took place during that tumultuous year between that morning, when I awoke fully dressed and wearing work boots, and this morning, when I awoke to find the bathroom littered with blood-soaked bodies, people I may have killed. Or maybe they died at the hands of someone else, someone more sinister than I.

This flew out of my head and through my fingers too quickly.  And I haven’t bothered looking back at it to see where the fatal flaws might be.  That notwithstanding, I think I may continue on, telling the story of that grisly year, and THEN return to it to see whether warrants shredding, after all. Then again, I may never return to this piece.

About John Swinburn

"Love not what you are but what you may become."― Miguel de Cervantes
This entry was posted in Absurdist Fantasy, Fiction, Writing. Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to The Wrong Way to Wake Up

  1. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Pauline!

  2. IT’S TIME YOU WRITE THAT BOOK!!

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