(Author’s note: Welcome aboard! So after the adventures of being SO creative last week, I had to deal with a week of problems and work. It is likely I will only be posting Fictioneers stuff for this week and next week, as I have a lot of assignments due for workshopping this week, as well as getting things started for some of my larger papers. So, for now, here’s the latest Friday Fictioneersstory.)
Tom Corrigan extended his middle finger toward his unfinished project.
As he drove his gas tanker on the expressway, he passed by the old building that was to be his crowning achievement. Or, rather, the demolition that was.
“That damn building cost me my job,” he grumbled to himself.
For but a moment he thought of this, then switched lanes and exited onto a side street. He took another turn, heading back the direction he went. He reached the street that the landmark building stood on and sneered at it.
“I can’t let a job go unfinished,” he cried out, mashing the gas and shifting the gears.
Welcome aboard once again. A lot of things have happened this week that have caused me to lower my writing threshold once again. I should be able to write more this next week. In the meantime, if you have not liked my Facebook author’s page, please go here and do so. It’ll give you notifications of when I post and whatnot.
Here’s this week’s offering for Friday Fictioneers!
Currently writing this on the road…in Suwon, South Korea (the capital of Gyeonggi Province). Enjoy what my mind throws up!
Copyright-Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Manic Monday
by Miles Rost
I never thought I knew of a place called hell. That is, until I found myself in a delivery job in Beverly Hills.
“You need to drop the first set of packages in the back alley behind the consignment store next to the Victoria’s Secret on Rodeo Drive, but not the Victoria’s Secret expansion across the alley,” my boss told me.
It was like he was speaking Korean to me. I looked at him sideways.
“What’s the name of the consignment store?” I asked.
“How am I supposed to know? I don’t do deliveries!”
So I went with my gut and looked for the Victoria’s Secret store. There were 5 of them within 2 blocks of Rodeo Drive. So I put them in the back alley, on a building that said “Rags to Riches”, next to the Victoria’s Secret.
I was fired the next day for incompetence. When my boss couldn’t even tell me the right place.
I think I’m going to go to the beach and punch a mime.
A long while ago, I had told the story of an incident where my “future wife spirit” had come to visit me and inform me that I was to wait for her. Naturally, I was skeptical, and after it was all over, I wasn’t able to get any sleep the rest of that night.
The next day, for the record, I was incredibly useless at work and was raked over the coals by my boss for being a “paperweight around the ankles of this firm”. One day, I vow I will leave that company and never look back.
To say the least, it got worse. I had the prescience of mind to go and visit my pastor, who deemed me as being either incredibly insane, a newly initiated member of a cult, or a new apostle. In that order. He wasn’t much of a help on this, lemme tell ya.
Fast forward to three months later. By this time, I nearly forgot about what happened. I went through my daily life, doing what I do, and just being sad about my situation. I came home from work as the sun was at the most perfect position in the sky. I walked out to my patio, opened a bottle of IPA, and looked out over the neighborhood and at the sun. It was probably the first time since that night when I actually had peace in my heart.
I went back inside and sat down on my bed, as I was in a studio apartment. I felt a bit sad, because while I was at peace with most things, I was back to the old habit of mine about seeing my life ticking away. I even kicked myself a little bit because I was thinking about an old girlfriend who I likely could have been in a long-term relationship with, had I not been a greedy little buggard.
In the midst of this darkening of my mood, and as the sun went down over the horizon, a gust of wind came in from the window. I looked up and I saw the misty form from before, this time being a little bit more corporeal. She sat next to me on my bed and smiled.
This time, I was able to recognize that it was a feminine smile, and that she was much more defined as feminine, though I was unable to see the rest of the defining features of her.
“Seems like you were starting to forget about me.”
I looked at her and sighed heavily.
“Well, I figured that you were a one-time dream that was the result of eating a spicy pizza.”
She giggled at my statement, which in my eyes was kind of cute.
“When it comes to God and things, that has a tendency of being the case. But, I’m here now.”
“So, my future wife spirit, why have you come today?”
She smirked as she stood, and turned towards me.
“I am here to spend a little time with you. The time will come soon when we meet, and you’ve had a lot of problems lately.”
I looked at her with a little disbelief, and decided that now would be the best time to really challenge her and see if she was exactly what she said she was.
“Okay, what would some of these problems be?”
“Well, you hate your job and want to get away from there, but you can’t because you need the money to pay the bills that got you the job in the first place.”
I pikued at this. Okay, first guess is a lucky one.
“Then, in the process of forgetting what happened before when I last visited, you became lonely and were thinking about an old girlfriend of yours.”
Okay, that froze me.
“That’s why it was decided for me to come over here and spend a little time with you while my person sleeps.”
This is the point where I suddenly felt sad about everything, and that she knew so much about what was going on. It was pathetic, that I seemed to be so hopeless in my life, that I needed a reminder about things from the spirit of my future wife. I even started to shed a couple of tears, which made her sit beside me on the floor by my bed. She brushed her finger against my face, and the cold appendage took away one of my tears.
“But how can I even trust you? I mean, you say all of these things, and I remember asking you about your service to Christ before. But, still, you’re just a spirit. How am I supposed to know if this is truly happening, or if I’m being tricked?”
She sat for a second, and said something that I never would have expected.
“I think that “go with your gut” would be good advice.”
Aaaand that’s where I became sold on the idea that this was, in fact, the spirit of my future wife.
That night, I pretty much told her everything. Everything I felt, everything that I was dealing with. And I talked about my regrets to her.
She giggled at my suggestion, and she smiled. Before we knew it, the night had passed and there was dawn that was about to break. She looked up and gasped.
“Oh, this is not good. I’m going to be waking up soon, and I don’t want to leave.”
“What would happen if you did stay?”
“Simply put, I would disappear. Consciousness would wake my dreaming self, and until the next major time I’d dream, I would not be able to come here.”
The thought of her disappearing in front of me was not a good one for my psyche.
“It’s a cold morning, my guardian wife spirit. You should fly back to yourself. Don’t worry about me, I think I’ll be fine now.”
She smiled at me, and gave me a ghostly kiss on my forehead. It…felt cold, but yet warm at the same time.
“I will hopefully see you in the waking world very soon. Keep praying for me, that you’ll see me. And keep yourself ready. Christ’s gonna make things happen in pretty short order here.”
I was about to say something, but she suddenly wisped out of the room and through the window. As the first crack of sunlight started rising above the buildings, I was filled with a bit of sadness, and yet a little bit of hope.
“She’s actually out there,” I said to myself, as I proceeded to call my boss and leave a message saying that I was sick for the day. Yeah, after this event, there was no way I was going into work.
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