Street Address

STREET ADDRESS

p.s.

         Phil was minutely aware of the eyes boring into him from behind curtains in the building in front of him. He could feel cool water running in rivulets down his face. Distantly, he could hear the crying of his five month-old daughter as they sat on the drenched couch next to him on the sidewalk. He was stone cold. All that his family possessed was piled in the parking lot getting soaked in the torrential down-pour. His consciousness was fading, his mind flipping back like an open book to the wind, turning and turning, but not catching on any page. The curtains slowly filled his vision, expanding like a camera moving toward close-up, the white rustling curtains and the heavy rain...

*  *  *  *

         The mist was a thin veil that danced before the eyes, then slowly descended. Philip had awakened to find the morning clothed in a wet, grey overcoat skulking over his balcony. A vagabond dawning outside, waiting to ruin his day as he stared into the adjacent park. Were he in England, he'd have long since died from one too many days like this. With coffee mug in hand he stepped onto the bare glistening balcony concrete and sourly sighed. Then he was caught by the sight of the naked fall trees across the way and the light crystalline blanket that enveloped them. Droplets of water, like Christmas tree ornaments hung from the tips of leaves. A managerie in natural artistry, no two trees alike.
         "Beautiful!" he whispered to himself, ('You'll miss it') suddenly intruded upon his thoughts. He hadn't been able to shake the suspicion that they were going to lose the roomy apartment overlooking the creek in Alum Spring, Fredericksburg. He and his wife, Theresa, had honeymooned here three years back. Until Tabitha had arrived last May, they had lived quietly save for the songs of the neighboring crickets. Fredericksburg had been home and peace for the little family.
         The lay-off a month ago in September now threatened that peace. Fear of eviction without a place to go loomed in his every waking thought. The past month and a half were fraught with anxiety and sleeplessness, but Phil kept prowling the thoroughfares of his quaint city, his '$5 an hour town' as he liked to call it - all at the swordpoint of overdue rent. At night, he wrote to dispel ghosts and the dread that chased him. He would wrestle with this personal demon, ('Who are you kidding?!') riding him like a surfer the waves. One editor confirming his doubts wrote: 'People don't want to hear about Vietnam anymore. They want to hear about this popular war. Do you have any family who served in Desert Storm?!' the slip read.
         Kissing his wife goodbye, he lingered with the baby a moment shaking his head, nuzzling her neck sadly. Touching his tie one more time in the mirror, he exited.
         "We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of jobs!", he tried to bouy his mood as he got into the old Coronet. This morning would be like the others. He drove, filled out applications here and there, then drove on to the next department store or business. Although it usually did, the work of searching didn't relieve the gnawing in his stomach today. A spectre colored the thoughts at the back of his mind. Maybe I can outrun them, he thought as he trounced on the gas peddle and the 318 engine shot white lines at him, disappearing under the front hood of the Dodge.

*  *  *  *

         The rusty green Coronet slowly turned into the wet parking lot, and at first Phil thought Alum Spring was having a garage sale. Then he realized, his thoughts frantically back peddling over the events of the days and the months as they all fell together solidifying into the scene before him. The articles on the parking lot sidewalk were not arranged, but piled, thrown about. A siren went off in his head as he locked eyes with his wife's deadened stare and he recognised the little thing crying in her arms on the couch outdoors. But she hadn't recognised him, or the sound of their big old car, or the baby crying. The monster was unmasked, the one that had been haunting him all day. As he stepped out of the car, sleep walking over to where his family was huddled. Suddenly, the smell of the air changed. A wind came up carrying the scent of condemned, derelict buildings strewn with old papers and wet must. It filled his nostrils. He almost fell over, a light sweat breaking out all over his body and the wind whipping the mist over him gave him a deep chill. Adrenaline poured into his bloodstream and his heart hammered as it broke. He drifted over to the mound of pictures, lamps, chairs and assorted papers stacked heckledy-peck in the parking lot.
         "What...." was all that tumbled out of his mouth. His jaw hung in space and his facial features started to glaze over as each gouging scream from his daughter's twisted red, wet cheeks slashed him open deeper and deeper. The scene of how they probably hustled her out of the building auto-played itself out across the theatre of thought that he now had no control of. The pain in his wife's still face was maddening. His mind spun out of gear, as the surroundings grew dim. At that exact moment the fine curtain of mist broke, turning with malice and without warning into a violent cloudburst.

THE END