Morning all. Really wanting that coffee this morning. Had dreams of being berried alive. Any time I woke from one of them I’d fall asleep and find someone else was trying to bury me alive. Hopefully the morning prompt will shake the thought off. So timers set and off we go.
Well no buried alive and no accident for me but I think I gave John some of my stress. Oh well, it has to go somewhere right?
Wednesday, February 12th: The mirror distorted the image.
The mirror distorted the image. John moved back and forth growing to a tall thin giant with one step and becoming short, fat and squat with a different one. In the short and squat version he thought he looked less fat and more like someone squashed a person made of clay into a slightly smaller person. He smiled remembering how his brother Mike liked to make people from playdoh and then have them surer cartoon like injuries, like anvils dropped on their heads or running into a wall. In his case the anvil was usually the dictionary and the running into the wall was more thrown at force.
Mike liked to see how the different things affected his creations. It used to drive their other brother Dave insane. He liked to keep all of the colors of playdoh separated. Mikes attempts to see what happened to the clay creations mixed the colors up. Larger pieces could be pulled apart but streaks always remained.
‘Drove Dave crazy,’ he recalled. Dave ended up hiding certain playdoh containers so Mike wouldn’t mix them. ‘Then those became the containers Mike had to find and use.’
John backed away from the mirror, his body grew long and thin before disappearing from the mirror. It looked a bit like he became too thin to exist and poofed out of existence rather than stepped back. He took a deep breath momentarily enjoying his own disappearance. It was after all what he was doing here. Disappearing, if only for a little bit.
He knew he didn’t have long. Someone would worry, someone would come looking and he would be told off for not telling anyone and giving them a fright. He shook his head as he continued down the main thoroughfare. The Carnival had come to town the night before and set up in a field at the edge of town. He was driving past, saw they were open and decided to take a visit. He paid the entrance fee and was now wandering through. He smelled pop corn and after a brief stand in line he managed to get a small bag for himself to eat as he walked.
Carnivals were never his favorite place. They didn’t hold a lot of memories truth be told. He could recall going and enjoying the rides and the food, but they didn’t have a hold on him the way they had his brothers. They got excited and begged to be allowed to go. John just was sent along with the group. He had fun, but they weren’t places he would choose on his own.
The fact that he came here on his own now amused him somewhat.
‘Any port in a storm,’ he thought.
That is what it felt like his life had become. A storm. One upheaval after another. Every time he managed to catch his breath and find solid footing storm clouds would once again start to gather. He needed a break. A moment of peace and calm.
John caught the scream from one of the roller coasters and saw a dancing clown. ‘Well maybe not peace and quiet,’ he thought. ‘Just an escape.’
As John ate his popcorn he tried to remember when the last time he took a breath and just existed. He couldn’t remember and that worried him. He frowned and kept walking, his thoughts searching back. ‘Had to be before the accident,’ he thought. After a few paces he managed to find something. “Movie night,” he thought. He had gone to the movies on his own.
Ten til Midnight 