I pulled out my ironing board from the closet and put the shirt and pants on it and then stared at them hoping an idea would come to me. The other shirts and pants weren’t clean and my quarter collection was lacking to do laundry. The best idea would be to go to the corner store and see if they sold irons. But I didn’t much feel like it. Instead I took a pan, turned on the stove, and used the bottom as an iron. To my surprise it actually worked. My clothes looked freshly ironed, but now had a slightly burned smell. Nobody would care about that.
Work didn’t start until noon that day. I sat on my futon and played games on my tablet. The internet still wasn’t working. I grew tired sitting there for so long. When I finally got up for work I was very tired. It didn’t seem to want to go away.
The bus was on time in what I can only attribute to a mini miracle. The driver was nice enough to let me off in front of the store instead of the stop before it. Most ignore me when I ask and go to the next stop several blocks away. Things were going right for once.
I saw Jasper run out of sight when the bell went off. He sneaked a peak and saw it was just me.
“You’re late.” He said pompously.
“No, I’m not. It’s not even twelve.”
“Actually the clocks here run a minute fast. If you don’t get to the sign in sheet in the next ten seconds you’re late.”
I tried hard not to give him a dirty look as I passed. I got to the sign in sheet and put down twelve exactly because that’s what my watch said.
My mind wandered back to the tunnel dream as I stared longingly at all the people walking by. They looked so free out there. Not that it mattered much. I was being paid to be trapped in the jewelry jail (As I called the store in my head).
“I think it’s clean enough, Aims.” Jasper said, standing next to me.
I had been absentmindedly cleaning the same fire opal ring for the last ten minutes.
“It can never be too clean.”
“I think there’s a limit to everything. By the way, nice ironing skills, I knew you could do it if you kept your mind on it.” He leaned in close. “I think something’s wrong with it, you smell over done.”
I put the ring back and grabbed another one.
“Soooo, did you hear about those car bombs?”
“No, what car bombs?” I asked, looking anywhere but at his face.
“You gotta be keeping up with the news. It’s that war in the Middle East. Car bombs went off all over three countries.
“Sounds like a lot of them.”
“Something like thirty.” He said, tapping the glass on one of the cases irritatingly.
“How many people died?” I asked.
“Several hundred.”
I nodded. “What’s going on over there, anyway?”
“Who knows? I don’t know if it’s religious or a land dispute, probably both.” He stretched and yawned loudly. “But things are crazy everywhere. A train derailed in Germany, killing a bunch. A bridge collapsed in Australia, killing a bunch. I’ll tell you what; this is a crazy time to be alive.”
“Every time is a crazy time to be alive.” I said thoughtfully. “There’s always something going on somewhere.”
“Tis true.” He said, staring off into space. “I just have a feeling this is extra crazy.”
It was one of those boring days. A few people came but no one needed me to show them anything. The hours passed and I was still very tired. I knew better than to lay down after getting up in the morning, it only caused trouble later in the day.
Shortly before six when I was set to leave a large group came in. I showed some woman a necklace in a bunch of different sizes. She annoyed me by tossing the ones she was done looking at on the counter. I took them and placed them neatly back on the board they were kept on but she kept taking them back off to compare. I couldn’t say anything. Mr. Stone had a no getting annoyed at the customer’s policy. Finally the woman bought one of the necklaces. It may have only been a thirty dollar necklace, but it was my first sale in four days.
As soon as the woman left I signed out, said my goodbyes, and got out of there before I could be asked to do anything else. I glanced back at the window and saw Mr. Stone looking after me holding a bottle of glass cleaner.
I was still tired when I got back. I didn’t want to take a nap because I wouldn’t get to sleep when I needed to go to bed. I had the late shift the next day so maybe a nap wouldn’t hurt.
It was there in the darkness. Just beyond my reach, or I was just out of its. It was reaching toward me, I knew it. I tried to get back, to move anywhere but towards it. There was no way to control my motion. I was going deeper into the tunnel and had no way to stop. The thing, whatever it was, was getting closer.
I woke up in a cold sweat. I had a hard time catching my breath. That dream ended sometime after my memory of it did. Something happened and it left me shaking and twitching. Whatever it was it must have been bad. No dream had ever left me in a state of shock, especially if I didn’t remember it. I slowly got up and tried to find the time. The clock on my nightstand showed 2:45. It was too early to get up but I didn’t know what to do. There was no way I was going to get back to sleep. The dreams were becoming frequent. That was the third night in a row and the fourth that week.
The large window looked out onto that dirty building across the street. The boarded windows all the way up rarely made an imprint. They weren’t always like that. When I first moved in I could look across the street and see into abandoned rooms of an old office building. Some delinquents started busting out the windows and spray painting the inside. Sometime after that the boards went up. The delinquents didn’t much like that and spray painted the boards. That all ended several years ago, but it was still fresh in my mind. Why have a building just sit there? Someone was bound to want the space for something; or perhaps not. Perhaps the local paper was right and my little city was falling into disrepair.
It didn’t much matter to me. I could leave any time I wanted. I had enough saved up to buy a cheap car, or better yet rent one that might actually work, and be free of this place forever. I had relatives in a different state and, though I hadn’t seen them or tried to make contact in quite a while, knew around about where they lived.
I could run anywhere I wanted if I so desired. It wouldn’t take a seconds hesitation, after I got the car of course. But after that I would be off on my own and ready to start again somewhere else. Maybe that’s why I was having those dreams. It was my subconscious telling me that my life was going down a dark tunnel with no light and no end in sight. It was high time to change all that and make good on a promise my mother made to me when I was small. She once said that I was destined to do something great and that the only way that wouldn’t come true is if I became too set in negative ways. As a child I had no clue what she meant but I do now. It’s all up to me. I have the power to choose and I should choose to get away from the jewelry jail and set out on a new course. Of course it would be better if I saved up just a little more.
As I stared out my window at the building across the street I noticed a person walking along the sidewalk three stories below. He walked with a gait that suggested he didn’t need to be anywhere anytime soon. He was free to go and to come as he pleased. That’s the way I should have been living. I didn’t have a family waiting or even a pet that needed fed. There was no reason why I shouldn’t be out at strange hours doing who knows what by the fading light and buzzing of the streetlamps. The man turned into the alley to the left of the boarded building and disappeared from sight.
I got my tablet to look up recurring dreams but I couldn’t get onto the internet. I used the bathroom; I had to pull the flapper up myself because the chain was broken, and went to my futon where I proceeded to stare at the wall where I should have had a television. My mind was working in overdrive, taking me through everything I could possibly think abou
t. I assumed it was doing what it could to make sure I didn’t get tired so I wouldn’t have to sleep and have that dream again. I was fearful that it was bound to come up again should I try to sleep.
My mind couldn’t stay active for the rest of the night, and even before it gave up the signs of tiredness began to creep in. My eyes got heavy and I yawned frequently. The strange unknowable fear of that tunnel fell away as my body yearned to be under the blankets of my bed. I got up and started over to it, deciding to take one final look out the window at the boarded up building and the empty road. It could have been a ghost town. There wasn’t a soul in sight.
I imagined for a minute that the world suddenly became vacant of all life except for me. Every street in the world suddenly looked like the one my eyes found such a joy in taking in. It would be days before I discovered that there was in fact one other human. Their prints would be left in the desert I trekked through, too new for my liking. At first I assumed it was an alien, the species that made all humanity disappear. I would stay hot on their trail, keeping an eye out for more clues as to the creature’s identity. And then one day I happened upon them. A beautiful young woman just my own age. We would set out into the world to look for new life and to uncover the truth behind everyone’s disappearance.