A NORMAL DAY

-Jacqueline Kennick-

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    He woke up at 6:30, as usual; he also woke up alone, as usual. At 6:30, his hand disarmed his alarm before it was able to bleat out its morning crow. He pushed himself up, slid his legs to the edge of the bed, and placed his feet into his worn slippers. He smoothed his bed sheets and continued into the kitchen. There, he started boiling water and went to retrieve the newspaper in front of his doorstep. It was a pointless endeavor, really. He was the editor in chief of the local newspaper, so he knew the news of the day every day before it arrived at his doorstep. He came to the step, but his newspaper wasn’t there. He grumbled to himself... perhaps there was a new paperboy doing his route. He felt slightly annoyed but reasoned this worry away. “I know the news for today anyway,” he thought, “so it shouldn’t bother me.” Still, his stomach felt like it had been twisted and tied in a knot. Finally, he wrote it off as mere hunger. He retreated back inside to finish the rest of his routine. He made himself a cup of tea and re-read yesterday’s newspaper. He turned to page six and chuckled at an anecdote brought to him by a local church proclaiming, “The World Ends Tomorrow.” Then he got dressed. First, he put on his pants. As he tucked his shirt in, he felt a recently growing pang as he noticed how his slightly rounded stomach pulled taut at the shirt. He continued to dress, choosing not to dwell on this. Next, he buckled his belt, put on shoes and a jacket, and combed his hair before he was ready to go. He didn’t look in the mirror anymore but instead checked that everything was sufficiently buttoned and zipped in the main entrance door which only gave him the hazy details of his appearance. With this finally over, he was ready to leave. His hand hesitated at the knob, the knot returning to his stomach. Stepping out onto the stoop, he paused when he normally would have rushed straight to his car. He cast a fearful look down; his newspaper still wasn’t there.

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    Then he pulled out of his driveway and onto the street. While the streets weren’t usually crowded this early in the morning, it was a narrow road, and one had to be cautious driving. But, today, there was no one else on the road. He turned onto Main Street and stopped at the red light. A few seconds later it turned green, and he pressed on the gas and zoomed straight.

    Today, the crisp autumn air was radiant with sunshine, so he had rolled the windows down. Now, as he drove down Main Street, the wind whipping past his windows began to annoy him. He began to roll up his window, the lashing becoming quieter until, finally, all sound ceased as the window suctioned into place. For the first time, he noticed the complete silence surrounding him; absent was the background noise of honking cars and motors that usually fell deaf upon his ears. He looked at his speedometer to find that he was going 50 mph in a 30mph zone. Panicked, he pressed the brakes and braced himself to hit the car in front of him. Only then did he look up and realize that there was no one in front of him. In fact, there was still no one anywhere on the road. At 7:25 on a weekday, he alone roamed the streets. “They're going to be late to work,” he thought. He slowed to 30 mph. He had his morning perfectly timed so that he would get to work at 7:55. If he went too fast, it would upset his hardwired internal clock. There were two more stop lights until he arrived at work. He approached one at an intersection. He slowed and stopped as the light turned from yellow to red.

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    Now, he had just one more stoplight before work; that’s when he saw a sign advertising a garage sale, featuring a collector’s set of Ian Fleming’s novels. There were few things he allowed to interrupt his schedule, but spy novels were his caveat. Amid the rest of his mundane life, spy novels were a source of vibrancy. Of course, he usually reserved these for the weekends, but he now had time to kill to make up for the acceleration in his routine. Pulling into the driveway, he saw various milieu scattered on the front lawn, including the Ian Fleming novels. He approached and saw there was no price tag on them, but where were the owners? He knew it was early, but he didn’t want someone else to buy them. The front door was ajar, and he stepped into the house with a declarative “Hello!” There was no answer. He wiped his feet on the doormat and walked into the kitchen. On the counter, there was a coffee cup and a half-eaten apple. There were fruit flies shrouding the apple. He approached and felt the coffee cup. It was cold. The window was open, and the breeze fluttered the curtain, but the only other noise was his footsteps. It was as if someone had abandoned the house before finishing breakfast, leaving life frozen in its tracks. Where had everyone gone?

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    The man ran out of the house and hopped into his car with a sudden urgency; he headed to his last saving grace: work. A lot of time had passed in that house, and he was going to be late. The gears in his internal clock worked in a frenzy, attempting to turn back time. If he could just get there on schedule, everything would be okay. He would pull up to a full parking lot, enter the main doors, greet the doorman, and take the elevator up to the fourth floor. He would then make a cup of tea, take it into his office, and start the day's work. He replayed this comforting scene as he now ran his car down the twinkling Main Street. The fluorescent lights of storefronts buzzed neon against the dark sky. The street lamps turned on and lit the empty scene, but they soon blurred as he rushed to work, his vision becoming hazy. A lamp flickered, and simultaneously, an animal darted across the street. He turned the wheel to avoid the darting figment and plowed into a lamppost.

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Post-Mortem

    When he woke up, he felt the air bristle through his hair. It stung. He pried his eyelids open. He was in his car, and he saw blood on the dashboard. He heard a siren, at first faintly, gradually growing louder, until the sound overtook him. He now remembered plowing into the lamppost. He looked outside and saw dozens of cars clogging up Main Street. People in their shiny tin boxes leaned out their windows to get a good look at him. It was the usual morning traffic he was used to. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an officer approaching him. Everything was back to normal.