I drove down the road tonight listening to the melodic tap dancing sounds my tires make with the gravel crammed in their grooves. Every brush and bramble, every light post held a curved Greeble or other assassin hiding and waiting. As I approach they turn and reveal themselves, but they do not take up the chase. Its that they understand I’ll be back and even though I know their hiding places, it makes no difference to their patience.
I was on a conquest for alcohol, the only thing readily accessible to numb the other dancing in my head, holding me captive. Normally contained in the house, I can escape when the times are dire and I have to purchase food or other staple items. Why is it my family only seems here and present in the daylight hours, or when I need verification that I am sane? They are all too eager to admit I am – I’m suspicious of them all.
I have no real concept of time right now. I feel like there is a rubber band strapped to my back – the further I get from the dwelling, the harder it wants to snap me back. The second traffic light seems like the breaking point, when I pass through on the green, the rubber band loosens and I rocket forward into town on a clear night. The haze that normally clouds everything has lifted.
I feel so awake, so alive while I pull into the fluorescent lighted supermarket. No one makes eye contact in the store as they just push their way through the checkout line. Only one lane is open as the poor chap manning the large van out front, is busy steam cleaning the entry carpets. They all seem normal with no ulterior motives.
With my beer in hand, the guy two places ahead of me stands waiting for his total so he can leave and get on with his day. But its not day, its night and the broad smile forming on the cashier’s lips exposing the tiny toothy grin is enough to raise my blood pressure. She’s one of ‘them’. The guy standing in front of me with the single pint of Chunky Monkey wont face me… I have no idea how entrenched I am. I wont turn and examine the couple behind me either. “I’m doomed” I admit to myself while anxiously awaiting my turn to pay and bail out the front door and into my car.
She’s normal as far as I can tell, as I watch the subtotals flash across the digital monitor with my purchase being announced for anyone looking our way. I break my stare and I can hear the desperate hissing of her hungry sighs, I swipe my card across the magnetic reader quickly and in a quick rebuttal, it demands a second caress. The hunger panged panting is more intense, however when I shoot up to see the checker smiling happily at me, her human persona does not expose her lighter side as a fraud.
I exit the market with a few Greebles on my tail, but they stop just outside the door – its as if they were suppose to have kept me in but failed miserably. My Coors Light slides right into the passenger seat when I take off past the fast food joints and back onto the main drag leaving the Greebles behind. My antagonists appear to be of limited power, although they make up for it in their numbers.
Skidding down my gravel road, I exit he vehicle and toss myself and the case of beer through the waiting opened front door – which swings closed and lock itself behind ‘us’. I feel there was a rush to get down the lane and into the house, even though nothing seems to follow us closely behind. I am relax again in my safe walls – even if I am again a prisoner.
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