By C. Dennis Moore
Get up, get up and he got up and dressed in the same grungy clothes he'd worn the past two weeks, and swallowed oatmeal with water from the tap, then slid into his backpack with the bowling ball inside, the penance he'd carry until he found a way to make it right, into his shoes, then out the door. He locked it, then checked the door and it wouldn't open so it was locked, then he said, "Locked," and checked it again, then repeated it, "Locked," and ran his fingers along the edge, insuring there was no space, and he checked the knob again and said it once more before leaving the building, "Locked."
He squinted up, sniffing the air, and went to his old van that hadn't started since he bought it and rolled it into his parking space. The doors were locked and he ran his fingers along the top of the pane, checking for spaces, then said it, "Locked." Around the other side and it was locked and he said it, "Locked." Back to the other side, check again, and the other side again.
Along the sidewalk, he kept his head down and his back hunched with the weight of the bowling ball. The air was sweet and he suddenly suspected today may be the day he'd waited so long for, even if he didn't know what he'd been waiting for, but the air was sweet, so this might be the day.
He stepped into traffic and it cleared, allowing him passage but he didn't notice as he muttered, "You want to know justice? I'll show you justice. Keep the doors locked, the bad things will get in, and the doors have to be locked to keep them out. You want to know about justice?"
A dog crossed his path. A car stopped beside him. Birds flew overhead, then veered away. At his side, a voice asked, "Whatcha doin'?"
He walked, knowing if he'd really heard a voice like he thought, it wasn't his and it wasn't for him, no one ever noticed him, so the voice wasn't for him.
"Sure I'm talking to you," the voice said and he thought maybe he might have noticed a figure next to him, walking alongside, in step, talking to him, but he had to find it and if he let this person with the voice and the questions get him off the trail, he may never find it again for a long time and he'd already been looking so long.
He walked instead, muttering, "Locked and I'll tell you what I know about justice and I'll tell you the truth of it," but the legs next to his walked along, and he kept his head down his eyes away and his back hunched to carry the weight of his guilt.
"You don't have to carry that all the time," the voice said, but he kept its words out of his brain because sometimes people spoke and they did things to him and he would no longer think truth so he didn't listen, but the voice went on. "It wasn't really your fault. You don't have to carry the guilt of her actions, you know."
He walked across the street and the traffic cleared again, but he didn't notice, kept walking to get away from this voice and stay on the path of the sweet smell and hope it led to what he'd lost and the sweet smell was over there now so he followed it and was nearly tossed aside by a truck who's driver didn't know to stop for him but he was fine and the voice still followed him, stopping once, he could see from the corner of his eye, to pet a dog, then catching up.
"You can stop if you like," the voice said but he ignored it. "My name's Zared by the way and I would like to help you. You don't have to do this, you can leave lost things lost and it's okay, the world will go on just fine, the way it's been since man first appeared. Come with me and leave the smell and memories, lost though they may be, where they are."
He didn't say anything except, "Locked."
His path grew more erratic, weaving among traffic, turning corners and walking streets he'd just turned off of a minute before, and cutting through a park of green grass and innocent, laughing people, but the voice and the legs and the body stayed with him, stubborn, and he worried maybe when he found what he thought he might find today because the air was so sweet and today may be the day, that the presence beside him would keep him from finding it after all but still the air was sweet and that had to count for something.
But the voice remained, and the legs, but he searched, following that smell, the scent of fruit and grass and clean Garden air and he remembered the last time he'd smelled it and perhaps that was where his surety came from, the last time he'd had this scent in his lungs in the Garden before expulsion and he'd blamed it on his sister and now that voice was familiar and he remembered another temptation to do something he wasn't supposed to and he looked sideways and the face was the same with the horns and the tongue and those black eyes but he wouldn't listen this time and there she was--finally!--coming from inside a building, brown sack in one arm, a piece of orange in her other hand, peeled as she walked and he caught her before she bit into it and when she didn't bite, the voice and legs and thing next to him screamed, "No!" and he felt himself clearing, as if waking, thoughts came coherently for the first time in ten thousand years because now he'd set things right, the way they should have always been, fruit unpunctured.
C. Dennis Moore is 30, married with 3 children, and in his day job he works for a local motor coach company. His fiction has appeared in Sepulchre, Dark Matter, Prose Ax, The Swamp, Savage Night, The Murder Hole, Futures, Horrorfind, Night Shopping, Thirteen Stories . . . the list goes on. He's currently putting together a short story collection ("On the Broken Edge of Alabaster Smile") with Brian Cooke for Massacre Publications, and his e-novella "Safe at Home" is available from Creative Guy Publishing at http://www.creativeguypublishing.com/e-xtras/safe.html"