The New One (FreeRead)

The dogs jumped on the couch as he slid the leashes back into the side table drawer. Answering machine light blinked, laptop messages received beckoned, the mail was tossed on the coffee table, no doubt by Dad, to distracted to sort.

Jack grumbled under his breath. “Does it ever fuckin’ stop?” Swiping an apple from the blue ceramic bowl next to the mail, he bit into the crisp flesh with a vigorous crunch. Sweettart juice filled his palate, seeping from the corners of his mouth, taste buds contracting in the pleasant ache of sensory overload. He slid his gaze to the television, quickly dismissing the thought of flipping it on. Nothing seemed to help these days. No diversion was potent enough to overcome the melancholy that twisted his heart in a vise. He’d thought that starting his forth decade here on this funny little planet would have been ushered in with more fanfare, more wisdom gained, at least. Instead he felt like a teenager, heart long since resident in his shoes, tread on one more time than he’d care to recount.

He poked at the spread of envelopes and colorful junk mailers on the rough-hewn oak, only half attending to what was written on each. What he’d really like to be doing is riding his mountain bike. It seemed it afforded him the only time to himself these days, what with all the demands of promotion, the friends that seemed to barge in on him at the most inopportune moments, trying to help him ‘get over it’. He fucking didn’t want to get over it. No more than a child wants to leave a candy store. Why couldn’t things just be the way they used to be?

The phone rang. Not the landline…his cell. He didn’t want to answer it any more than he wanted to face the vacant blue of his laptop or the stack of mail he now fingered through with contempt.

“Fuck it,” he spat. “Fuck it all.” Turning toward the kitchen he strode a few steps, thoughts of goat cheese on rosemary crackers vaguely luring him toward the larder. Before he could pass through the door, he stopped in his tracks. A smell. An unfamiliar odor drifted past him. Strangely alluring, earthy, yet sweet, he couldn’t place where he may have come across something similar. It was feminine, yet somehow suggestive of power in leash. He turned back to the sitting room. The only sound was the occasional crackle and hiss of escaping gas as the logs in the fireplace burnt merrily behind the spark screen. Faint woodsy odor, burning alder mixed with the earthen musk now. He cocked his head trying to ascertain an answer.

Both dogs curled on the cushions of the sofa, Millie snoring in soft rhythmic rumble, the scene he took in was really quite domestic. Had it not been such bloody bad timing, he would have been tempted to join them, daydream the evening away with thoughts of what he’d do when he had a proper break in the never ending cycle of writing, editing, publishing, promoting. On top of that, he had the damn spreadsheets to look at. Yeah…the day job. That gnawed at him, always begging attention as well.

Drawing in a lungful of scented air, he tried one last time to figure out why this new olfactory display was present in his living room. And then it was gone.

Bleep. The computer made its annoying “message incoming” sound. His eyes dropped to the screen. Probably just the damn agent or his insufferable personal assistant. Why couldn’t they just read his mind and do what they were supposed to do?

He lowered himself to the edge of the sofa, not wanting to disturb the dogs. Finger poking across the flat rectangular plane of the embedded mouse, he opened not to his e-mail inbox, but to the familiar profile page of his My Space, new Message in red. He sighed and clicked to see which one of his sardonic friends was bothering him now with some sophomoric drivel meant to cheer him. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he thought about them. In spite of the fact they usually acted the part of fourteen year olds, he knew they had nothing but good intentions.

No. Not one of the usuals. It was her. The new one. The one he’d not been able to pigeonhole yet. Who was this woman who dropped messages into his box with irregular certainty? It bothered him that he couldn’t figure out why she stuck around. How long would it last, these variable packages of words? Sometime but a sentence, other times prose: this occasion brought more than he’d seen before. When he opened the message there was nothing short of a story typed in the body below “Just Another Tuesday”.

His eyes moved across the screen. Back and forth. What was she doing this time? Some sort of a tale about him and the dogs? What in the world did she have in mind?

Her usual incorporation of the tactile, sound, scent. For just a few moments he was taken away into another world. His world, yes, but thorough her eyes.

As he finished the brief passage, he looked up to the window. It had been dark for hours, but the silvery shine of moonlight slanted into the room, into a puddle at his feet. The fire whispered, dogs breathing in reassuring familiarity. Dust motes caught in the bluish gray light, seeming to sparkle for a brief moment as they shone in the dim glow. He paused. Yes. Life was good. It continued as it had always done. He would survive. Better than survive. Home. He had home and family. Comfortable. Reassuring.

He raised his hand and stroked Millie’s fur. She shifted slightly in unconscious approval. Yes. Life is good.