Today's the Day

The rain pattered against the pane like fingers drumming. Now and then a particularly strong gust of wind threw a handful of it that sounded like paintballs, and every time John jumped a little higher. Candlelight shone a warm and eerie glow on his vintage parchment paper. Licking an ink tipped pen, he scraped his tongue against his teeth to get the ink off it before returning to his merciless scrawling assault on his canvas. John cast an uneasy glance at the smooth wooden door now and again, and every time afterwards pressed forward a little faster on his mission.

John remembered an easier time, a safer time. Laughter and lights bounced inside the walls of his brain, happiness seeping in for a fleeting second before being torn away by the reality of his situation. Just a year ago, him, his three kids, wife of fifteen years and their dog had embarked for the adventure of a life time. Six months after that, John had nothing. His whole family, life savings, and dog all gone, and in their place only hatred.

John hated everything about this world, the lying, the cheating, the bickering, a total lack of empathy and self control that imbued every citizen of his "great" nation. He couldn't quite put his finger on when exactly the culture shifted, but he knew it was within his life time. As a child, John enjoyed every privilege middle-class white America could have in a time of prosper. A large house, perfectly lined mowed grass, even a terribly stereotypical literal white picket fence that separated the Jones' property from their neighbors. The fence reminded John of the castle walls he read about in his books about the middle ages, when knights ran rampant and dames could still be dazzled. Those days were better too, he thought.

Looking down, he realized that he had been daydreaming instead of writing, and for how long he did not know. Fear seeped back into John's heart, and his handwriting got twice as messy as he worked at an even more feverish pace. He felt a bead of sweat trickle down his forehead, but before he could wipe it off it fell like an atom bomb onto his paper, mixing with the still wet ink and creating an unsightly smudge on a couple words. Distraught, John ripped the paper away from the stack of fresh ones, crumpled it into a ball and tossed it purposefully at the waste basket just to see it bounce off of the rim as if in spite. A guttural howl echoed from his bowels, tears welled in his eyes. His hands gripped the arms of his chair as he forced himself to his feet to pick up the paper ball. Just as he bent over, a crashing sound in the next room perked him like coffee. Alert, weary, leery, and unsurprised, John imagined the scene in his mind.

In the next room, Mary had just fallen out, a needle no doubt still in her arm. The light would leave her eyes like it did a thousand times before, but this time it would not come back. The heroin she kept in a jewelry box had been left unattended, and John had took his chance. When she left for the bathroom, John waited to hear the toilet seat clank open and then tip toed across the house into his roommate's room, produced the bag of white powder from his pocket, and switched the bag with hers like his name sake Indiana Jones did in Raiders of the Lost Ark, before leaving as silently as he came back to his room. He knew her routine. Every night after work, Mary came home, slammed every door on her way through, stomp down the hall, rip her work clothes off, and sprint the five feet from her room to the bathroom naked trailing a towel, her body jiggling in all of the wrong places.

Mary was a heavy set woman in her 40's, smoked a pack a day, and brushed her teeth every other day. A unibrow inched across her forehead and her wide mouth was too big even for her large head. John himself was no looker, and his dating prospects were even slimmer than his own gaunt figure. He had posted a wanted ad on Craigslist to split the cost of his meager mortgage, if for nothing just to have another soul occupy his small house, but Mary was too much even for him.

Her constant leaving out of dirty dishes, open cupboards, and clothes strewn about were tiny transgressions in contrast with the other contemptible issues such as not paying rent, the body odor, and the god damn noises. Oh! The NOISES she made, smacking her lips like sloppy kisses after every shovel of food she put down. John had opened the door into his living area to Mary, naked and unashamed with her hand stuffed into John's jar of honey like Winnie the Pooh as she gave him a disinterested head nod.

No, the train stopped here thought John. No more would his haven be bastardized into a pig sty of discomfort, no more would these petty issues weigh on his shoulders like Atlas. He got the idea from a True Crime Documentary about a vigilante "drug dealer", who in order to take vengeance of the drug dealers and addicts who had stolen his wife's life from him,