Chuck Brooks

Sometimes, when sitting down to write.  A character piece comes out instead of a regular story.  So, that’s how this came about.  Maybe in the future, I’ll be able to add this guy to a story, maybe I won’t, but it’s interesting to watch where my brain goes sometimes.  So, enjoy!

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In my dream, someone put their hand over my mouth, so I wouldn’t shout.  He leaned in close and said, “I’m here to help, but you have to be quiet.”  I nodded as he whispered the secret.  It was simple.  He was going to kill me.

He pressed harder, and knocked me down.  My head cracked against the ground, curling the rest of my body into a ball.  His grip on my mouth muffled my scream of pain.  I writhed on the floor.  Wet streaks running across my face.  He pinched my nose and I couldn’t breathe.  It was then I knew that he wasn’t joking.  He was going to kill me.

Dread flooded my mind, drowning my sensibilities.  My limbs grew heavy as I flailed, like treading water, but it wasn’t working, and soon, I would drown.  On coming death is not like they say in the movies.  It doesn’t last forever.  At least not murder.  It does, however, feel like every second of every minute that you are being suffocated is going by way too quickly.  There should be more time to figure out a way out.  Or God should have designed us with gills, because it’d be a lot hard to suffocate someone with sets of gills.  The man would have to two hand it, and make sure to cover all 3 in each set.  This guy, I don’t think he could do it.

My alarm clock goes off as I’m about to die.  Typical.  And now I have to wake up and surrender another day at work, without gills.  For me, life isn’t full of surprises or wonder.  It’s full of all the things that I wish I did have.  My parents always said that I live my life with my head in the clouds.  They’re crazy.  I’m way too short for that.

I’ve been called dreamer, slacker, idiot, retard, ungrateful.  All of which I have problems with.  I’m not a dreamer, I just want something better than what I’ve got.  I think God could afford me that.  Why not wings or gills or a huge maw with which to eat boats?  I’m not a slacker, my virtue of work just isn’t the same as most peoples.  Why should I feel the necessity to work the same as everyone else?  I want to be different.  I’m not an idiot or a retard, and I don’t need to explain.

Ungrateful?  No, I’m not ungrateful.  Like I said, I just want something more than what I’ve been given.  Each night, I dream that I’m being murdered.  I have for 5 years now, and each time could have been avoided if I’d been different than everyone else.  The psychiatrist said that I have issues and that I should… but time ran out and I’m broke.

So, off I go to my job.  Working for a company that I don’t care about to make money that won’t buy me wings or gills or a giant maw with which to eat boats but instead keep me a place where I can sleep comfortably and dream about being murdered.  I wonder what it’ll be tonight?

The worst part is that you’d think after almost 2,000 nights-worth of being murdered, I’d stop being afraid of my death.  Of being murdered.  But, I guess, if I had something more, I wouldn’t have to stop worrying.  I could fly away, swim away, or eat a boat, and that would be awesome.