The Janitor (short story)

 

One:

Michael sat at his computer desk staring at the blinking prompt that was patiently waiting for input. In a defeated exhale, he pushed away from the desk, leaned back in his swivel chair with his hands interlocked behind his head and looked up at the ceiling.

"I have nothing left to say."

Frustrated, he got up and walked into the kitchen. In the fridge, a pack of bologna and an open case of Michelob Ultra occupied the top shelf. Beneath that, a solo leftover burrito from Casa Del Toro. Disgusted, he shut the door. The wall clock in the living room could be heard ticking through the seconds; the sound of it alarmingly loud inside his head. He walked into the living room, took the clock down from the wall and smashed it against the corner of the coffee table with such force that the wooden corner dug into the palm of his hand.

Holding his hurt hand in his good hand, he walked to the back of his home. When he reached the door that lead to the backyard, he pressed his face against it and listened. He stood silently for several minutes trying to determine whether it was asleep or not. It sounded quiet, so he slowly turned the knob and opened the door.

An immediate blast of air, hot as a steel mill furnace, rushed in sending him sprawling backward several feet and before he could regain his balance, he felt a strictness tightening around his neck coupled with sharp pains that felt like razor blades slicing through his skin. He gasped and wheezed, completely overcome, and soon lost consciousness.

After some time, Michael regained his senses and slowly removed himself from the foyer floor. He stood for a moment staring at the back door. Panic struck him like a lightning bolt ripping through his spine. He quickly turned and went away. In the living room, the remains of the broken wall clock were scattered across the floor, reminding him why his hand ached. The clock was finished, ruined, but he could still hear the ticking sound of a hand moving through time. It was coming from the bedroom.

Having traced the sound to his work desk, Michael stood there staring at the blinking prompt on the computer screen waiting for his input. Blink, blink, blink... a continuous mockery of his current writer's block. He sat down on the corner of his bed facing the glowing computer screen. He sat motionless for many minutes, hypnotized by the ticking word prompt. His attention turned to the framed picture beside his computer. He kissed his fingers and pressed them to the picture and mouthed the words 'I love you', then let out a sigh and allowed his body to fall backward onto the bed.

"I HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO SAY!" he screamed as he slid his hand beneath the pillow his head rested on. Retrieving the .40 caliber pistol hidden there, he pressed the muzzle to his temple and squeezed the trigger.

Two:

Woken by a loud bang, Jenna sat up frantically and quickly turned on the end table lamp. With her heart racing and brain still sleepy, she tried to make sense of why she was startled awake. She peered around the dimly lit living room, but saw nothing odd or out of place; everything appeared as it should. She glanced at the clock.. it was 3:33am.

"Again?" she exclaimed in frustration. It was the third time this week. "Seriously though, what the hell?" she murmered. Wondering if her husband was still asleep, she slid from beneath her mountain of heavy blankets and made her way to the bedroom door. With her ear pressed against it, she listened. Everything sounded quiet. Satisfied, she headed toward the kitchen. Passing the dining room table, she paused to pick up the sheet of paper lying there. Clearing her throat, she began to read:

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for inviting me to your great state. It is an honor to be here amidst the wild and wonderful people that make up this great state and it pleases me to announce my candidacy for the fifth congressional seat of... Damn it, I said 'great state' twice. For fuck sake, Jenna, this is garbage. You have to do better than this!"

She tossed the paper down and went to the fridge. Reaching through a fortress of stacked health food and drinks, she dug her way to the back wall, fingers searching blindly for the bottle. "Ah-ha! Got you," she remarked while tilting it this way and that in order to pull it through the food maze. She set the bottle down, retrieved a short glass from the overhead cupboard, and poured herself a bourbon neat. Holding it up in front of her, Jenna watched the brown liquid circle inside the glass as she swirled it in the air. She downed the drink and poured another. Without hesitation, she swallowed the second as quickly as the first. She poured a third and carried it and the bottle over to the table and stood looking down at her speech.

She pulled a a small bag of pills from her robe pocket and shook some into her mouth, swallowing them with her third drink as she poured a fourth and while reciting the lines of her speech. As she continued reading she felt a heat rise up inside her. It began as a warm sensation, but quickly spread through her entire body and became overwhelmingly intense and painful. Jenna, as though racing fire to the finish line, abandoned the glass and started drinking liquor straight from the bottle instead. She slumped to the floor, toppled backward into the chairs situated around the dining room table, causing them to slide and screech loudly across the tile floor. She ended up on her back beneath the table, bourbon still in hand. She started sobbing and taking sideways sips from the bottle, spilling alcohol on herself and the floor in the process. Amidst the commotion her speech slid off the table and floated down to rest beside her, mockingly.

"You are a loser! Nobody will vote for a drunk fucking loser!" she stammered while sobbing uncontrollably and drinking until passing out.

Three:

Nelson reached the end of the hallway and stopped at a small pile of discarded papers lying near a trash bin alongside the wall. He bent over, picked them up and started tossing them into the can when he noticed the headline on one that read: "Candidate Jenna Malone found deceased in her apartment late Sunday morning by her husband. Cause of death is currently undetermined. Mrs Malone was running for fifth congressional seat of..."

Nelson stopped reading and let out an audible sigh as he tossed the paper into the trash. "That's a damn shame, for sure. Lady would've had my vote. Mama's vote too." He continued down the adjacent hall with the mop bucket trailing behind him, whistling while he swooshed the wet mop in long arching motions from left to right. As he neared the south end of the building, he set his equipment down and unlocked the door that opened into the parking lot at the back of the complex. Propping the door open with the mop handle, he stepped outside for a smoke. It was a clear night and the moon was so bright it illuminated the entire parking lot like a sky candle. He shook a cigarette out from the pack, lit it, and as he leaned back against the building he noticed a sound coming from the far end of the parking lot. Between drags, Nelson turned his ears toward the noise and focused his attention. It sounded like a car engine idling and he could see the faint glow of what appeared to be an interior light coming from a car situated where he thought the sound was coming from.

Opting for a closer look, Nelson started walking over. As he neared, he could make out that it was indeed a car idling, but what he thought was an interior light was actually a cell phone playing a video of some sort while resting on the dash. The driver remained motionless. Nelson slowly walked around the vehicle and in doing so noticed moonlight reflecting off silver duct tape wrapped around the tailpipe. Curious, he knelt down for a closer look and saw a hose protruding from it, the excess curled below and disappearing beneath the car.

With his heart now racing, Nelson hurried around to the driver side window and saw the remainder of the hose fed through the rolled up window. He immediately tried the door handle, but it was locked, so he frantically began beating his elbow against the glass. After several hard whacks the glass gave way and Nelson pulled the unconscious man from the car and gently laid him on the pavement.

"Please God! HEAR ME NOW, Lord, help this man! I beg you, please!" he shouted into the moon lit night. Nelson was on his knees beside the motionless man, praying deeply and loudly, begging God to lay his healing hands on him. Over and over again, between tears and heavy-hearted body shakes, Nelson prayed. He prayed harder than he ever prayed his entire life. He even repented his own sins and asked God for forgiveness of his own misdeeds if it meant he would save this one man from dying right here and now. He leaned over the man's chest and continued praying while the cell phone inside the car continued playing hidden cam footage of a woman having sex with another man.

Four:

It was 3:33pm and traffic on Belmont Avenue was horrible, so Rick decided to jump off at Sunset Street and take it across town with the hopes of making it to his four o'clock appointment on time. When he reached his destination the clock read 3:58pm and Rick yelled out several ridiculous victory chants while exiting his car and jogging up to the main entrance. He hurried into the mezzanine and started scanning the room for a guy wearing a... wearing a... he pulled his phone out and reopened the text message... for a guy wearing a yellow and black Steelers jacket. Rick looked up and scanned the room and noticed a man off to the side waving his arm high over his head and smiling in his direction. He was wearing a Steelers jacket. Slammed by a rush of sudden nervousness, Rick slowly started walking toward the man responsible for saving his life.

As the two finally met face to face, Rick extended his hand, to which Nelson immediately ignored and came in for a hug instead.

"My goodness, am I so glad to see you, brother! You have no idea how happy I am to see you standing here in front of me," Nelson exclaimed excitedly. The two men stopped hugging and took a seat together on a plush couch near a large window overlooking the outdoor common area.

"It's great to finally meet you, Nelson," Rick replied nervously. "I played this day out in my head the whole time I was recovering. All those messages you sent.. they really meant a great deal to me. It was hard dealing with all the newspaper people and the cops and my family, but your messages were like the only thing keeping me sane through it all. And I just want you to know that."

"Say no more, my friend. I'm just so glad to have you here right now, alive and talking. I was so fucking scared that night, you have no idea. I prayed so hard over you in the parking lot, but I thought you were a goner, man. I remember thinking how all my shitty life decisions and all the fucked up things I'd done was gonna keep God from hearing me praying over you. I was so mad at myself that night, bro. I felt as though it was my fault you were laying there dying. And if you had died, I would've blamed myself forever, for not being a better person."

Tears welled up in Rick's eyes and he bashfully brushed them away. He sat there listening to this stranger pour out his heart to him and show him a side of love he never knew existed. The tears increased as he sat there thinking about how horribly low his life had fallen. He started crying as he recalled his failing marriage and his cheating wife. His heart ached for the writer she had fallen for and how he took his own life due to depression and how his own wife drank her political career and life away. He cried even harder when he remembered his wife discovering his own extramarital affair. Rick couldn't hide the tears now; it was a full-on noticeable man cry and he felt awkward and wanted to hide, but Nelson reached out and placed his hand on Rick's shoulder and whispered, "God loves you, man. Spend the rest of your life remembering that."

The End.