Pulp Friday, Part One.

The Pulp:

It's impossible to breathe through the lingering smoke of fifteen intimate years with tobacco. Still, the cigarettes really gave me joy when they were around. The smoke still lays on my lungs, choking me, drowning me in my own junk, and I wish I could have another cigarette and smother myself some more.

The problem is, my wife Jenny made me quit them a couple years back. She died a few months later. I'd still love to grab a pack and smoke my way to bliss, but that would feel like cheating somehow. Either that, or I believed my wife when she told me she'd haunt me if she died before me. I feel that she may be watching, probably waiting to catch me the moment I light up.

I still feel like grabbing that one magic pack as I walk by the dim and dirty general store on my way home. I stare at the cigarette posters in the window that beckon with attractive women and smiley men clutching their tiny white rods of joy and death. Christ, how I'd love another drag.

I feel a shudder in my spine and I wonder if that's Jenny giving me the nudge home, even though she's no longer there. I shove my hands into my overcoat and walk faster.

Today is wet. As I walk to my back door, the dreary drizzle continues, adding to the cobalt puddles littering the alley's asphalt. Beads collect everywhere; on the surface of my coat, the brim of my hat, the wire mesh on the buildings in the alley, even on the bare branches of former trees and shrubs between buildings. My feet squeak as they hit the bottom step of the stairs to my apartment.

The wooden stairway to my apartment is covered, but the water has managed to squirm its way through every slat, and slow drips fall, adding to the dark lines that run down all sides of the stairs. A loopy image of a weeping building flits through my mind, making think I've waited too long to have my first drink today.

I shake a little layer of water off me and put the key into my lock, feeling that shudder in the spine again. I silently tell Jenny to quit it and slosh inside my dark apartment and close the door.

Then, I'm feeling something else. There's a shift in the air, like someone's thrown a thick blanket. I turn around, hearing a faint huff from down the hall as I do. Now there's a larger, stronger shudder going through me. I step carefully toward the hall, wishing I had a weapon on me to greet whoever's come in uninvited.

I hear a low groan, the creak of wooden floorboard, then shuffling and dragging. Feeling ice in my fingers, I reach for the hall light switch. There's a baseball bat just inside my bedroom door partway down the hall. If I can surprise whoever's in here with a sudden light, I should have time to grab the bat and start swinging with the strength of holy murder.

As the hall light comes on, there's certainly surprise, but it's mine as I see a pair of legs being dragged out my front door by two others. I grab the bat from my bedroom and head towards my door. It's being pulled shut from outside by one of the three pairs of legs. As I reach the door, it suddenly swings inward again, catching me square in the forehead. The door wabbles back and forth, I slip and go down on the back of my head.

I wince and grab my forehead, opening my eyes to see a head peeking around my front door, a wide rimmed hat obscuring all the face in darkness except a thin, sneering mouth.

The mouth says, "You're home early."

The door slams shut with whip-speed. I don't know how long it takes me to pick myself off the floor.

This will continue...

Next on Pulp Friday: PF 2
PF 3
PF 4
PF 5
PF 6
PF 7
PF 8
PF 9