Chapter 1

We were sitting in Andrea's car in the parking lot of some supermarket, and she asked me to go inside to get her tampons. I was sitting in the drivers seat, adjusting the mirror so I could see little Thomas, asleep in the back seat. I didn't reply to her. My gaze was fixed upon the reflection of my little boy asleep, unconscious, yet completely aware in the world of his dream state. I wondered if babies dreamed. I don't recall being a baby myself. Andrea grabbed my shoulder and shook it gently.

“Hey, my stomach really aches and I don't feel like walking, could you please go inside for me?”

I felt her desperate, tired eyes on the side of my face. The sun was going down and the lights in the parking lot turned on. We were parked next to the shopping cart return, and I watched some fat kid push a cart up and walk away, leaving a bag unknowingly in the cart. My eyes felt relief looking at the sky, still vaguely lit without the sun, a soft purple as if water-colored. 

I scanned the parking lot, watching some man I think I know help his kids into the car, and then slowly drive past the rest of the shops. I watched the red eyes of the brake lights disappear onto the road with the rest of the traffic. The neon glow of a smoke shop catches my attention and I fix my stare at it. Lucas works there during this time, and I'm urged to walk to the smoke shop. I choke the steering wheel anxiously. By this time I notice that my wife isn't even in the car anymore and shes walking through the automatic doors of the supermarket. 

I turn my neck to look at my son and pull a muscle, shouting f**k, completely from habit and unable to stop myself from doing so. He stirs a little in his sleep but  doesn't wake. I step out of the car and stretch, my hand putting pressure on my neck. I walk with my head craned sideways and my thumbs rubbing the aching muscle. I stopped in front of the neon lights and cracked my neck, feeling my spine lose tension but the tendons felt like they were in a knot. I sighed and walked under the neon sign, the drone of the sign buzzing like a chorus of a hundred flies. 

Inside the shop the smell of tobacco lingered, and I looked around at all the smoking paraphernalia. The shop was empty except for the an old clerk who was not Lucas. He looked like a zombie behind the counter, staring at a TV screen mounted on the wall, and he was standing instead of sitting in the chair directly behind him. I don't even think he noticed me. Who is this guy? I walked to the back of the small store with one hand in my pocket thumbing my keys, and the other hand thumbing the tired muscles of my neck. 

I noticed the array of bongs behind the counter on wood shelf, the light reflecting off of the glass. Some of the bongs had designs on them, yet some were plain. I saw a specific one that caught my attention. It was tall, about two feet, and had black, yet transparent glass. I notice the clerk is aware of me, an old man with a bandana around his forehead who was most likely a hippie back in the days, and he walks slowly over to me.

“Can I help you with anything?”

I take my hand off my neck and turn to look at him directly, multiplying the pain in doing so. I look at the man with a forced smile, who returns an aged, genuine smile. We both just stand there and I shake my head.

“No thanks.”

The clerk remains standing where he is, and I feel his eyes on me. I'm in the most uncomfortable situation with my neck and this old man fixated on me like I was the TV, so I point at the red bong.

“How much is that red bong?”

The old mans face unscrambles and he looks to where I'm pointing. He clears his throat and says, “Everything on the second shelf is thirty.”

I had already had my hand in my pocket pulling out my wallet and the next thing I knew I was walking out of the store across the parking lot towards my car carrying a bong. I came within ten feet of the sleeping car with my sleeping child inside, when I heard the familiar clicks of my wife's heels. I looked up and shes standing in front of me, a bag in one hand and her purse in the other. She looks at the bong in my hand. 

“What's that?”

My throat clicked and I stuttered. 

“Where did you go?”

“I went to the hardware store to get a pipe for the sink. You know how the sink has been acting up.”

She looked at me with a raised eyebrow, her mascara reflecting the coolness of the night.

“Oh.” Damn she looks fine at night. She walked across me and I watched her hips until she opened the door and sat down in the car. I heard her turn the radio on to a song I didn't care for. I remained where I was standing until her impatient eyes met mine and I awoke from my lustful trance. I opened the back of the car and set the bag with the bong in on the floor in front of my son in his car seat. He breathed very slowly and softly. I sounded like a symphony compared to what my wife was listening to. I got in the car and we drove home.

On the way home I saw a man standing on his roof, the moon shining off his bald head. I laughed and my wife asked me what I was laughing at and I told her I was laughing at the fact that she bleeds out her genitalia. 

Reviews

[S. D. Forogar]

I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure how to review this piece. I suppose I should just go ahead, though, and see.

First, I noticed from the very beginning that it would ignore all detail and flow, and by the end I was not mistaken. Events happened, in a jumbled and ragtag fashion no less, and I found that I could barely even keep up, let alone care. The author needs to SLOW THE STORY DOWN a bit so that Readers can actually appreciate the events happening, and transition one from the next in a more 'Real-Time' format. What I was to assume of fifteen-to-thirty minutes of activity managed to pass by in barely one, and this is NOT GOOD for the first chapter of a story.

Power was non-existent. The vividity of the characters, settings, feelings, etcetera were absent from the whole piece, and the only real grounds I had to work with were my own imagination and some guess-work. I recommend the author take some time out, take his story down, and add a GREAT deal more to every aspect of this piece before putting it back up. The author should flesh out the characters, detail and plot, and plan out this piece a great deal more. As it is, this is not a good reflection of one's talents, and I would be pleased to help in this regard if only the author wishes me to.

[A. H. Pinley]

Who's Andrea? You left the kid in the car? At the end of this piece you're all over. Refine your writing when you get time. Stay with it.