Yoyoyo people, not sure what I was doing there, forget that.

Updates, updates, updates, what schlock can I use to fill this space, why do I do this again?
Ok right well pretty much nothing amazing has changed in my life since I posted the last blog, just writing editing and spamming as usual. Still really enjoying doing a serious crime fiction story, it’s a little out there a la Surveillance/Memento but it’s written by me it was never going to be normal. Fuck I just made one of my fbi characters a carsick pokemon go player. C’mon, what do I get for that? Oh that’s right nothing haha.

It’s still smooth sailing as usual, trucking along, trying to build a mailing is gonna prove difficult since I have no free shit to give haha. So I may just plonk GS or this on amazon when I have some reviews and give one away to promote the other as an ebook.

I dunno haha.

As usual you can check out the full chapter on inkitt and if you like it give it a review and a share and don’t forget to subscribe to my mailing list on this page so I can shill you books when I have books to shill haha.

Strange and Unproductive Thinking

~
James woke up in a muggy haze, his head feeling two sizes too small. He squinted, he was lying on his back, the way his doctor told him not to. He saw the fan was still going but not doing a lot of anything. The night had taken with it it’s cool countenance and the morning glared at him through his unshaded bedroom window.

His alarm told him it was six am.

She was gone, her indentation still lingered.

It wasn’t that unusual. She usually got up much earlier than him and pottered around for a little bit before she went to her volunteering at the homeless shelter. Serving them breakfast made her feel better about not having to line up for breakfast.

He showered. He had one of those old fashioned shower baths with a curtain.

He got out of the shower and dried himself. He wiped the steam from the mirror and looked at his reflection. His hair slicked back in the two door mirrored cabinet over the sink. The seam of which was right in the middle. The door hinges were a little loose and they buckled in the middle causing the doors to sink inward a little. Thus resulting in an almost funhouse mirror reflection of James’ sallow face split down the middle. He looked at himself and saw a face that was still quite handsome but time had added a few extras where they weren’t needed. A bit too much neck fat made him almost afraid to tilt his head down. With his hair slicked back his hairline was disheartening. His face sagged in places it didn’t use to. The bags under his eyes were now permanent fixtures next to the flecks of little grey hairs that he struggled not to notice.

Other than that his forehead was relatively unlined and his eyes still looked youthful, the result of years of not being very expressive. This gave him some comfort as he stared blankly at his own reflection.

He continued to floss and brush his teeth, gargling mouth wash and spitting. He skipped shaving, his face was still fairly smooth from yesterday.

He was dressed now in a short sleeve shirt and tie, bent over the kitchen sink scratching the black off a burnt piece of toast.

He sat at the kitchen table alone reading the paper. A plate of abused toast sitting next to a glass of store brand orange juice. It was just one shade dingier than the name brand and came with it a slightly coppery after-taste.

The kitchen was new looking, but just as the bedroom it was bare. Aside from the slight messes, the toast ash in the sink, the jam and butter fingerprints on the counter. It looked like a show house. Beautiful in its emptiness.

It wasn’t a particularly large kitchen, mid-range, stone floors. The counter was some type of imitation granite. He sat at a small breakfast bar which corralled the fridge and stove and combination oven. He was sitting on a minimalist chair made of plastic with metal struts. The kind you get in sandwich shops that force you to lean on the counter like hipster bar stools. He read the paper with his back bolt upright.

The door on his left lead to the utility room, the door to his right lead to a small dining room and the door behind him lead into the hall.

Across from the breakfast bar which jutted out like a little pier in the middle of the kitchen. The sink and dishwasher which overlooked the only window onto the small AstroTurf back garden.

Both of them knew they couldn’t really afford to live here. So they rented, and neither of them really lived in the house as much as they just existed there. A stop over until they could get something more liveable and secure their place on the ever shrinking island of California’s middle class.

The headline of the paper read;

“MATCHBOOK KILLER SUSPECT IN CUSTODY (Pictured page 30)”

He padded his way through the sport section and quickly shirked the relationship section. The politics section was as grim as usual given a brisk scan. He mouthed the words but they didn’t really go anywhere. On page twenty-nine he thumbed the corner as if it was a crumpled copy of playboy stored under a neighbours shed.

He got his hopes up for nothing. Just a few glossies of cops with their backs turned and a white tarp with an arm sticking out of it.

He sighed and felt a little dirty, he could have just looked it up online if he wanted to but he was running a little late now.

He closed his eyes and remembered something he’d seen before but he couldn’t quite remember if it were real or a dream or both. A picture of a tree at dusk, there was a plane crash he thought or at least that’s what he was meant to think. Arms and legs hung from the tree, clean and perfect like doll parts. In fact, they looked just like odd mannequin pieces. So recalling it didn’t alarm him as he was sure even if that picture did exist it was fake or some tween’s edgy art project.

He then proceeding to eat his burnt toast with long teeth and wash it down with glugs of gritty orange juice.

~

James’ car was parked out front. A Hyundai with a sagging bumper. He left his single story house on North 12th street which was located in a suburb of Colton. He lived opposite the park which consisted of two fenced in basketball courts with a shaded eating area in the centre. Sparsely decorated with an array of trees ranging from sycamores to the standard palm. It was pretty much empty except for a handful of kids that should have been in school. They were playing some form dodge/basketball hybrid he’d never seen before.

It was an ok neighbourhood, the houses and lawns were well kept. All single storied with wire fences around the lawns and carports.

He took a right and then another past the park onto North Mt Vernon Avenue towards the river. He passed a new looking truck stop with a big blue bud light truck out front and a sign that read “LQUOR”.

There was a 7-11 on the other side and a cosy Mexican restaurant off the highway.

He continued along South Mt Vernon past a motel and a garage selling discount cylinder heads. It took him over the highway and snaked around to join it. He got onto the I-10 towards Redland and found himself in a conga-line of early morning commuters.

The glare on the windshield reminded him he forgot to wear sunglasses driving in California.

Despite that he had some time to take in the scenery squinting at pretty much flat nothing. A drainage canal ran underneath the highway and lead to a strange grouping of green trees walled on either side by thick concrete. The other side of which was a lot containing several mounds of brown dirt, the result of digging or some kind of construction.

On the left there were sickly looking spruce trees poking over the top of the freeway. He took the time to read some of the billboards which were suspended along his side of the highway. The first was for a pest control business, a picture of a suspicious looking cockroach. The next has a big red truck on it claiming to be the #1 at something vague. The one that followed just had “$720,000” written on it with a phone number below it. After that was a movie poster with a blue guy strangling a blue woman, it didn’t look that interesting.

~

Strange and Unproductive Thinking