Story: One post at a time.

[Fuzzy Dice]

RULES:
One post taking the story somewhere, maintain the current story please. that is all. Go ahead and use monkeys. This is for fun.







When your life flashes before your eyes, it gives you a chance to reflect. I'd forgotten how much time I'd spent with friends, chasing the bottom of a glass. I'd like to say I had a flash of meaningful insight, but I didn't. Mostly, I enjoyed seeing most of my life again, although the last ten seconds were a little rough.

It started innocently enough. I was bored. Usually, that's not a problem for me. Keeping myself entertained had never been difficult. Fertile imagination. This was different. I was stone cold, staring at the ceiling, bored out of my mind. I was finished university and working, though not using my degree. I'd just gotten my own apartment. Second floor, two bedroom, decent enough view overlooking the smaller shops across the street, including the deli where they had the best pickles on the planet and the glimpses of the park beyond that. No flatmates or family for the first time in my life. I suppose that was part of it. There was no one around. My trying to save money didn't help the situation. I'd played all my games, read all my books and most of my close friends had moved away and were busy with developing their new lives.

On a warm summer afternoon with only a few clouds in the sky and nary a trace of a breeze, I went for a walk. I wound up strolling through the park and that's where I met her. Jenn. She was sitting on a park bench, reading some magazine about celebrity crap. Out of impulse I interrupted her reading. She was short, about 150cm. Slim, but with a bit of curve. Brunette, hair in a ponytail, but it looked like it was shoulder length and a little wavy. A light suntan, soft lips and green eyes sealed it for me. More cute than beautiful, but captivating.

"Hi," I opened gamely. "Come here often?" Oh yeah. Smooth.

"Hmm?" She looked up at me. Obviously she'd been lost in thought.

"Uh, often...do you come here often?" Nervous. Shit. Too cute.

She shot me sort a slightly odd look before continuing, "Yes. Well, no. I mean...sort of." She tucked a stray hair back behind her left ear and continued charmingly, "I just moved here about a week ago and I don't really know anyone yet..." She trailed off. "I'm Jenn." She extended a hand.

I took it. "Tim." Soft, but firm. Small hands. "So. Um...where are you from?" Still nervous, but getting less so. After another minute or two, I'd relaxed enough to start making her laugh and I eventually invited her back to my apartment for supper. We laughed some more and ate and drank a little, I walked her home, turns out she was in the apartment building on the next block. We exchanged numbers and I went home feeling enormously better about myself, life and things in general.

[Fuzzy Dice]

That feeling lasted for a while. Jenn and I started spending more and more time together over the next three weeks. Things I learned about Jenn during this time:
1) she liked beer
2) her favourite colour was blue.
3) one time in grade three, she tickled a kid until he pooped his pants.
4) she loved to watch the rain.
5) it irked her when people cracked their knuckles.
6) her best dish was this chicken-lemon-rice concoction with red peppers in it.
Then one night while we were watching a movie at her place, she kissed me. And then I learned she used to be a gymnast. Who knew?

So anyway, we got closer. She met other people in the city, I met other people in the city. We did things as a couple. She was unemployed, but not really looking for serious work. I guess she'd gotten an inheritance a little while back, her grandfather had done well for himself and he doted on his granddaughter. To keep busy, she was taking a few art classes. She liked to sketch and was moderately talented, but looking to get better at it.

[Feryl]

We slipped into a kind of routine - in a good way. Before I knew it we had a favourite restaurant, mutual friends, a regular weekly "video & take-away" night, and her toothbrush had taken up residence in my bathroom cabinet. Life was good. I felt comfortable in my skin for the first time I could remember. I should have known it couldn't last.

We'd probably been together a couple of months when it occurred to me that apart from the rather vague reference to her inheritance from her grandfather, Jenn never talked about her family. Ever. Nor, for that matter, did she talk about old college friends, or her home town. Thinking back over all the things we'd talked about, I realised that a few amusing anecdotes about childhood mischief were all she had ever volunteered about her past. And I'd been so rapt in her intoxicating presence that it had never occurred to me to ask.

So I began to subtly probe. And it soon became clear that my curiosity was not welcome.

[Fuzzy Dice]

She'd avoid things when I brought up questions about her history. Especially the more recent past. Say, the last five years or so. Not directly, mind you. She was good at evasion. A semi-vague answer, a minor pause and a clean subject change. The kind of thing you wouldn't even notice unless you were looking for it and after a few months, I was.

It bugged me, but I loved her. Head over heels, she consumed me. I found myself wondering what she was doing, where she was, what she would like for supper that night and if I could make it special for her. I loved her, so I let it slide. Too long, it turned out.

One day I was sitting on my couch, watching Blazing Saddles for the 78th time (Mel Brooks is a genius). I was at the scene where Mongo punches the horse, you know the one, when the window to my left shattered inward, followed by men dressed in black, armed with silenced pistols. I was understandably surprised.

[bund]

Straight away I thought about the dodgey tax return I did last year and thought these guys were after receited proof that I spent $24,045 on stationary for work.

To my relief these guys weren't packing any calculators so I was safe there.

Then my eyes landed on the rented copy of Charlies Angels Full Throttle that I had rented five months ago and refused to return to the video store incase someone else may part with their hard earned money on such a worthless piece of cinematic tripe.

It couldn't be that either. Video Ezy would never be this hardcore

One of the guys shoved his pistol into my mouth and asked in a fantastic Central European accent

"Var ish she?"

I thought of two people staright away - My Mum and my Nanna. Shit what had one of them done?

I must have looked a little confused because the big burely guy pushed the pistol an inch further down my throat and screamed

" Your lurver, your friendly girl - VAR ISH SHE ?"

Right then I knew it wasn't Mum and most probably wasn't my Nanna.

The penny dropped. Jenn.

Perhaps this had something to do with her Grandfathers inheritence; Or maybe these guys wanted to know, as I did, why she had two 'n's at the end of her name instead of the traditional one 'n' that accompanies most Jens.

I couldn't organise my thoughts.

My mobile rang

[Serpent_Girl]

and I woke up several hours later sprawled on the carpet of my living room floor, staring at the pool of blood around me in some strange fascination until my head started throbbing and I realise with a groan that it was my own. Scannning the room for an idea as to what the hell happened, (but without moving my head, for I had the feeling that I might just lose consciousness if I did so) my eyes caught apon my mobile, sitting next to me, almost sneering - just a few inches away from my fingertips.

I knew I had to do something - get help!-, but was in no position to do anything except lie there and try to will the pain away. Biting my lip hard, I moved my hand towards the phone, only to feel an intense pain shooting up my arm and causing me to bite straight through my lip. I have no idea what they did to me, but it must have involved several crowbars and my entire body. But at least in my moment of pain I had managed to grab the phone, now slicked in blood but still useable! As I attempted to dial Emergency there was a knock at the door, with a yell of...

[sharpie]

"Mr?? Are you ok in there?"
It was the kid that lived above me, the one who played those infernal computer games at all hours of the day and night with their accompanying machinegun noises sounding like there was a war outside the building.
"Is anyone in there?"
He calls out again, i'm suprised he managed to make it all the way down the stairs since i hadnt seen him in the corridors in weeks... probably hooked himself into the pc and forgot about the real world.. till he ran out of coke.
"I heard a smash, is everything ok?"
I summon the last morsels of strength in my broken body and flick the phone at the door and moan for help.

The gods havent forgotten me, he hears my feeble cry and yells hes going to get his big brother, strange, i didnt know he was home from the military.

I fade into blackness and awake a few minutes later to see the older brother, the kid and the old cat lady from next door standing over my battered frame talking about what too do.

I summon my breathe and....

[Eds]

...even though I could feel clumps of carpet fibre itching my eye and a warm, jellyish clot building around where one of my back teeth used to be, I managed to croak a one-word question.
"Jenn," I asked, rolling to one side. "Wh-Where?"

The kid stood dumbfounded. His brother gingerly stepped over pieces of broken glass on his way toward my ruined window. I watched him look out, check the edge of the frame, turn back toward me, his face full of grim concern.

"Look at this burn pattern," he said, pointing at a part of the frame I couldn't see from the floor. "This is a scorch from a breaching charge. Probably SemTex."
I stared at him, puzzled.
"Whoever did this knows what they're doing," he said.
I turned back to look at the old woman.

I was shocked by what I saw. I had never imagined such detachment, such calculation could come from what I thought was a harmless old lady. She had a slight smirk as she reached behind her with one hand and whispered something down into the collar of her yellowed, lacy blouse.

The kid's brother was still talking, not paying attention. "It's not the kind of stuff you can just buy anywh-"
The shots boomed out, deafening in a rapid little chain - bapbapbap - and his t-shirt kind of rippled at the front for a brief moment, like there was a breeze blowing just on his left breast pocket, and he became a string-cut puppet, dropping straight down without a sound, bashing his expressionless face through the thin wooden armrest of my lounge chair and coming to rest with one wrist held up, caught between the chair-cushions and twisted behind his back in a weird salute.

I turned back to the old lady, who was now pointing the pistol at me. It seemed like all I could see was the opening of its barrel, gaping as wide as a tunnel, and the out-of-focus face of this bizarre, terrifying stranger behind the frame of its sights.

I noticed movement and my eyes flicked towards it. The lady saw me and pivoted but her attacker was too quick. Deft hands grabbed the pistol's slide, flicked the gun around to face its owner with her now-broken finger still laced through the trigger mechanism. The palm of a gloved hand tapped the butt of the gun, pushing the trigger against the old lady's maimed finger and one more shot roared. The lady folded, leaning back and trailing blood from the hole where her left eye had been. She hit the floor at the same time as the gloved hand reached down to help me up.

"Need a lift?" said Jenn.