Xanqui’s blog

While I'm not the type to post videos on my blog, I have had a favorite video on the Internet ever for the past week.  See the following:

So yeah, I am serious about making this short story collection.  In fact, I wrote a story today.  It's a lot different from my usual stuff, but you wouldn't know that because I don't have my other stuff posted on this blog. 

This story is based on a dream I had.  I've never done this before because I've never had a dream worth writing about.  At least, none that were very coherent.  I'm not a big fan of incoherent stories.  I added some stuff to the story to make it a story, rather than just an image.  Most of the events that happen in this story happened in my dream. 

It's written from my perspective, which is something else I've never done before.  I used events from my personal life for effect, and tried to write from my own stream of consciousness.  This was pretty difficult, because I've never written like this before.  But I think the overall effect is pretty cool. 

I won't say anything else about it, but I absolutely love hearing criticism of my stuff.  So feel free to post replies tearing it apart or complimenting it.  Either way, it helps.

Note: This story contains strong language. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Old Man and the Orange

I back my car into my usual parking spot, letting it roll to a stop just inches from the curb.  Somehow this always works; I guess there’s a slight slope that makes my car stop.  Put the car in park, turn the key to shut off the engine, and wait for my satellite radio to shut off before I stick it under the ash tray so no one can see it and steal it.  I would have never done this where I used to live, but there are cops everywhere around my apartment complex, so there must be a lot of crime. 

I get out of my car and open the back door to retrieve my laptop.  There’s no point in carrying in my coat too, because I think it will be warm tomorrow.  Might as well leave it in there in case it gets cold.  As I shut the back door, I notice someone standing in front of my apartment door.  He’s not facing toward the door, nor is he facing toward me.  From my angle, I can see that he’s an older man, with thin white hair and a light peppered beard.  There’s nothing remarkable about him aside from the fact that he’s between me and my front door.  I’m going to have to approach him.

Strafing sideways, keeping my eyes on him without trying to attract his attention, I can see that his head is bowed down.  He’s sort of staring down at something, but he doesn’t appear to be focusing on anything.  There’s a sound coming from him that is familiar to me, but it’s not entirely human.  It’s like an alarm, but he’s doing it with his tongue.  His mouth is making some kind of sucking motion, and now I’m fucking creeped out.  Directly beneath his mouth, on the ground, is a peeled orange. 

I back away and pull my cell phone out of my pocket.  My hand shaking, I dial for the police and tell the woman on the other end that there’s someone in front of my apartment who is scaring the shit out of me.  I tell her I don’t know whether I’m in danger, but just to send the nearest cop to my location.  She tells me not to approach the man and to remain calm. 

Almost immediately, I see bright red and blue lights flashing out of the corner of my eye.  The cop pulls around the corner and parks right next to where I’m standing.  He’s a young guy, pretty thin, but he’s got a gun so I guess he’s capable of handing the situation.  He sees me on the phone and asks me if I was the caller.  I tell him yes and point to the old sucking man in front of my apartment. 

The cop does exactly what I did, strafing to his left, but doing it with louder steps and an attempt to get the old man’s attention.  But the old man doesn’t even react.  He’s still sort of looking down at that orange.  The cop asks the man calmly if he’s okay, but he gets no reaction.  I see his hand hover just above the butt of his gun.  The cop doesn’t have to say it, but he tells me to stay back.  I have no problem with this because I want nothing to do with the situation.  I just want to get into my apartment so I can make some pasta and watch my Netflix movies that were supposed to come in today. 

He tells the old man to look up, and when nothing happens, he tells him to step away from the apartment.  He’s pretty calm about everything, but my heart is racing.  The old man is still making that god damned noise, and hasn’t taken a breath.  Part of me thinks he’s an alien, and the other part thinks this is all some kind of joke.  I haven’t been around many crazy people, so maybe this is what they do.  But I want to know why he’s in front of my apartment.  I don’t know anyone here.  I don’t talk to my neighbors, and I keep quiet, so they wouldn’t have any reason to mess with me. 

And I want to know what was with the orange.  I mean, when I drop an orange, I pick it up, dust it off, and take apart the sections and eat it.  I can’t afford to throw it away or just let it sit on the dirt like this guy so ants can eat it. 

The cop says something into his radio on his shoulder that I miss, but it makes me jump.  I guess he’s calling for backup.  The old man doesn’t seem threatening, but maybe the cop thinks he might have a bomb strapped to his chest.  He tells the old man to put his hands on his head and get down to his knees.  I’ve seen this in movies, so I know he’s going to put handcuffs on him and take him down to the station.  But damn it, the old man isn’t even looking up.  Absolutely nothing is changing about him or what he’s doing. 

I want to say something, but the cop knows how to handle these kinds of situations.  That’s what they’re trained to do.  This guy has probably dealt with plenty of crazies, but maybe he’s never dealt with someone like the old man.  Even schizophrenics react, I think.  The only knowledge I have of these kinds of things are vague memories from psychology classes and movies, so maybe I’m wrong. 

The cop is moving toward the man, and he’s got his baton in his hand.  Fuck, this might get violent.  I like seeing this stuff in TV shows, but I never wanted to see an old man get the shit beat out of him.  But that noise coming from him has got to stop.  A shiver goes down my spine, and the cop probably feels the same thing.  He warns the old man one last time, but there is no fucking reaction at all. 

He’s an arm’s length away from the old man, and he’s got his baton against his wrist.  He’s not going to use it to hit the man, just to help push him down.  That might not hurt.  Then with a clean, swift move, he brings the baton down between the old man’s shoulder and his neck, probably some kind of pressure point thing.  This move would have easily taken me down, rendering me completely helpless.  But it does nothing to the old man.  The fabric of his brown coat doesn’t even move.  The cop backs away instantly, probably pissing his pants.  I know that has never happened to him. 

This time he swings the baton at the man.  He probably wants to just knock the guy out and fucking end that noise.  Neither of us care that the man is old.  We just want this situation to end.  The baton hits the old man’s temple, but bounces off wildly, snapping the cop’s arm.  The stick goes flying through the air and into a bush.  The cop backs away, screaming in pain as his arm dangles.  He yells out all kinds of profanity, and then goes for his gun.  He has trouble getting it because he has to reach across his waist and unlatch it. 

I’m to invested now to leave, but holy shit it’s a fucking gun.  I’ve fired a gun or two before, but it was at a tree and my dad was making sure I didn’t point it at anything but a tree.  I’ve never seen a gun pointed at a human being before.  But if the baton bounced off the man like that, then the same thing was probably going to happen with a bullet.  That’s how that shit works with Superman and his villains.  Bullets always bounce off of them. 

The cop is screaming at the old man now, telling him to get down before he fucking shoots him.  This is probably against the law, but come on, nobody is trained for this kind of shit.  If our roles were reversed, I’d be pointing the gun at the old man too.  I’d probably have pulled the trigger by now.  Or maybe I wouldn’t because it might ricochet into my stomach or my knee. 

He pulls the trigger.  I know this not because I saw him do it, but because I know what a gunshot sounds like.  It’s sort of like on TV, but it’s different.  Either time has stopped, or none of us are moving.  The old man isn’t making that noise anymore, but he’s still in the same position, staring down at that orange.  That’s when it hits me.  I know what the cop needs to do now.

I say out loud to kick the orange away.  The cop still has his gun pointed at the old man, but he turns to look at me, like what the fuck am I talking about.  He looks down at the orange, probably noticing it for the first time and realizing it has some significance in the situation.  He takes a slight step forward and kicks it away.  It rolls across the sidewalk and into a bush. 

The old man looks up.  His mouth is puckered, still making that sucking motion, and it reminds me of an anteater.  He’s staring right at the cop now.  I pity the cop.  I want to apologize for calling instead of just walking past the old man into my apartment and pretending nothing happened.  He might have left on his own accord a few hours later, and I’d leave my apartment tomorrow and not see him ever again.  It would be a weird story to tell my friends, sort of like this one time when I was walking to school and I saw this car stopped in front of a stop sign.  Both the man and woman inside were asleep, so I cautiously approached it, knocked on the window, and asked if everything was okay.  The guy woke up, and I was glad he wasn’t dead, said he was fine, and drove off.  It was pretty weird, but my new story would have been more interesting. 

But now I’m not sure if I ever want to think about this again, let alone talk about it. 

I’m terrified, and I know that cop is too.  An old bulletproof man is staring at him, right into his eyes.  He pulls the trigger again, the gun aimed right at the old man’s chest.  Maybe he thought like I did that the orange was creating a force field around him, and it was gone now.  But it’s not.  I don’t see blood spray anywhere, or even the slightest reaction from the old man. 

The cop puts the gun to the old man’s forehead and unloads the entire clip.  The bullets aren’t ricocheting anywhere, nor is the old man’s head exploding.  But something is happening.  The gun is starting to glow red.  It burns the cop’s hand and he drops the gun.  An orange aura stars to spot around the old man, and his mouth opens as wide as a human mouth can. 

His head tilts back and he looks straight up at the sky.  And I mean straight.  His head snaps back so fast that I hear his neck break, but the old man doesn’t fall down or die.  The cop backs away, and so do I.  I look up and see a hole form in the sky.  It’s black, and my best guess is that it’s a worm hole.  The man is completely engulfed in his orange aura.  It’s like fire, but it doesn’t spit out like fire.  The aura stretches up toward the sky, very thinly at first, but then it becomes a pillar as wide as the man. 

He vanishes right before my eyes, and the pillar fades away.  The hole in the sky is gone, and so is every trace of the old man.  The cop turns and looks at me.  He doesn’t have to say it, but he tells me that no one is ever going to believe our story if we told anyone.  I ask him if he can see the orange in the bushes.  He can, and I start walking toward it.  He tells me to stay away from it, but I have to know. 

This event has proven to me that aliens exist, and that there are other civilizations out there far more advanced than anyone has imagined.  I get down on my knees and see the orange under the bush.  First I pull out the cop’s baton and get up to hand it to him.  Then I reach for the orange.  It’s warm, and feels like an orange.  I show it to the cop, but he tells me to keep the fucking thing away from him. 

It’s dirty, so I dust it off with my hand and then gently break off a slice.  There is nothing remarkable about it.  I’m not sure if it’s an alien artifact or if the alien just thought it was something significant here on Earth.  I disregard the five second rule and eat the slice of orange.  I don’t really taste the dirt, or the orange for that matter.  It’s not very juicy.  The cop is staring at me as if I’m crazy.  I tell him I feel fine, and I really do. 

The cop asks me if I could get him a spare T-shirt from my apartment so he can make a sling for his broken arm.  I unlock my apartment door and let him in.  It’s a mess, but he doesn’t seem to care.  He’s too stuck in thinking about what had just happened.  I help him with his makeshift sling, and before he leaves he says he’ll give me a call later to have me come down to the station so they can debrief me. 

As he gets in his car, I shut my front door and lock it.  Easy Mac and beer are all I want right now.