Free at last

The steaming teapot’s scream for attention went unanswered. There was no one home; that is, if you ignored the mindless lump of humanity sitting on the floor in the corner of the kitchen. “It” was alternating between mindless laughter and gnawing on the end of a pencil. Five minutes earlier “it” had been Tom Ramsey.

Mr. Ramsey, it seems, had left the building.

That evening had started like a lot of evening’s lately – sitting on the porch, a bottle of Jack in one hand and a loaded Smith and Wesson in the other. The bottle always won. It didn’t matter to Tom, really. One escape was a good as the other.

He was deep into the bottle when he noticed that instead of drunken bliss, things were becoming clear; crystal clear. The sounds of the night…he heard them all. He sniffed the night wind and knew there was a mouse in the woods across the street. Somehow, that appealed to him. He saw an owl swoop from a nearby tree. No more mouse.

‘If only I could be like that bird,” he thought.

Shaking his head, he fought off the illusions of the night. Pouring out the last few drops of Jack, he went looking for something to give him a mental boost. In the cupboard, he found a lone container of instant coffee. It was the last ingestible item in the entire house.

He put on the water.

As an afterthought, he took up a pencil to make a small grocery list. He was suddenly very hungry.

That was when he heard the squeak. A mouse stood looking at him from the hallway.

Tom felt his arms turn to wings. His nose curved over his lip and his eyes grew to dominate his face. It was time to go.

Word count 300