Lost Time - Tales From The Backwoods Story #2
Backwoods
Lost Time
Tales from the Backwoods
Story #2
A Short Tale
Written by Backwoods
Copyright 2014 Backwoods
All Rights Reserved
License Notes:
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, digital, photocopied or otherwise, without expressed, written permission from the author.
All names and characters are fictitious.
Any resemblance to an actual person or place is entirely coincidental.
Lost Time
The doctor looked curiously at me as I explained that my appointment was scheduled for ten-thirty a.m. It was now pushing noon and I had certainly had enough. “Doc, it has been over an hour! I understand that you’re a busy man, Doc, but I got shit to do!”
The doctor simply stared as I finished my rant. His expression varied as he considered speaking.
“Doc? You all right?”
Dr. Callahan was an odd man. The goofy mix of long hair dangling from the sides of his bald head seemed a perfect match with his slight frame and beady eyes that always seemed much larger than normal behind his large thick glasses. He did, in fact, offer the look one would expect a shrink to have, or a high school guidance counselor for that matter.
“Jim, what day is it today?” he finally offered.
His question raised my own curiosity as I wondered what kind of a shrink forgets what day of the week it was. Perhaps he should take a little of his own medicine, I thought as I blurted out a reply. “It’s Tuesday, Doc! Got my appointment card right here. Tuesday, June twelfth at ten-thirty. I even called off work to be here.”
“Jim,” he said, hesitating slightly. “It is Thursday today. Thursday the fourteenth. Your appointment was two days ago.”
What the hell kind of head doc fucks with your head? I asked myself, instantly realizing the idiocy of the thought before continuing. “What the hell are you talking about, Doc? Today is Tuesday! I even stayed up watching the game last night!”
“I stayed up and watched that game too, Jim. It was a great game, but that was two days ago!”
I had never heard his voice shutter as it did when he spoke. For a man who was always very much in charge of his emotions and fluent of speech with any topic, he seemed very flustered and uneasy.
“I’ve got another appointment coming in in a few minutes, but if you could stick around I think it best we talk afterward.” He continued.
“I appreciate the thought, I guess” I replied smugly, “but I better get back to work.”
The nerve, I thought, make me wait an hour and a half and his solution is to have me wait another hour. Fuckin’ shrinks.
I felt the anger brewing redness in my face, so I turned and headed for the door without another word. Beating the hell out of a shrink at a court-ordered anger management session would not bode well at my next hearing.
It was all bullshit to begin with, based on the bitter lies and paranoid delusions of a bitch that I called wife for all of three months. My ex-wife had been a constant pain in the ass since our divorce, some ten years before. Feeding a line of shit to a child who loves their daddy and when I spoke my piece, well, we will just say the judge didn’t like the ‘tone’ of my comments and here I am, once a week for six weeks. Ironic, I thought, all these anger issues, yet I turned and walked away. Find my ex-wife, she is the source of any anger issues I have.
My thoughts redirected back to the shrinks claim of missing days as I pulled into the job site where our crew had been working. I heard no chainsaws, saw no trucks, and found no job site. Clearing trees for the utility lines offered a new site nearly everyday, however, this particular site was overgrown and would likely take several days to finish. Yet I stood, staring at a path of destruction from pole to pole and nothing remaining to clear. Could it really be Thursday? I asked myself, dismissing the option as absurd.
I called my foreman to ask where they were and found only more confusion in his reaction. “Well, it’s about damned time you decided to call” he said in his deep gruff voice. “figured you was dead, or in jail, or somethin’. Hell, or thought maybe you was shacked up with some lil-somethin’ and still tryin’ to figure out what to call her, or if she even told you her name.”
“Sorry, Boss. Fuckin’ doc dicked me around with the schedulin’.
“What? Come on, Jim. You really think I’m stupid enough to think that would take a fuckin’ week? You gotta do better than that. At least come up with something that’s believable.”
“All week?” I replied.
“Ya, all week! You knew we had that big cluster out on Chester Drive. You left us all bustin’ ass and short-handed. You told me you’d be back on Wednesday.”
“Something was obviously fucked up. Perhaps I had lost a day or two somehow. I hadn’t gone out on a bender that I could recall, and I didn’t mess with any kind of drugs that would do that, well at least not anymore. I thought for a moment, figuring it best to get off the phone before he told me I was out of a job, so I offered another apology and asked where to go in the morning.
“In the morning? What the fuck are you smoking, man? I ain’t worked a Sunday since that ole ice storm up and Mansfield back in O’-Seven. Just head out to the old mill out on Amsterdam Drive, south of the old Wolfe place on Monday. And Jim, If you don’t show, don’t bother callin’!”
The click of the phone stung like a slap in the face. Tomorrow is Sunday? What the fuck happened to Friday? I struggled to make sense of things for a few moments before deciding to head home.
I opened the door to my small apartment and found everything in order, however, after a closer look I discovered the small frog that I had bought for my daughter on her first weekend with me at the cramped little place, floating silently atop the water in its aquarium homestead. I had never seen the little swimming frogs until the purchase of this one and he and I had become best of friends, given our shared, solitary existences. My heart sunk as I poked at the little guy, verifying that our friendship had died along with him.
The answering machine alongside the aquarium blinked from several unchecked messages, but I decided they could wait, opting for a shower instead. My luck, I thought sarcastically, a shower might take a few days, probably be a few more messages by then anyhow.
I gathered some clothes from one of the big bucket-type tubs in the corner and gave them a sniff to assure they were from the one designated for clean-to-fairly-clean clothes and proceeded to the bathroom. The door let out a squeak as it revealed the small room, a dinky-little shower, a well-used shitter, and a dead body lying facedown upon the floor.
In one of those moments when a thought comes at what would seem the most odd, or usually awkward, of times, I wondered where the smell was. In every cop show, ever, they talk of the stink of a corpse and the disturbing-ness of crime scenes, yet I smelled nothing. Reality leaped back into my head and I looked down at my bloated guest. I had never seen an actual dead guy, but my reaction was not one that I expected from myself. I was not queasy, I did not turn and vomit. Instead, I felt an odd serenity. I leaned down and rolled the body over, curious to identify the intruder and the cause of his downfall.
Shivers hit my spine like lightning as I stared into his face. He showed a familiar face, one that I knew well. It was, however, one that I would no longer see in the mirror each morning. It was my own.
A whirlwind of memories came flooding into my head, the last of which was the sharp piercing pain in my chest. I recalled thoughts of a heart attack, thoughts of being too young to die of a heart
attack at only thirty-four years old, and thoughts of my daughter.
~The End~
Also from Backwoods:
Unremembered, by Backwoods
After a fatal crash, Ethan Wolfe must survive the wilderness to evade capture. He flees to Colorado to seek asylum with friends, only to find them facing an evil beyond imagination. A twisted dream and a shocking premonition leave him wondering if they face the evil or are the cause of it.
Off Grid, by Backwoods
Johnny & Rae Lynn Tapper find safety in solitude, hidden deep within the shelter of the Rocky Mountains. Terrorists have taken away the country they once knew and they survive, secluded and alone, by living off the land. They live wild new lives in a wild new world, living among the wild animals of the vast Colorado wilderness. There are no phones. There is no power. There are few people. They are completely 'Off Grid'.
Stronghold, by Backwoods
Book #2 of the Off Grid Series
After a devastating attack changed the country forever, Johnny and Rae Lynn Tapper have survived solitude in the wilderness, bitter winters, brutal injuries, a deadly encounter with wolves, and the birth of their child while alone and trapped by a very unpleasant bear. Now they face an even greater danger, Howard Harvey, the serial killer who has moved into their town of Stronghold.
Seven Years, by Backwoods
Tales from the Backwoods, Story #1
Seven Years is the first story of the Tales from the Backwoods. It is a short paranormal thriller about a man sentenced to seven years in prison. The harsh realities of prison are a source of fear for many reasons, although the worst fears are likely not the realities, but the unknown.
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~Backwoods~
