Out of Joint
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About this ebook
Jeromy Pratt is a haunted man living in a haunted house, and since his wife's death, his broken world has made a lot less sense.
Anthony J Fuchs
I am a Philadelphian by birth, a North Carolinian by choice, and a writer by nature. And I have baseball in my blood, having come into this world right around the time that Manny Trillo hit that famous single to drive in Del Unser and give the Phillies a 4-3 lead in Game 5 of the World Series. I have been a teller of stories for as long as I have been able to brandish the force of language. One of my clearest, earliest memories is of watching Michael J. Fox on a 40-foot movie screen as he pushed that Delorean up to 88 miles-and-hour and barreled into the past on a pair of flaming tiretracks. A few years later, I went to a sleepover birthday party at a classmate's apartment, and as midnight gave way to the next day, those of us who dared to brave the darkness began telling horror stories, each determined to terrify everyone else. The next afternoon, my mother received a phone call from my friend's mother: whatever tale I had spun had given him nightmares. Since that day, I have never stopped chasing the intoxicating thrill that comes from the power of fiction. He is the author of "The Danger of Being Me," as well as a growing body of short fiction and poetry. You can contact me at [email protected], or follow me at www.facebook.com/anthonyjfuchs
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Out of Joint - Anthony J Fuchs
OUT OF JOINT
by Anthony J Fuchs
SmashWords Edition
Copyright 2011 Anthony J Fuchs
Cover photo by Anthony J Fuchs
All rights reserved
anthonyjfuchs.livejournal.com
On the morning of the first incident, I woke up at two o'clock to take a leak.
ESPN was still on. I threw back the comforter, swung my legs off the mattress. I sleep on the left, and have for ten years. The headboard butts up against the wall between the bedroom's two doors. The one on my side leads to the hallway. The one on the other side leads to the master bathroom.
I stepped through the door into the hall. The door to the spare-bedroom across the hall was closed, because the cat had an odd habit of yanking books off the shelves. Only the paperbacks. Maybe the hardcovers are too heavy. I passed the spare room, shuffled down the wood-floored hall, headed through the open bathroom door. I hardly heard the door click shut behind me.
I didn't bother with the lights, not at two in the morning. The incandescent nightlight threw off just enough light to piss by, and in that faint halo I spotted a curled pile of fur. Conrad had been sleeping in the sink again, as is his wont. When he saw me, he stretched one paw over the porcelain lip of the sink, yawned, and climbed out from under the faucet. Propping his back-end on the countertop and his forepaws in the basin, he turned to shoot me a weary glance.
I flicked the cold-water handle on the sink to get a stream going for Conrad, then returned to the matter of getting my own stream going. I made quick work of the task, finished, shook off, packed up, flushed. Conrad took his cue and dropped down from the sink so I could wash my hands. Then I turned back to the door and twisted the handle, pulling it open toward me.
I stepped out of the bathroom into the carpeted bedroom. ESPN was still on. As I rounded Angela's side of the bed, I punched the power button to turn off the television. I felt my way around the foot of the bed, returned to the left side again, collapsed onto the mattress.
I could still smell Angela's shampoo as I fell back to sleep.
I didn't consider the incident properly until lunch the next day.
When I did think of it, I immediately wrote it off as