The moon, like a giant, white mushroom head in the sky, dangled above the tiny wooden cabin. It stood, warped and wonky at the bottom of a dead-end road, plopped in the middle of a small yard overrun with weeds, glass bottles, scrap steel, and other useless junk. A warm yellow light flickered from a solitary dirty window. A loud guffaw broke the quiet of the street.
The inside of the house was spinning, so wonderfully, so smoothly, like a never-ending merry-go-round. Abel reached for the bottle, smiling a happy idiot’s smile, watching his hand sway this way and that.
“Gotcha,” he roared and broke into drunken laughter. “Now come to Papa.” The bottle swayed precariously over the glass, spilling big splashes of whiskey onto the table. He filled his glass half-way up, lifted it to his lips, and vanished the whiskey in a single gulp. He shuddered as the alcohol burned its way down his throat. “There you go,” he slurred.
He set his sights on the unmade bed at the other end of the room. The bed was only three meters away and a clear and straight path, but the stinking floor seesawed from one side to the other. Abel stood up on rubbery legs. His torso swayed backward and forward like a geriatric Elvis Presley impersonator.
“Of course I can walk in a straight line, Prickly Morty,” he slurred. “I’ll show you.”
His hand glided up and pointed at the bed, setting his target. Then his upper body fell forward into a run, dragging his legs along behind him.
“Whooooaaaaaawwww,” he howled as he zigzagged across the room, his clumsy feet thumping into the floorboards. For a short while, it looked as if he would actually make it, but at the last moment, he smashed into the foot of the bed, slamming face down on the floor. He lay dead still for a moment. A groan escaped his mouth, still squashed-up against the floor. He turned his face so he was looking under the bed.
He saw the white shoe box. That right eye bulged like a mad man’s.
“Leave the box alone,” Abel said. But his voice had changed, sobered in an instant. “Please, leave it alone. Please,” his voice a pitiful whimper. Despite the plea, he watched helplessly as his hand glided toward the box. A big, salty tear built up in his left eye, rolled over the bridge of his nose and across the cornea of that mad, unblinking eye. The box slid toward Abel’s face. He whimpered like a starved stray, and his face was a scarred and hopeless image of despair. He lifted the lid, reached inside, and held up a newspaper clipping. The manic eye darted over the bold headline.
Drunk driver kills eight-year-old girl
Abel rolled onto his back. He covered his face with trembling hands and cried. Not everyday blues crying, not the soft, dignified crying of mourners. Loud, guttural bawls heaved his gut and jolted his gaunt chest.
“You, you, you, you,” Abel repeated.
And then he heard it again. Somewhere behind all the loud sobbing and incoherent mumbling, behind the nightmare flashes in his mind, behind the alcohol stupor, Abel heard it again. The soft, distinct, ticking of a pocket watch.
Tick, tick, tick.
4.