Chapter One: Sour coffee and useless words
How can a clam cram in a clean cream can?
How can a clam cram in a clean cream can?
How can a clam cram in a clean cream can?
It was the first thing I could think of when I woke up from another hellish night of sleep, another damn tongue twister. It was greatly unwelcomed too because the useless jumble of words occupied my head like a free-loader, using up whatever brain power I have left.
I convinced my feet to shift from their comfortable position on my bed to the cold floor. The rest of my body followed on cue. I put on a shirt and shuffled out of my room and into the hallway where a friendly gust of wind greeted me which made my insides shake and my teeth chatter. As I made my way downstairs, carefully sidestepping and jumping over the mess of clothes, the mirror just happened to reflect a vaguely familiar face under a matted mass of a shade of brown hair that probably closely resembled the color of poop and a generous amount of five-o-clock shadow. Under the confusion of facial hair, two green eyes shyly popped out as if they were ready to burrow themselves into his skull again. My lips, tattered and torn like soldiers back from Vietnam were plastered into a thin line. I was David with a nasty case of bedhead and chapped lips.
Forcing myself back to the path downstairs, I turned away from the picture which I realized that oddly enough, looked like a Picasso painting. Two steps and I reached the other side of the house, the kitchen. The fridge was open and staring right at me. I shut the door and pulled out a bag of cheap coffee grinds and a filter from the cabinet. When there's nothing in the fridge you can always count on coffee.
See I’ve never really had a tast for coffee but it‘s grown on me since my mom is an addict. The conflicting tastes of bitterness and the cheap sour of discount grinds can grow on you, kind of like a blood-sucking parasite. But I am adaptable. I am flexible. I know what I want but I am always keen on the thrill of negotiation.
The smell of stale coffee stung my nostrils and filled the whole room with a stench that can only be close to that of a cheap deli that would double as a discount store. But as I tried to fill the filter up with coffee I noticed too late that there was only about a teaspoonful in the bag.
Damn, I cursed inside of my head silently. With my jacket on and a tenner crammed into my pocket and a cheap discount MP3 in the other, I locked the apartment behind me and set out down my favorite shortcut to the gas station about ten blocks down.
How can a clam cram in a clean cream can?
How can a clam cram in a clean cream can?
How can a clam cram in a clean cream can?
The tongue twister came back like the plague and cursed my mind with only enough capacity to keep repeating it over and over again. It was only too late for me when I noticed that I had strayed from my path and way down an eerie alleyway when a beer bottle conveniently place on the sidewalk tripped me and caused me to lunge forward into a crowd of guys about my age who were loitering the streets.
I hated these kind of people from the bottom of my heart.
I hated them with every fiber of my being.
They think that they can do whatever will suit them, hurt whomever they want and get away with it. Gangsters they call themselves? These guys are fucking posers and they aren’t even good at that. I would be more than ecstatic to teach them a lesson of my own.
They were each armed with a beer bottle and a pack of cigarettes and were all wearing mostly the same matching uniforms of baggy shirts and pants that were domineered by gravity. The one closest to me, I could tell, was of Mexican descent. He was skinny but tall and when he snarled at me I could spy the hint of disgusting stained teeth that would paint a clearer picture of Wiz Khalifa’s hit song better than the Steelers ever could. I could also spy a crude tattoo that tried to depict the exaggerated features of a naked woman which I though was ironic since this guy would never be able to get a single alive girl who isn’t paid for. The two behind him could have looked like the Mexican version of the bhudda, they were so freaking obese and then bald to boot. I would have rubbed their bellies for good luck but I am sure that I would catch syphilis or some nasty fungus growing out of the folds of their fat. There was another guy behind them but his whole face was covered by a hood though I’m pretty sure that being able to read his expression would not really matter to me. I even spied a short one about fifteen feet away, draining his bowels on what I suspected were the walls to a library.
I twisted my nose from the sticky stench of tobacco, body odor, and piss as they sized me up with their disgusting faces. For the most part, I was taller than the majority of the group and there were only about five, so if I were to grab the beer bottle that had so fortunately led me face-first into them, then I may have the advantage.
“You got a problem holmes,” accused the one that was closest to me in less of an interrogative voice but more of a growl than anything. I stayed silent. The rest snickered and he smirked. They tried to back me up against the wall in order to intimidate me but I wasn’t moving. They weren’t getting my lunch money today.
“Whatever, you ain’t worth my time, kid,” and with that he threw his hand over his shoulder and started to turn away.
What! I though because I was enraged. In fact I was beyond enraged, I was ready for a fight but the bastard would not deliver. I wanted a fight and I wanted it now. The satisfaction of burying my fist into this asshole would make my day if nothing else. This smug prick can’t just get away without being taught a lesson, I thought in my head.
Then without better judgment, I picked up the bottle which had gotten me here in the first place and threw it at the back of tobacco teeth’s face. It bounced off with a hollow clunk.
They all spun around looking like wolves who had detected a kill. Time began to slow down.
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Thought I'd upload chapter two for good measure....
Thought? I NEED FEEDBACK.
Pretty please?
YOU ARE READING
Speechless
ActionScott Zeman is speechless. A surgical accident from the age of fifteen and a half has left him with the ability to comprehend everything as clearly as he had for the rest of his life but without the ability to speak. His handicap consumed him and to...
