The Beast

He finally caught it.

“I’ve got your shoe!” Adam yelled while sprinting around the deep concrete playground, his pores radiating excitement. He ran like a bat out of hell round and around an intense game of four-square. While he made his laps he shouted here and there at the top of his lungs, “I’ve got her shoe! ... ... I’ve got her shoe! ... ... I’ve got her shoe!”, but none of the players around him paid him any mind. This was just another one of Adam’s antics. There came a gust of warm wind that one of the players used to help carry the ball into the far corner of an opponent’s square. He was now at the top of the game.

Adam repeated his running shouts along the burnt grass where football was being played, he ran back and forth where the emos were smoking joints and the goths were smoking cigarettes, he ran along the stairwell that connected the two school buildings rapidly placing his feet along the rainbows of light being refracted through the windows, and he ran around the hot blacktops of the basketball courts. Adam ran so fast and yet nobody except his ever decreasing shadow was chasing him. Only two people paid him any mind.

In frustration the girl wearing only one shoe slowly made her way towards a tall metallic pillar where an ugly boy sat laughing in the shade hidden from everyone. “What are you laughing at!?”, hissed the young girl through pearly white clenched crooked teeth.

“Open your eyes,” said the boy smiling through his deformity while taking another swig from his warm water bottle, “my friend is the at the top of four-square, the boy that always bullies me is losing his game of football, the basketball players are so happy with their new hoop, the sun is radiant and powerful, you look drop dead gorgeous in your yellow spaghetti-strapped sun dress, we had pizza for lunch, and for some ridiculous reason you walk over to me wearing only one shoe while Adam tries to make people care about what he has done. This world is wonderfully absurd and I laugh because I enjoy it all. Laughing is how I deal with pain.” The pale white girl who was slowly being burned in the intense noon heat stood there awkwardly as falling leaves rustled free by hungry birds softly struck the ground between them and got swept away in rustling whirlwinds. “Well,” continued the boy almost forgetting what he was going to say as he admired how heaven’s light reflected off of her pink nose, “all’s that to say, I love life. And you? What about you pretty girl? Why are you so angry?” he asked taking another drink from his water bottle.

Relief struck her. At first she did not know how to respond to the unexpected compliments from so hideous a boy. But he relieved her of that by asking her a question regarding her mood. She replied with steam pouring out of her ears and rising up into the sky, “Look! I am one shoe short! Are you Blind!? Can’t YOU see!? That moronic Neanderthal has stolen half my set of shoe! He ripped it off my sole as I got knocked down during a separate game of Tag. He wasn’t even involved! And now he runs like the Tasmanian Devil spinning up clouds of dust making a mockery of my disadvantage!”

Adam trampled over burnt sagging wild bluebonnets, brown tipped drying daisies, and half blown dandelions surrounded by hearty full-grown weeds of crab grass. Cicadas could be heard singing their notes of ritualistic song orchestrated along the lines of sheet music generated by the reflected heat waves of summer sun.

“Bummer,” said the boy sitting as cross legged as he could taking another big gulp from his water bottle. He let out a deep, “aaaaaah”, and while looking as straight as he could at the girl still standing in front of him he patted a spot on the ground next to him and said with flushed cheeks, “take a seat next to me doll ... *hic*, it would make me the happiest man in the world. Besides, Adam can’t hold onto your shoe for ... for forever.”

“Are you outside of your mind!?” erupted the girl with wiry dirty blonde hair, “I need my shoe back yesterday!” and before he knew it she flung off her other shoe and gave wild chase to Adam. The boy and the shoe kept each other cool company.

Watching the chase unfold only strengthened the boy’s smile. He laughed harder and harder. Adam and the girl ran around and around the school countless times. Soon, the soles of her feet began to form tiny burn blisters as she came to the realization she will not be catching Adam. Eventually the pain became too intense and she had no other choice than to give up the chase. “I give up!”, she shrieked like a boiling tea kettle. She hobbled her way back to where the boy and her shoe were waiting in the shade letting out an, “ouch”, each time her bare foot touched the boiling concrete. Her tightly braided hair swung in rhythm as it absorbed warm sunlight into the weaves of her pretty knotted pattern.

“Yea,” said the boy finishing his water bottle, “he’s super fast. He’s won fastest boy in class three years running. What’s there to shoe about it?” he said with a grin while shrugging his shoulders. The girl, at first overwhelmed by the stupidity of his pun let out a deep sigh that suddenly changed into light joyful laughter.

Looking for the first time upon the red flushed ugly boy sitting on the floor she took a place next to him and said, “My name is Alice. What’s your name?”

Grinning as hard as ever he looked her in the eyes as best he could and said, “I thought you’d never ask, Alice, my name is ...”

***

Over the course of the next decade they fell in love, had a daughter, and slowly started to drift apart. Unfortunately for Alice she fell in love with a fiction writer who never once in his life got published. To highlight her embarrassment even further there were children of her friends that got their work featured onto the front page of local magazines. His lack of any success frustrated her to no end. She saw her picking him as a reflection of her terrible intuition. Alice looked around her daily and saw the monetary failings of unrealized promises and unfulfilled dreams. Shame and indigence were the only constant shoals she and her daughter could reliable wear for comfort.

***

It was New Years Eve and instead of buying the fireworks his daughter begged him for he took what little money he had left over and fed it into the local corner store slot machine. He got lucky and was able to use his winnings to buy a $20 bottle of gin. This was high-rolling compared to his ole reliable E&J.

Luckily, when he got home his wife and daughter were nowhere to be seen. He made his way into his office and locked the door behind him. Sitting himself into his gamer chair he opened the bottle and took a couple shots before he began to loosen up enough to write.

It was here. Finally. After years of pursuit he found it. He caught a glimpse of the majestic. There was no way he could conquer it. Instead he chose to run alongside it. He was overjoyed that his eyes could feast upon wherever the beast wanted to go.

The fact that he could see the beast was proof enough that he was tapping into something extraordinary. Each letter he placed felt like the perfect brick for the cathedral he so long suffered to create. As his eyes gazed upon the page he saw rainbows of differing combinations of color emanating from each sentence. His mind did not run out in front of him. He thought in tandem with the blissful rhythm.

When suddenly a BANG of pink, blue, green, and yellow reflected light sparkled through his window as it descended upon his manuscript. Broken momentarily from his trance he poured himself another drink and dove right back into his art.

Each explosion of firework lent his work a burst of emotion. Each excited scream from his neighbor’s kids brought about a long forgotten childhood memory which brought him to tears. He kept on writing.

When, until, he lifted up his bottle and saw that he was out of booze.

Getting up in a drunken stance he made his way to the door hooks and grabbed his coat and the keys to the house. Opening his office door he was met with the redolent smell of love mixed with rice and beans.

“There you are! Finally the impotent beast staggers drunkenly from its cave! There is no food for you tonight! Your daughter, you remember her don’t you? Your daughter and I split the last of the food. The fridge is bare. The same with the Pantry. Please! My love ... quit your writing and get a second job for us, US, the ones YOU promised to provide for! You have never been published and you never will!” While Alice was slinging her admonishments his daughter, not wanting to look at her hero in his drunken routine, meekly kept her head down in silence, pretending to concentrate on her pittance of food.

As childish as ever the grotesque man stuck out his tongue and flicked off his loyal wife and left the house to walk to the local corner store.

The weather was cold and the wind was fierce. He felt only the warmth of gin flowing through his veins and flushing his cheeks. A black SUV driven by a drunk driver got startled by the burst of noise at midnight and swerved onto the sidewalk killing the walker instantly.

***

The beast he was running with earlier that night now stands as a colossus of shadow before him. Its skin black yet pulsing with ethereal light. The man followed the beast’s direction and found a desk with a book bound with leather placed on top. Directly in front of the desk lay a circular still blue pool of water.

He picked up the book and was startled when he read the cover, ‘Alice’. As he flipped through the pages the scenes in the book conjured themselves within the pool. He was horrified to see that her life took such a horrific turn after his death. As he read the book he became angry. So much needless suffering on his account.

There was a pencil on the desk so he attempted to erase all the misfortunes within Alice’s story but that only resulted in ever increasing devastation. Whenever he tried to write a happy ending a new sentence always followed up to undermine it.

Taking a deep breath he knew what he had to do. He went back to the happiest day of his life and wrote, “ ‘Hah! you didn’t get my shoe. What a loser!’ Alice said as she walked back triumphantly towards her friends to continue their game of tag.”

Flipping to the end of the book he saw that Alice got happily married and got the big family she always wanted.

Unable to control himself any longer he collapsed onto the cloudy floor and cried himself to sleep.