Got a little thing nagging at you?
Better get it checked before it goes to your head.
Better get it checked before it goes to your head.
Cornered by George Garnet
"Please
hold and an officer will be with you soon." The recorded phone message
with a soothing feminine voice plays for the thirty-fourth time. I force myself
to keep counting as it keeps my brain from exploding. Forty six minutes blink
through the cracked screen of my cell phone.
A female
voice jolts me back to the moment. After listening to my problem of suspended payment, she sighs and says she's
transferring me to the payroll department of Social Services. Before I can say
a word, the line clicks and the soothing voice returns. My head's spinning,
last night's crackers wearing off. It's cold and the ruffled blanket I pull up
doesn't stop the chill from spreading up my feet. My eyes focus on the ceiling
crack above me. Its jagged edges remind me of where my life is now.
A cold,
unsympathetic voice intrudes a half-hour later. She can't help me to unlock my
account unless I arrange for a new interview. Two more days - the world starts
to whirl. I can't survive another day
without money, much less two.
Her abrupt
explanation sums up my predicament. "New policies. You missed your first
interview and need to arrange a new one before we can see if we'll restart your
payments, sir."
She
hangs up on my mumbling, and I find my phone credits nearly gone. I've been
jobless for the last four years. My last two employers sent almost all the jobs
abroad, the rest of the openings taken by low-paid immigrants on some dodgy business
visa. "Globalization," the boss shrugged. "Try re-inventing
yourself."
How many
times do I have to invent myself? I'm 61, deaf in my left ear, suffering
vertigo and arthritis. I've gone through my last reincarnation. Dropping my
useless cell phone to the blanket, its credits gone, it goes dead. I reach for
my almost empty angina spray as my chest tightens. My good ear begins to ring,
pain shooting down my neck.
As I
clench my teeth, my eyes return to the crack on the ceiling. Cracks. Plenty of
cracks in my life. You can call me 'Crackie'. Everything is cracked, broken -
my marriage, my family, my life; all gone in a dark, deep crack, like in a wide
crevice. I'm just clinging to the edge while the whole world's waiting for me
to slide down the hole.
Something
faint, a premonition turns in my mind. Something flashes like a
micro-lightning, neurons making faulty connections in my brain. I shake my
head. As if just having woken, I get up off the bed and vertigo hits me like a
baseball bat.
Sliding
hands over the wall for support, I manage to get to the door and outside to the
front yard. It's a grey day, the sun strangled in a thick mantle of clouds.
Just yards away is my rusty Toyota buried under a blanket of yellow oak leaves
on the street.
The
unlocked car door shrieks and I crawl inside. My eyes closed tightly, breathing
hard, I wait for the vertigo to pass. The engine starts and I thank God for
small miracles.
In front
of the rectangular, one-story, beige Social Services building, I wedge my car
behind a black Ford, parked yards away from the entrance; eyes firmly fixed on
the glass doors, I don't need to wait long.
When a
skinny young woman dressed in a formal black suit walks out of the door, I
reach for the crowbar under my seat. The gold job tag dangling around her neck
tells me all I need to know: Social Services officer. I can't read her name but
it doesn't matter anyway.
The slamming
of the car door catches her attention. Her eyes widen in horror as I slash her
hard across the face. Her willowy body jerks back and the contents of her purse
spill on the sidewalk. She drops to the ground soundless, a crimson stain spills
from the crack in her face, surrounding her head.
The
emptiness inside me spreads as I stare at the crack in her face; another crack
in my life. One more doesn't make any difference. The image of the dying woman
doesn't bother me. Maybe I'm a psychopath, not just another ordinary killer. I
don't care anymore.
I pick
up her purse, taking the $75 in cash I find in there. I bend over, her lips barely moving. "Just
needed my payment," I say. "Please hold . . . an officer will be with
you soon."
