The Beginning

Well, since Salvaggio has been so adamant about blogging AND since i finally finished Madness, here is the first section, in all it's glory.

Madness: Revision

The sun moved slowly behind the mountains in the distance, turning everything different shades of subtle pink as the minutes rolled by. Michael Thatcher Edwards sat in his plain maroon Hyundai sedan waiting in the heavy traffic of rush hour. His head leaned out the window as a slight breeze pushed through his cropped black hair.

His mind wandered off into the distance following the sun and the fading light while a dull headache took over. His built frame sat comfortably in the drivers seat of his car and his strong worn hands gripped the steering wheel much too tightly. He closed his gray eyes and leaned back against the head rest heaving a sigh of pain.

The inside of Michael’s car was unusually clean for a Wednesday. He had taken extra time to throw away trash and organize papers in it when he had stopped for gas on his way out of the office in an attempt to get his mind off of the first headache of the evening. The only piece of trash in his car sat on the passenger’s seat. An empty cola bottle lay in lowest portion of the red seat. Even the heavily caffeinated drink couldn’t dent the headache.

“What is wrong with me?” Michael thought brushing his hands through his hair. “I need to get myself checked out. Find out what’s happening.”

He rubbed his high forehead with a sweaty right hand. The headache was back in force now and this was his way of acknowledging that it was there.

“Not now, not here. I need to get home.”

Rush hour traffic caused everything to come to a dead stop and Michael took advantage of the mishap to close his eyes and focus on something other than the bad drive home and still growing headache.

His mind floated away from the traffic, melting into another place and time. A time when Michael was a young child, running around in an open field. The suns moving lazily across the light blue sky. The valley, devoid of any trees, seemed to be one enormous field. Mountains watching guard over the valley stood like monuments to nature in the far distance all around.

“Wait a minute.” Michael thought. Eyes still closed. He focused on the sky in his daydream. “Suns.... Two suns?”

He opened his eyes half expecting to see the signs of two suns on the horizon, but was greeted by the tail end of the only sun in the sky setting for another night and the purple hue of clouds reflecting the dieing light. Then in an instant it looked as if it was rising again, but Michael dismissed this as the pain of the headache and having too much time on his hands. He looked back and watched the sun disappear behind the mountains.

Something felt strange as Michael sat in his car, in the middle of the five lanes of stopped traffic. He listened and quickly came to realize the source of the feeling. It was quiet.

The only noise he could hear was the sound of his own breathing and heart beating. Michael looked around at the other cars and found them and their occupants still as collogued photographs.

In front of him a white sedan’s exhaust hung in the air behind it’s tailpipe like cobwebs in the corner of a dusty basement. The driver of the car sat like a mannequin with a cell phone glued to his ear.

To his right the driver of a cherry red sports coupe held a manila folder in his right hand and a crumpling cup of what looked like coffee in his left. The globs of coffee taunted him, poised to fall directly on his white shirt soaking through instantaneously scolding his chest as his frozen face showed a grimace that knew the truth of an inevitable situation.

A distorted form twisted and writhed in quick horrible unnatural movements in the dark car behind Michael. He thought that the blurred movements made it look inhuman. He then realized that its movements might be normal for an inhuman form.

A high piercing whistle rang through Michael’s ears and the world disappeared in a flash of silver light. As the light dissipated Michael found himself still in the car, almost fifteen miles down the freeway making his way down the off ramp that would lead him to his house. His hands firmly on the wheel, steering as if by instinct.

Michael signaled and pulled to the side of the off ramp and put his head into his hands. Heavy breathing caused his headache to intensify.

“What is wrong with me?” Michael whispered aloud.

After a few moments he continued down the off ramp and on home, not even realizing that in seconds his headache had disappeared.