Big Black Demon

Today, unfortunately, I am finding it hard to disconnect from reality. Most days it comes as second nature for me, but of course, on the days when bad things happen I tend to find myself rolled up like a sausage in pastry, unable to detach from anything or stop remembering, or thinking, or dwelling. Either way, writing is my usual style of dealing (though, to be fair, I still haven’t written about a fire, unless you count the hell fire in my WIP second novel) and so here is Bradley. And the shittiest day of Bradley’s life.

Maybe if I make Bradley suffer, I won’t have to suffer myself.

Though isn’t it just normal that we suffer ourselves, just like we suffer everything we can get our hands on.

** I apologise for the fact that this short is pretty close to home, and so it might be a little boring. Also I apologise for the title which sounds a little pornographic now that I read it again.

Big Black Demon

Some things were very clear in Bradley’s mind. Some things stuck there — in his mind — like photographs of pure clarity. Crisp and clear.

The cannula in Bradley’s leg was starting to ache. To be fair it had lasted the three days that it was supposed to last, but he was crossing his fingers that it would do him a solid five or six, only because he was out of money, and time, and fucks. As he rolled over in bed, the skin on his outer thigh glowed with the dull heat of a slow-building pain, and the alarm on his phone beeped. Four o’clock in the morning was too early for anyone to be awake, yet there were people who woke much earlier than he did. And they woke at that time everyday. They woke without complaint. They woke in the dark of night. They woke yesterday. They were already awake.

Yesterday Bradley repeated to himself, in the hopes of creating some forward motion. It didn’t work.

Fifteen minutes later his second snooze alarm was going off and the dusty blue haze of dawn was peeking through his curtains. Bradley got up to take a shower. 

Some things were very clear in his mind. 

The bathroom needed a clean; the tiled corners were choked with hair and dust.

The sink needed a scrub as well. 

The kitchen was a mess from last night’s foray into cornbread baking.

The living room was strewn with books and projects and things that should have been long discarded.

There was a dead cockroach in the hall.

There was a burnt out candle on the mantle.

Bradley ignored all of this — he was late as it was. With no time for a coffee on the way out, he grabbed a small bag of grapes and locked the door behind him.

Through the suburbs the going was easy despite the recent storm damage. He hit every light, but they changed quickly and before he knew it he was peeling along the motorway in his canary yellow hatchback, twenty minutes late, but with a kind-of smile on his face — Tuesdays were easy, and he was sure that this one was going to be no different. 

Some things were very clear in his mind.

Bradley asked Siri to call his brother who had already been at his own job for a few hours. Ryan answered after the first ring.

“Dude! What the fuck? What’s wrong?”

Bradley laughed. “Nothing man, just wanted to wish you a happy birthday, dickhead!”

There was silence and then… “Oh, fuck. Ha! I forgot. Wait, am I forty or forty-one this year?”

Bradley couldn’t help but smile to himself. He and his twin brother Ryan always joked around on their birthday, but this year Ryan had sounded completely surprised, as if he’d actually forgotten their birthday. 

Laughter petered out into civil conversation and then Ryan had to go because apparently science was happening and it couldn’t or wouldn’t be stopped. 

Some things were very clear in his mind. 

There were newly installed electronic road signs in this part of the city. Signs that could project words for traffic advice and missing children and numbers to call if you needed such and such. There were some that showed the speed limit and they changed when conditions changed — slower, faster, lanes closed, lanes opened, lanes flooded, specific limits for certain incidents.

Today the electronic signs were all flashing and though Bradley saw that they were urging him down from 100 to 60 kilometres per hour, he only barely registered it. He was a conscientious driver, and so he braked gradually without thinking about it and brought himself down from 90 to a solid 50 and slowing. The cars in front of him were easily doing 40 while they let merging traffic in from the side.

Some things were very clear in his mind.

Everything was quiet and calm. Traffic was slowing. Bradley braked and braked again. The merging traffic was going too slow. Too slow. There must have been a crash or some kind of incident up ahead. There was no way to tell. Bradley braked once more and saw, in his rear vision — 

The Big Black Demon.

Some things were very clear in his mind. 

The car came up on him quickly but Bradley didn’t think that anything could be wrong, he only worried that perhaps the black car behind him was a little too close. He looked back at the car that was slowing in front of him and that was when The Big Black Demon — 

CRACK! 

The world snapped into darkness.

The impact, at first, felt like forward motion but it changed with rapidity. 

Some things were very clear in his mind.

Everything was thrown forward. Bradley, his glasses, the car, reality. We, all of us that Bradley knew, moved forward faster than we should have, and then the Big Black Demon was gone, because Bradley had closed his eyes and he was hurtling forward in his yellow hatchback, spiralling towards the traffic in front, spiralling back around again, spinning and flailing inside his car, moving inevitably towards the cement pylon that he couldn’t see; was lucky not to see.

Some things were very clear in his mind. 

Turning and turning. As if he was in a blender. 

Bradley’s glasses flew off his face upon the initial impact, but he didn’t notice. His hands came off the wheel and and dangled out in front of him. His body was thrown to one side and then the other and then back again. The impact on the pylon wasn not as bad as he had anticipated — a dull thud that shook the car and brought him back to life, forcing him to open his eyes. 

Bradley had been sure he was going to die that day. He had been sure that he was going to feel his own death. He had been sure that he was going to experience his own death.

Some things were very unclear in his mind. 

His car had turned a little over 180 degrees in the crash, but if you were to ask Bradley, he would have said the car turned at least two and a half times - 900 degrees. If you were to ask Bradley, he would have said that he shouted out and groaned as the car started to spin, but he didn’t. He made no sound at all. If you were to ask Bradley, he would have said that the Big Black Demon was an SUV or a Utility or a truck of some sort, but it wasn’t. It was a lowered hatchback with custom rims and specialty sticker decals. 

Some things were very clear in his mind.

Bradley knew that this wasn’t the last time he was going to have to deal with a Big Black Demon.