Apartment B-13

Part 2

Jeff awoke to the faint vibration eminating from his right pocket. He half-heartedly reached into his pocket for his cell that was causing the nuisance, and succeeded silencing it by pressing a random button on the side of the phone.

"Go away," he mumbled in the dimming light of the setting sun which just barely shone through the dirty windows. The light irritated his senses and made him feel sicker, and he shifted his position so as to avoid what was left of the evening's light while ensuring he didn't disturb his tender shoulder. Having managed to stave sickness for a second time, Jeff's eyelids drooped until he was once again taken by sleep.

When Jeff woke up for the second time, the evening was well under way. No lights were on in the apartment and his eyes were having trouble adjusting to the lack of light, and everything was covered in blue-green noise. He wondered how long he'd been asleep and remembered that he was also supposed to be sick and bleeding. He gently slapped his palm on his forehead, which felt cool and slightly damp, as if he had just broken a fever, which he thought he may as well had. His mouth also felt crusty, gross and wet. He traced a couple of fingers beneath his mouth, and felt the unmistakable composition of hour-old puke framing his mouth and running down his chin and neck.

He wiped most of the foul vomit off of his face with the dry bottom end of his t-shirt and twisted around on the sofa until he was sitting upright. Surprisingly, his shoulder wasn't bothering him that much any more, at least not as much as the teriffic headache that clawed at his head.
Setting the pain and drowsiness aside, Jeff fished in his pocket for his cell phone to check the time, and he was reminded by the viewscreen that not only was it nearly 11:00, meaning that he had been asleep for five hours, but he had missed a few calls and had two text messages from Rebecca.

He checked the first: HEY JEF IM LEAVN WORK GOING 4 CHINESE CALL IF U WANT SMTHNG LUV U :)
And the second: GUES U WRNT HOME LEFT SUMTHNG 4 U CUL8R LUV U.

Apartment B-15

Part 1

Jeff slammed the gray apartment door behind him with all the strength that remained in his aching and tired body. He leaned with his back on the door and his right hand covering the torn skin and sticky blood that smothered the meaty part of his left shoulder. Blood escaped from underneath his hand and trickled down his arm as his weight shifted and he slid to the floor. Tiny flakes of peeled paint poked at his back. He buried his face in the cradle of his arm, gritting his teeth and trying to think of anything but the pain which gnawed at his shoulder.

The living room swirled around Jeff's vision. The less than decadant decor, mostly furniture salvaged from yard sales and Goodwill danced around the room. The horribly loud bright green couch, less than vivid these days thanks to food stains and duct tape that sealed the fabric's tears, while in reality a few feet away, shrank in the distance as Jeff peeked at it through in between his knees. If he could just reach it, pull himself up enough to sink down on its well-worn cushions, and forget about the pain for a while he'd be all right.

Jeff lifted his head up, trying to motivate his brain to take action. Removing his hand from his wound, the bleeding didn't seem to be so severe now, he reached up for the dull brass doorknob to use for support as he lifted himself up. He almost toppled over of the dizzyness from the combined sudden rush to his head and the still-present nausea. He steadied himself with the wall's support, holding back the strong feeling building up in the back of his throat that was telling him to vomit. He swallowed hard, suppressing that urge as it repeatedly climbed back up and, feeling that he defeated that desire, stumbled over to the back of the sofa, tumbling over it in a half-sommersault, half-roll manuever.

The Enlightened Party

Joseph stared at the television absent mindedly while biting into his sandwich. It was day-time TV. Not worth watching in the slightest, but he always forgot to bring a book or a magazine to read during lunch. He and his coworkers were confined to the network stations, lacking even basic cable, one of life's new necessities. His coworkers, all of them middle aged women, didn't seem to mind the prison of soaps. They gobbled up the stories, the lies the characters told to each other, the back stabbing and love-heptagons -- all wrapped up in a shell of lackluster acting.

A commercial broke up the web of artificial deceit. Joseph wouldn't have minded, except that a major election was on the horizon, and half of the ads were about the candidates. Or more accurately, they were about the candidate's opposition, who is a terrible, terrible man or woman who hates America. Or is too patriotic, or wants to raise taxes, or has a history of drowning innocent puppies and kittens. Or--

"Are you tired of hearing lies, half-truths and mudslinging?" Came the voice from the commercial. It was a powerful, deep voice that carefully poured perfect enunciation over each syllable. Yet it wasn't tainted with any malevolence that existed in the other commercials. Joseph found himself nodding.

"Well so am I," the voice said. The screen, which was blank, suddenly erupted with light that revealed an older, bald-headed gentleman dressed in khaki colors. The effect made him seem almost naked.

"Come this election, you have three choices. You may choose to not vote, all the while thinking it noble to choose not to engage in petty party politics. That's very well and good but I myself find it misguided and hurtful in the long run. You may choose to vote for either of the two major parties, unaware that this is in actuality a single choice no matter which party you pick.

"Or you can vote for me. My promise to you, as an enlightened voter, is to never lie. There will be no backstabbing and all truths will be whole. All the while I promise to continue fighting for you the freedoms that you, as a human being, deserve." The mono-colored man nodded and began walking off the screen. Joseph felt confused. He was hanging on to every word the man had said but was uncertain as to who it was. He needed more.

Then, almost as an afterthought, the man stopped before walking off camera and looked directly at it. He began to say, with a humble smile on his face, "And by the way, my name is--"

--Click. Bertha had changed the channel to another soap program.

Mr. Funny Man

Malcolm Bennett ran as fast as his stubby little legs could carry him. Sweat dripped from his short, curly black hair down onto his round puffy face. His clothes as well, a pinstriped button-up green shirt and casual black slacks were drenched. Nearly running into a car that was patiently waiting at an intersection, he managed to leap over part of the hood and quickly took a left turn as the car honked noisily. Not exactly familiar with the town, he had no final destination that required the turn. It was a whimsical decision -- anything to throw off the angry mob behind him.

Malcolm was not exactly in the best shape. Having fled for but a half-mile so far, his legs were burning with the effort it took to move so rapidly after years of neglecting decent exercise. His feet ached from stiff black dress shoes, definitely a poor choice for runners everywhere, he thought. The beer gut he wore not so proudly was cramping on both sides and to top it off, he had been feeling winded about a quarter of a mile ago. His desparate eyes scanned the street for some save haven. Most of the stores around appeared to be closed.

His mind was, however, working in overdrive. Regardless of his situation, a furious mob in pursuit of a short fat funny guy on a warm summer evening, he was beginning to think of how to spin this scenario to his favor, at least in the future.

He would begin by walking on stage, a routine he's used to. Just grab the mic and begin talking. No problem. Hopefully the future audience would be more receptible than tonight's. He'd warm up to the audience, tell a few starter jokes, then deliver his main act.

"Now, I've told some bad jokes in my life, but let me tell you about the time I told the worst joke ever in my life. I ain't kidding here folks," he'd say. The audience will have calmed down by now and will listen intently, eyes focused on him.

"Well I was in this one town, I won't say the name. Pretty nice town. Friendly people for the most part. Well all that is except for my audience that night." Maybe solicit a few chuckles in. "So it has a pretty heavy minority population and I'll say it right now, gotta put in that disclaimer these days y'now, I ain't got no beef with anybody! Let's get that right out in the open! I gotta pretty good mix of an audience that one night, some white, some black, more than a few people from the middle east."

He would adjust his collar a bit, take a few deep breaths and a quick gulp of water.

"It was in the summer but I'll tell you it was a pretty cool night that night because the audience was frigid! Couldn't get one soul there to laugh. Not a single one, uh-uh! So I think to myself, it's time to do some improv, maybe that'll work y'know? So I come up with something and here's what went happened. 'I used to be a flight instructor, teach people how to fly. Pretty great job because I love flying. And I taught all sorts, you just name it.' No problem, right?"

He'd take another drink and let the picture settle into everyone's mind.

"I go on, then 'Well if there's anything I've noticed while doing that is that certain types of people have some odd habits while flying. You've got white guys like me who're all nervous and checking their instruments like ten times a minute. Then there's the black guys I taught who just kind of chill out and enjoy the whole flying experience and then I have to remind them that we're almost out of fuel and gotta land. Then there's the Arab guys I've talked who're really calm, cool and collected, y'know, until all of a sudden it's OH SHIT LOOKING FOR THAT BUILDING -- KABLOOOIE!'

"Well I can tell you all right now that didn't go over too well with the middle eastern folks there and I literally got my fat ass ran out of town."

Yeah, it'll be a real riot.

There was no doubt in John's mind of the largess of the object blocking his tunnel. And judging from the slight curvature, he had struck merely a fraction of it. John grumbled to himself. Regulations required for the emergency tunnels to be as straight as possible. He couldn't just dig around it, and it might take him at least another week to create a new path.

He turned around and prepared to climb in the driller again when something about the object caught his eye. Something alluring that pulled him out back towards it. He peered closer at it, trying to determine what it was that struck him as so odd, careful as to not foolishly bump his visor against the thing. He could sense the light growing intense around the pearl-white sphere as he drew closer. With a clumsy motion due to his thick padded gloves he turned off his helmet's flashlight, then remotely turned off the driller's headlights. Instead of the expected pitch blackness, he found himself bathed in a soft and radiant white glow.

John placed his hands on the glowing sphere and brushed off stray dust and debris that had fallen around parts of it. Even through his thick, heavy gloves he felt as if he could feel the smoothness of the texture. It looked and felt beautiful, like a priceless gem that no one could ever possibly own. Something else in the glow caught his eye. John kneeled, thoughtlessly brushing with his hands as he did so. He felt as he brushed a series of engravings on the object which, if he were able to walk around the sphere's circumference, would presumably wrap around its entirity like a belt.

The engravings were small, about the size of a fingernail for each character, and seemed to be a collection of garbled symbols with no apparent meaning. However he then recognized Greek symbols, then heiroglyphics, even arabic. And English.

John read what little he could comperehend.
YAWEHZEUSRAJUPITER -- it continued with no breaks in between characters until he reached the end of the English string -- GOD.