(no subject)
It took me about five months on the island to realize that I was starting to get soft around the middle. It sounds ridiculous, right? I mean, no donuts and no pizza and none of McAnally's precious warm beer. Of course, I also wasn't spending any time running for my life. Looking back on it, it's kind of amazing that amount of running that I did in Chicago. Like it was some sort of urban jungle. Maybe it was. God, I miss it. Dirt and crime and all.
In any case, what else have I got here but my health, right? Not as if there's much else to concern myself with, beside practicing magic tricks that I think I'm really too chicken to turn into a real show anyway. I've got a great vanishing cabinet now but just keep telling myself that I'm not the showman that my father was. Without that flair, I'm just a guy who can disappear. Big deal.
So I started a fitness regimen in the mornings. Even got a proper pair of gym shorts (though black, of course) and shoes, left the duster and the hockey stick in my hut, gathering dust. I'd start out running along the boardwalk, then end up doing push-ups and sit-ups on the beach, and when I found myself huffing and puffing, I'd dive into the water and then run back to the compound for a shower. It was a good routine. Something to do.
Except this morning it was a little different. I was like some bad eighties workout montage, shirtless and sweaty (which on me is not as appealing as it might sound) and doing push-ups next to the surf, one tick past "slightly winded" but not quite to "huffing and puffing." Once my arms started burning past the good kind of burning, I let myself collapse into the sand. I was just about to get up and turn over onto my back, when I spotted something out of the corner of my eye.
Smooth and off-white and rounded, more than half-buried in the sand about ten feet away. Something about the shape caught my eye, and I took a deep breath before hauling myself up and going over there, kneeling down and brushing off the sand. And as soon as I got a better look, my throat caught in my chest and I started digging the thing out frantically.
I emerged holding a human skull, the surface inscribed with runes.
"Bob," I gasped, completely taken aback. One of the last things I'd have expected to see here, especially buried in the sand. "Bob, are you in there?"
I peeked into the eye sockets, turned the thing upside down, but there wasn't even a spark of light. Nothing to indicate even the hint of the presence of the spirit that had been bound to the skull.
"Goddamnit, Bob!" Maybe I hadn't realized how lonely I was until this very moment. Because I was completely devastated that I didn't have a skull to talk to.
In any case, what else have I got here but my health, right? Not as if there's much else to concern myself with, beside practicing magic tricks that I think I'm really too chicken to turn into a real show anyway. I've got a great vanishing cabinet now but just keep telling myself that I'm not the showman that my father was. Without that flair, I'm just a guy who can disappear. Big deal.
So I started a fitness regimen in the mornings. Even got a proper pair of gym shorts (though black, of course) and shoes, left the duster and the hockey stick in my hut, gathering dust. I'd start out running along the boardwalk, then end up doing push-ups and sit-ups on the beach, and when I found myself huffing and puffing, I'd dive into the water and then run back to the compound for a shower. It was a good routine. Something to do.
Except this morning it was a little different. I was like some bad eighties workout montage, shirtless and sweaty (which on me is not as appealing as it might sound) and doing push-ups next to the surf, one tick past "slightly winded" but not quite to "huffing and puffing." Once my arms started burning past the good kind of burning, I let myself collapse into the sand. I was just about to get up and turn over onto my back, when I spotted something out of the corner of my eye.
Smooth and off-white and rounded, more than half-buried in the sand about ten feet away. Something about the shape caught my eye, and I took a deep breath before hauling myself up and going over there, kneeling down and brushing off the sand. And as soon as I got a better look, my throat caught in my chest and I started digging the thing out frantically.
I emerged holding a human skull, the surface inscribed with runes.
"Bob," I gasped, completely taken aback. One of the last things I'd have expected to see here, especially buried in the sand. "Bob, are you in there?"
I peeked into the eye sockets, turned the thing upside down, but there wasn't even a spark of light. Nothing to indicate even the hint of the presence of the spirit that had been bound to the skull.
"Goddamnit, Bob!" Maybe I hadn't realized how lonely I was until this very moment. Because I was completely devastated that I didn't have a skull to talk to.