Prologue
Matt Deckland was sitting at his worn in couch as the news played on his television. He sat there... unmoving, nearly catatonic it seemed. As he stared down at his half-bowl of cereal and watched it slowly turn to mush he remained unmoving. This was the last of the EDIBLE food in his house and the meager amount left in the box could barely qualify for a meal.
As he sat there unmoving his mind raced a mile a minute. Questions of doubt, what was he doing? What was he THINKING quitting his job. Sure it wasn't the best job, a low-rate desk job answering phones for most of the day... and SURE his boss had exploded on him for the millionth time that week... but still... should he have broken down like that? He admitted, yelling at that stuck up woman and telling her what for felt good but now what... What if he couldn't go through with it... then what?
Finally he moved. Collapsing his head into his cupped palms he let out a deep sigh and groaned to himself. Speaking quietly to himself he muttered. "What am I doing?...."
He looked down at what was now a colorful mess of soggy and fallen apart cereal that had once held a stale crunch to it but now had made a permanent pact with the last of his milk. Sighing to himself he scooped up the bowl, never having taken a bite and carried it over to the kitchen. Dropping the blue plastic bowl down into the sink, a bit of milk shot back up into the air before landing scattered in the metal basin, the spoon tipped over the side of the bowl and clinked on the bottom of the sink where it lay to rest.
Matt turned the water on and watched the water run down into the bowl filling it after a few seconds and watched as the watered-down milk soon overflowed over the sides of the bowl. He let the water just run for a while… most likely no more than a minute but time seemed to move at a snail’s pace for him right now. Eventually he grabbed the side of the bowl and tipped it upwards, sending the contents of the bowl spilling into the sink and down the drain. The spoon nearly met the same fate as the soggy cereal but caught itself, lying neatly over the hole. Grabbing the sponge from the other half of the sink and the half-empty container of dish soap, Matt began to clean out the bowl and followed suit by cleaning the spoon. When he had finished he laid the utensil and bowl on the drying rack, unsure if he would ever see them again, or return later to put them away in their rightful homes in the cabinet and utensil drawer respectively.
As he proceeded along his normal daily routine he shuffled into the bedroom. “Modest” was nearly a compliment for his fairly uneventful sleeping quarters. A queen sized bed lay against the far wall, the sheet unmade and in a mess from the restless night prior. He proceeded to pull the sheets up to the top and straightened them with a quick smoothing of his hand over the top of the bed. Next were the pillows, just two of them, both discarded earlier in the night to the floor. Placing them back on the bed in their rightful place, the task was complete.
Finally Matt made his way to the bathroom that lay to the left of his bed. Not much to do in here, he had already taken advantage of the stand-up shower earlier when he had awoken. A quick brushing of his teeth and he was finished in there. He proceeded over to his tiny closet back in the bedroom and took the gray wind-breaker off the hangar in there. Placing it on over his grey, long-sleeved shirt, he zipped it up and stood there staring blankly into his closet.
He took this time to reflect on the articles of clothing he possessed. A light gray ski-jacket, still much too early to wear that; a black hoodie with the logo of that one skate-apparel company sewn into the right side over the chest; a white sweatshirt with the name of that sporting goods store labeled on the chest; and another wind breaker, brown and with his last name and the number 18 labeled on the back, his “number” in the company baseball team. After a long time of reflection on each of the articles of clothing, Matt closed the door to his closet slowly and headed for the front of his apartment.
On his way to the front door, maybe only 15 steps from the door of his bedroom, he looked over through his living room out at the balcony. The balcony… it had once seemed so useless when he first bought the apartment, but nowadays, he spent most of his free time on it, just staring out at the park across the street for hours on end. Stopping his trip to the front door, Matt changed direction and headed over to the sliding glass door of his balcony.
Stepping out onto the cement flooring, he took one more step and reached his old friend, the comfortable wicker chair with the little cushion on the seat. He allowed himself the time to appreciate it as he had so many times before. Easing down into the chair, Matt stared out at the park before him and listened to the sounds that greeted him. The sounds of geese in the sky squawked as they migrated south for the coming winter months, cars drove by underneath him thee stories below, the sound of the brisk Fall wind breezed by him and chilled his ears and nose slightly. Closing his eyes, Matt allowed his other senses freedom as a he sighed slightly and continued thinking at an incredible speed. However, just for now, as he basked in the cool Fall air, and listened to the sounds around him, his thoughts slowed, just a little.
A good two hours later, the sun stood over head signaling the approximate noon. Matt was jostled back to reality by the sounds of a car horn on the streets below, three quick beeps and then nothing more. Most likely somebody stopped at a green light unaware, he was not quick enough to check, nor did he care to even get up to do so. However, with a deep sigh, Matt hoisted himself up from his chair slowly and turned around to face it. A look in his eyes gave the sense of someone saying goodbye to a dear companion. After a moment of saying his possible farewells, Matt opened the glass doors to his apartment again and headed inside.
A survey around his apartment provided no answers to the hundreds of questions he had. Just the sights of a dusty game console that had not been touched in ages, his black laptop that lay on his coffee table, closed and password protected (as always), a bowl and a spoon dry and waiting to be put in their proper place, a Flat Screen TV that was now playing some public broadcasting things… all this, but no answers.
Sighing to himself for the thousandth time today, Matt turned off the TV and headed for the front door and withdrew his keys from the little bowl on the kitchen counter to the left of it. Stepping out onto the 3rd floor, Matt pulled the door closed behind him and locked his apartment up from the world. It was a brief walk down the stairs and into the resident parking lot before he found himself seated in his black 4-door sedan. A quick turn of the ignition, a few changing of gears, and a little applied gas later, Matt was off on the roads.
He opted to not listen to the radio today, it only distracted him and with all that was going on in his head currently, he didn’t need another distraction. As he pulled up to stop behind two cars at a red light, Matt glanced over into the empty passenger seat. A pamphlet lay there in bright colors, a severe contrast to his otherwise very monotone life. The words “Conversion Bureau” were spelled across the top in bright gold lettering and the picture of a colorful blue and cartoonish-looking unicorn with a big smile on her face stared back at the holder. Inside the pamphlet lay all the contributing factors to why Matt now was driving, why he found himself without a job, and why his head was filled with unanswered questions.
A short succession of three car horn beeps, not unlike the ones that had alerted him earlier on the balcony snapped him from his thoughts. He realized he now stood stopped at a green light. An embarrassing moment later, Matt applied the gas and continued on his way.
It wasn’t necessarily a quick drive; the building he sought existed about three hours away from his home. All this time alone with no sounds but his car’s tires on the road only provided him with more time to question what he was doing. He contemplated no less than a dozen times just turning around and heading back home, begging for his job back, and hoping all would go well. But he did not do that, Matt stayed on his path, determined to at least see the trip to its fulfillment before turning back.
What seemed like an eternity later however, Matt had arrived outside the imposing building. He recalled a while back how people from all over the world had flocked to it the day it had been erected almost as if by magic. He had not attended, it seemed like nothing more than a hoax and a waste of time. But here it still stood, scattered cars were parked in it parking lot but for the most part, it was far from full.
Stepping out of his car, Matt swallowed a large amount of saliva, locked his car, and headed for the building. Stepping through its imposing doors, he took note of his surroundings, the beautiful red carpet under his feet as beautiful and brightly colored as everything else. He thought to himself if anyone had tried taking the carpet in the original rush as a token of “I was there” in the first days but due to its size it was a silly thought he quickly pushed out of his head.
Matt looked around the large welcome room to find not a soul there. A shred of disappointment, perhaps even relief greeted him at this. ~Maybe… Maybe I should just go before anyone spots me… This was a silly idea… I haven’t anything but my wallet and my clothes with me… nothing to eat… What… What am I even doing here?~ Matt thought, to that last question he had no good answer. He stood there in the middle of the large room for a good minute before letting his own fear of the unknown get the better of him. He turned around and began to head for the door to leave and flee back to his old life.