by Bob Bannon
He tried to hold his breath, but decided he couldn’t hold out so long and instead decided on short, shallow breaths, which was hard, because he was clearly panicking. Sweat poured off his face and dripped onto the dirty floor. And all he could do was try and breathe as slowly as possible and lay stone-still.
The man was asking questions about money and walked into the bathroom. The woman who wasn’t saying so much moved toward a window and was asking about the necessity of the security bars, just as the green gem hanging from Jonah’s neck started to glow.
“No!” he thought. He trapped the gem hard under his body, the sharp point digging into his belly. He closed his coat around his throat. “Why!?” He screamed at the thing in his mind.
Now he was being pushed into overdrive. The thing was poking him painfully, he’d be sure to start whimpering in a moment. He’d be caught and arrested for being here. And then what? He couldn’t even imagine. Handed over to the ‘dangerous men’?
Just then the man in the bathroom gasped and the woman at the window gave a slight cry. Jonah turned his head as best he could and saw a thin plume of smoke coming from the bathroom. The two women hurried to the bathroom door.
“Hurry! Put it in the tub!” cried the woman who hadn’t said much.
Jonah heard a clang and then some more commotion as something was dropped into the tub and something else rolled around in it. “The trash can,” he thought to himself. “A fire started in the trash can.”
He heard the whoosh of water and saw another plume of smoke as the two women backed away from the door.
“I can not apologize enough,” said the woman with the nasally voice. “I’ve asked the contractors to be so very careful, and this is what you get.” She said, clearly aghast. “You can never be too careful with chemicals around.”
“We should get going,” the man said, and moved next to the quiet woman, who was then clearly pulled in the direction of the spiral staircase.
“And aren’t we lucky we were here to stop it in time.” Said the nasally voice. “And you, so quick with your reflexes. I can’t thank you enough.”
As they descended the stairs, Jonah heard “You know, this building is up to the strictest fire codes, and it really is a steal for the price.” And then the voices died down to a mumble, he heard the bells and the door closed.
Jonah lay where he was for a solid five minutes more. Letting his breathing return to normal and making sure no one was coming back.
He slid from under the bed and rose up, rubbing the spot where the gem was poking at him. He pulled it from under his coat and off his neck in a fury, and threw it on the bed.
“Do you seriously hate me or something!?” He yelled at it. “Why, at the worst possible time, do you decide to go off like a spotlight!?”
“Here he is!” He said in a mocking tone. “Jonah’s right over here! Come and get him!”
“What are you, the prize for the worst possible moments in history?!” He yelled at it again. Jonah scooped it up, opened his bag and shoved it deep into the pack with a grunt.
He fell back onto the bed. He obviously couldn’t stay here anymore. He couldn’t have been more wrong about people not being here. The woman had even said contractors would be coming.
He quickly scooped up his pack, went down the spiral stairs and out the back door, not bothering to lock it behind him. He completely forgot about the flashlight.
When he emerged from the alley, he noticed there were actually a number of people in this area of town. Cars and trucks went this way and that at regular intervals, and people came and went from a variety of different warehouses. No one took any notice of him though.
He steered clear of the residential neighborhood to the west and the busy main streets of shops and restaurants to the east. That only gave him a couple blocks of latitude to explore.
After about an hour of wondering aimlessly, he came upon a large concrete building, and this one was most definitely deserted.
Windows all over the front had been broken out. The large double doors had been chained shut and sealed with a large lock. He went up the three stairs to the door and looked in one of the broken windows. The interior was two stories and the lone occupants were heavy machinery, all of which looked rusted and broken. You could see from this side of the building to the back and from the left side to the right.
He walked around the building to the back, which was in a small alley. An empty loading dock spanned most of the back of the building. The loading bay doors were also sealed tight with another chain and another large lock. He looked in some of the broken windows, but he had to stand on his toes to see in, and he couldn’t see how he would be able to haul himself and his pack up to climb in. He considered standing on his pack, but then that would be outside and he’d be inside. He could unload what he needed, toss those inside and then stand on it, but then he thought people might become suspicious of a half-full backpack lying on the ground.
He looked at his surroundings wondering if there might be a way. The only thing he found was that the stairs up to the dock had a small door underneath them on the side that was facing the wall and not the alley. It wasn’t locked, and when he opened it, he found it empty, except for some pipes and cobwebs. He wouldn’t fit in there though.
Jonah put his pack down at the loading bay door and took out the water bottle. He took a few swigs and decided it might be time to eat something. He sat down and zipped open the pack. He took out each can he had left. There were three cans of peaches, two cans of baked beans, one can of corn, and a can of something called ‘French Cut’ green beans. He opted for the green beans, because they sounded the least appealing, and he thought whichever can he had for dinner would taste that much better after a not-so-great lunch.
He didn’t understand what was so ‘French’ about the green beans, but he finished them off, took a few sips of water and replaced everything in his pack, taking note of the fact that he didn’t have a lot of food left. He’d have to sit down and think about that at some point.
He picked up his empty tin can and walked down the loading dock ramp to a dumpster and tossed it in. It made a sharp sound as it hit the bottom. He couldn’t see into it, but it sounded like it was empty. Jonah looked down and saw that the dumpster was on wheels. If he could push it up the ramp, he could climb on top of it and get inside one of the broken windows.
The rusted wheels shifted easy enough, if he braced himself against the wall and used his feet. He swung the heavy plastic lids up and over until they slammed down into place.
He was sweating by this point, so he took off his jacket and took it back to his pack. As he walked back, he hiked up the sleeves of his sweater.
He used all his might to pull the dumpster to the edge of the ramp. The wheels did roll, but without the leverage from pushing off the wall, it was more difficult, and the gravel in the alley didn’t help. It took a while, but slowly, inch by inch, it made it into place.
Jonah moved around to the side of it and pushed, so that it would line up with the loading ramp. Pushing was much easier than pulling. Once it was lined up, he took another break, sat down at his pack and drank water.
Now came the hard part. He was going to have to push the thing up the ramp and hope it would stay on course in the front.
He put his back against the dumpster and dug in with each backwards step. It wasn’t so hard. At first it seemed that the cement on the ramp was much smoother than the gravel, so the front of the dumpster moved easier. But as the dumpster hit the angle of the ramp, Jonah found he had to lock his legs in place to keep it from sliding down on top of him, but he found a rhythm that worked. One step, lock. One step, lock.
The dumpster seemed to be getting heavier. Or he was getting more tired. Or both. But he couldn’t stop now. He was sure if he tried to move the thing would run him over, so he plowed on. He was sure if anyone came upon him now, they’d think he was nuts and instead of arresting him, they’d just send him off to an asylum.
All of a sudden, it got much easier to push, and with just a few more rolls, he found that he was up and level at the docking bay doors. He shoved it against the wall and then sat down, drained and sweating. It was weird having a cold breeze bite at his face while he was sweating. He mopped his face with the front of his sweater and drank more water and then put the bottle back in his pack.
Once it was in place he swung his pack up onto the dumpster and then his coat. The side-rail he had used to pull the dumpster into alignment with the ramp was his only way up, but it didn’t have room for his whole foot. He tried it twice, but he wasn’t quite able to balance when his toes were the only things on the rail. He tried mounting it sideways, but the momentum was wrong. He could get up, but then had to fall to the side or he’d fall right into the window, and there were too many shards of broken glass around to try that safely.
He decided he’d have to use the straight on approach, but he’d have to try doing it in one continuous motion. Toes on the rail, then lean forward, then try to scurry up on top. He had a few false starts. A few times, he got up on the rail, misbalanced, and landed back on the cement. Once he got up, leaned forward, and hit the top of the dumpster too hard, knocking himself in the belly and falling off. The final try he counted to three, went up and over and his hands scrambled for something to hold on to.
There were indentions carved into the plastic dumpster covers and his hands had finally made it into them. He hovered for one second. Finger tips pressed into the indention, toes barely holding on to the small ledge, then jumped up with his toes and pulled, squirmed and finally got one leg up on top.
When he finally made it, he lay on top of the dumpster gasping for air. He sat up, looked around, threw his arms in the air and yelled “Yes!” at the top of his lungs. Then quickly looked around to make sure no one was around. He was exactly even with the broken window now.
He stood up and looked around inside one last time, then gently kicked the last few remnants of glass from the bottom of the window. They fell inside and Jonah could hear them smash on the floor. Fortunately, the noise wasn’t too loud. He picked up his coat and covered his hand with the sleeve and punched out some more remaining shards from the top.
When he was confident there was no more danger of getting cut, he picked up his pack and dropped it inside, followed by his coat. He bent over double inside the window and jumped down with the crunch of broken glass under his feet.
He left the pack and coat where they were and went for a look around. He stayed a distance away from the front of the building, just in case.
It was a large, open, concrete room with a few concrete pillars here and there. There were old newspapers on the floor with some assorted litter and odd machine parts lying around. They looked old and rusty. Here and there he saw chunks of concrete and rocks of different shapes and sizes. These must have been the things people chucked through the windows from time to time to watch the windows break.
He went to one of the large machines and found it covered in a thick layer of dust. It was so large it went from floor to ceiling and had a long conveyer belt that snaked halfway through the room, but seemingly ended into open space. He couldn’t tell what it would have been used to make.
He heard a noise in a far back corner that gave him a start, but he didn’t see anyone. Then he heard it again. The rustling of paper. But he still didn’t see anyone.
He made his way cautiously toward the noise, bent over in a defensive but sneaking position. It seemed somehow comical to try and sneak up on someone in a completely open room, but he continued with that approach anyway.
When he was closer to the wall the rustling happened again. He made a sharp yell and nearly jumped out of his skin when a raccoon appeared from under a pile of scrap papers and darted to the corner of the room, then stared at Jonah menacingly.
Jonah had never seen a raccoon before. Well, not in real life. He’d seen chipmunks and he’d seen a deer once, but no raccoons. His father had told him he had to take care around wildlife, because they were more scared of you than you are of them. That made them dangerous because you couldn’t know what they would do.
Jonah put up his hands in a calming gesture. “Easy there,” he said to the raccoon. “You stay away from me and I’ll stay away from you. Deal?”
He backed away slowly with his hands in the air. When he was sure the raccoon wasn’t going to follow, he turned around, only to bump into the railing of a long metal staircase. The stairs lead up to a room with a row of windows that looked down onto the open first floor. He skirted the railing and went up the stairs two at a time.
There was an open door at the top of the stairs. When he went in, he found it was a long office. The walls were painted a fading yellow, and the paint was chipping in places. There was an empty metal built-in bookshelf along the far wall. The floor was old, bleached wood, and covered in dust. There were piles of what looked like saw dust here and there.
Something along the window was covered with a large furniture cloth. He pulled on the cloth and it revealed a long control panel, with buttons and switches. In the center, the panel had a microphone that could be angled this way and that. The control panel didn’t seem to have any power at all, not that he dared to try to turn it on.
There was another furniture cloth behind him and he pulled that too. Here was a large built-in roll-top desk. He tried the roll-top and it slid up easily. There was nothing inside. He tried the drawers and found them empty as well.
There was an oversized clock on the wall above the desk. The numbers and the frame were made of metal, set on a light tan backing. It looked slightly out of place here, a little too artistic for the surroundings. It gently ticked away the seconds. He didn’t see a power cord, and doubted if it had batteries that would last as long as this place had been empty. It must have been connected to power in the wall.
There was another door by the built-in bookshelf and he walked over and opened that. Here he found a bathroom. The floor was a light blue tile, and was stained and chipped in a lot of places. The walls were gray-blue and people had written different things in a variety of different colors. It was a very small room. It didn’t have a shower or a tub.
He flushed the toilet to see if it still worked. It seemed to be just fine. Then he turned on both taps on the large utility sink. The water ran brown for a second or two and then ran clear. He let it run another few seconds and then cupped his hands underneath and brought the water to his mouth. It tasted normal, but once again, it seemed like the hot water wasn’t working.
He looked at the mirror over the sink. It seemed to be caked with dust. He wet his hand under the faucet and attempted to rinse the dirt off. It was still streaked, but what he saw in it was alarming.
His brown curly hair, pretty much a mess on a good day, was sticking straight up on one side. His face had a smear of dirt across one cheek and he had bags under his eyes.
Jonah had what his father called Heterochromia. His left eye was a light blue, but his right eye was a solid brown. His father explained that when some babies are born, their eye colors aren’t exactly permanently fixed and could over time change. He said that Jonah’s eyes just never made up their minds what they wanted to be. His father told him that the condition was very rare and made him very special.
For his birthday this year, his father had told him that if he wanted to get colored contact lenses, so his eyes could be the same color, they could drive into town to do that. Jonah had become so used to them he didn’t really see the point. He read on the internet that there were a number of famous people who had his condition, but he could never find a picture of someone who had it to such a degree, which made him wonder if he should get the contacts. Now the decision had been made for him.
He looked at his eyes now. A thin layer of dirt and dust caked his skin, and the sweaty job of moving the dumpster had caused the dirt to run in lines down his face.
He turned off the water and went down the s
tairs, checking the corner before he left the last stair, just in case the raccoon was in the mood for a fight.
Grabbing his backpack and his jacket, he headed back up the stairs. He dropped both on the roll top desk, unzipped the pack and fished out the bar of soap.
He shut the office door, realizing that there was a lock in the handle and he pushed it. He didn’t think the door would stand if someone really wanted in, but the lock made him feel better all the same.
He walked into the bathroom and shut that door as well. He turned on both taps on the sink and then took off his t-shirt and sweater in one movement. He separated the shirt from the sweater. He put the shirt on the sink and put the sweater on the back of the toilet.
Wetting his hair under the cold water was a little bit of a shock, but also felt good after his sweaty afternoon. He took the soap and rubbed it across his hair and then dropped the soap in the sink.
He lathered up his hair. He straightened up and looked at himself in the mirror. He massaged the soap through his hair like he would do with shampoo, until it was thickly lathered. He pushed it up into a mohawk, admired himself, then pulled it all the way out on both sides of his head and checked out that look in the mirror. Then he scrubbed his whole head again, this time sweeping some of the suds down onto his face. He rubbed the suds all over, then cupped his hands and rinsed his face. He patted his face dry with his t-shirt and then bent to rinse his hair in the sink, which wasn’t easy. He couldn’t quite get the back of his head under the faucet. He should have brought the water bottle. That would have worked.
He stood up and shook like a wet dog to get rid of the excess water, then tried to dry his hair with his shirt. It wasn’t as good as having a towel, but it did the job well enough.
Leaving the shirt on the sink, he went back into the office and pulled out the one other shirt he had and put that on.