Bri's Own World

This is the first chapter in a story that I plan to finish over the school year. A year ago, this was the final draft, but now I see a lot of things I am going to change. Please, pick it apart and prod it:

Sid awoke very slowly, cherishing those last few seconds in which you are awake enough to realize that you have obligations to the world that you must fulfill, but not awake enough to realize what they are. It gave Sid a certain satisfaction knowing that he wasn’t doing something that he probably needed to do, but couldn’t quite remember what it was that he was not doing, and in thinking about not doing the thing that he was now fairly certain he should do, he consequently forgot that there was indeed something that needed doing, and was left with a vague satisfaction from comfort, but slightly guilty at doing nothing. And a dull pain in his stomach area. Wasn’t there something that he needed to do?
A few minutes later, during which his mind went through cycles of trying to remember what urgently needed doing, and then losing its train of thought, and then being intrigued by some memory of something he needed to do, his alarm clock rang.
Even then, Sid did not fully awake. He lay in bed, thinking about why the clock was making noise: it was doing so because he had set it to go off at a certain time this morning. He had probably set it last night, thinking that at the current time, last night’s future self, which just so happened to be Sid’s present self, should-
-get up. Sleep was torn away rudely from Sid’s peaceful mind as he sat up, sending his stuffed elephant Freddy flying. He looked at his old fashioned alarm clock, the type with the two huge bells on top and a little knocker between them, which was currently flying back and forth between the two bells and making a most ridiculous noise.
Sid always felt sorry for the bells. Every morning, when they were probably still sleeping, they were woken up by that evil knocker attacking them ferociously. It didn’t seem very fun.
He gazed around his cherished bedroom. The baby blue walls with little hot air-balloons in several stages of their flight; his small bed which was just barely big enough for him (he slept with his feet sticking out the bottom), but took up more than half of his immensely small bedroom; his slightly cluttered desk that had just the right amount and arrangement of “stuff” so that everyone knew that it was supposed to say, “I am a busy man, and I have lots of things to do. If you were in my place, your desk would be a lot messier than this,” but which actually said, “I am unemployed, and I have serious organizational problems.” His desk took up most of the other small portion of his room. Next to his bed was a small table with a lamp and an alarm clock, which was currently ringing.
Sid suddenly remembered why he was awake. The alarm clock had woken him up so that he would be in time for that thing which he so needed to do! He flew out of bed and ran out the door of his room, hitting his forehead quite forcefully on the doorframe. Then he stopped, remembered another thing that he needed to do even more urgently, and walked back into his sleeping quarters, once again whacking his forehead on the frame. He found Freddy at the foot of his bed. Sid picked him up and set him on his pillows, muttering apologies. Then he quickly walked out of his bedroom, smacking his head for a third time, and through his apartment, which mimicked his bedroom for size. He lived in apartment 1010, 10th down the hall on the right side of the tenth floor of an apartment building with an address of 101010 10th street, New York. It was the tenth building on the left side of his block. Sid was, however, fatally oblivious to all of the tens in his life.
On his way out, he slipped his slippers on and threw on his bath robe, which was the tenth one off the assembly line on October 10th, exactly 10 years ago.
Sid was of average height. His hair was an average brown. His eyes were also a very average brown. He wasn’t what most people would call smart, but he wasn’t dumb. He was not completely untalented, but he wasn’t the person that popped into your mind if you needed a strange task to be done. He was currently unemployed, but through no fault of his own. He was constantly shown up by his co-workers and then fired only because he completely lacked in any ounce of luck. He didn’t have bad luck, he just had no good luck. He was, to put it bluntly, very forgettable.
It just so happened to be Sid’s birthday, and he was willing to bet that no one would remember. He flew down the stairwell of the apartment building, still in his bathrobe and slippers. At ground level he rushed out into the lobby. It was floored with dark, slippery tiles that had exotic patterns on them, the kind of which everyone eventually figures out are repeated, but only after they have walked across them numerous times. Along the wall looking out to the busy street were floor-to-ceiling windows, and a pair of standard glass doors.

Sid came barreling across the lobby and clobbered right into Mrs. McQuarthy, his landowner.
“Mrs. McKwarthy!” He shouted, scrambling to pick her up off the ground as gently, but quickly, as he could.
“It’s McQuarthy, for the last time!” she screeched, “and you’re lucky I don’t evict you!” Mrs. McQuarthy was very short, and very old. She hobbled around yelling at her “guests” all day, which appeared to be her hobby. Her first name was unknown to everyone, as was her age. However, the occupants of the building speculated them to be “Grizilda” and 567 years. She had no muscle at all, only bones with sagging skin wrapped around them. Her white hair came out from her head in all directions. She should have been retired by all calculations, but somehow she found it in her to walk around and yell at people. Sid especially disliked her because she gave him the only tiny apartment in the building, when there were plenty of other full size ones. He would have been especially indignant if he found out she charged the other people the same price.
“Sorry, sorry, my apologies, very sincere,” Sid muttered as he brushed some imaginary dust off of McQuarthy and proceeded to run very quickly out of the building, but not before he ran into the glass door at full tilt and was rebound quite forcefully (The glass was actually that plastic bendy stuff with a lot of give). He flew several feet before his back made contact with the shiny, freshly polished floor, and he slid until his head hit his landowner’s shoe. He stared up into her face, which was, if possible, even uglier when upside down.
“Those doors were just cleaned! That floor was just polished! My shoe was just waxed!” She hollered, working herself into a fury. Little globes of saliva and sound flew out of her wizened old mouth and landed on Sid as he starred up in amazement at the ball of fury. It seemed that her hair stood out on end, and she was jumping up and down, her mouth like a large anti-black hole in which everything came out, but nothing, including air, went back in. Her face began turning red. The words coming out of the huge abyss in her face were no longer comprehensible, and she just wailed a long note which was not really a note, but a sound that drilled through the skull of any listener. It was to lazy to go through anyone’s ears and then get waylaid and slowed down as little places in the brain tried to make sense of the noise before transmitting it to the consciousness. No, this sound drilled right through the skull, preferably the forehead, and hit the brain, rattling it around and giving anyone who was closer than 25 feet a mild concussion. It ripped through the windows and doors and was heard all down the street. It sounded so inhuman that a few people called various places about it, including the police, the fire department, and some went a little higher up the latter of authority and called a talk show host. In the weeks to come, a team of researchers came to New York to uncover the source of the noise. When they found nothing (to even think that the source had been the ancient landowner of 101010 10th…well!), multiple TV shows came to hold a show trying to see if the “noise of the apartment” was real, or just a huge hoax. After they left, unable to find the source, but also unable to prove it a hoax, there came the supernaturalists, witches, fortune tellers, and psychics. Unsurprisingly, they all claimed that the building was haunted. Everyone should be evacuated immediently and the building destroyed, because it was impossible for any one to get rid of such a powerful spirit. But they were having a special today, and for just $999.99 they would make an attempt!
But they eventually left too, and in years to come, the story of the haunted apartment building faded from memory.
But at present, it had most definently not faded from memory, because it was still going on. Until now, because it stopped: Mrs. McQuarthy’s (or McKwarthy’s, which ever you prefer) oxygen starved brain cut out, and she fell over. Sid watched her backward decent from his position. She looked much taller from down there, and seeing her fall was like watching a giant tree fall over. She made an interesting sound when she hit the ground. It was a mix between a splat, a thud, a crunch, a bang, and another strange noise altogether that does not yet have an onomatopoeia with which to describe it.
Sid got to his feet and looked around. The lobby was filled with people on the floor, either because they were unconscious or so dizzy they might as well have been. Although he didn’t know it, the only reason Sid was not also lying on the ground with them was because of his position to the origin of the noise. In his first stroke of luck in 10 years, he had happened to be in a pocket that “de-tensified” the sound.
Then he mustered his dignity, and attempted to walk nonchalantly out of the building. However, his “nonchalant” walk was the type of walk that clearly said, “I am quite obviously trying to walk unobviously,” and ends up getting the walker a lot more attention than if he had just walked a walk that says, “I am quite obviously trying to walk obviously.” This kind of walk is usually completely ignored.
The security guard at the door probably would have stopped him, but he was very busy clutching both hands over both ears and moaning in agony, while kneeling down and rocking back and forth.
As soon as he finished walking “nonchalantly” out of the building, he took a right and ran down the street un-nonchalantly. He was completely ignored by everyone except three people, who he ran into.
Sid ran all the way to number 111111, 9 buildings down and across the street from his apartment. The first one on the right side of the block. He checked his watch. 9:40. He was late! He ran into the building (Once again being completely ignored by everything except the telescope of a space ship that was hurtling towards him uncomfortably fast) and up to the counter.
The building had only one story. Inside, it was dark, in a homely way. There were only windows on the street side, and their shutters were always half closed. Various tables with checkered red and white table cloths were set about the room in a fairly unorganized manner. At the back of the front room was a counter with glass on the customer side and food underneath that. There was a cash register on the left side and a space in the middle where the counter was low enough to talk across. Not that anyone did this much. The man that sat in the chair behind the counter was very intimidating. He was huge. Although he had average height, he had the average weight of someone 10 feet tall. He had a deep tan that could only come from being around hot ovens many hours a day. Behind him was a door, which presumably led to ovens, freezers, and the other assorted stuff that is usually located behind back doors at shops like these.
“You’re late.” He stated simply in his voice, which always sounded like he knew something you didn’t, which was always probably the case.
“Yes, thank you for pointing that out. It was through no fault of my own.” Sid said. An ambulance and police siren wailed past, heading for 101010 10th Street to investigate why everyone was unconscious or nearly insane.
The Man Behind The Counter heaved his great bulk out of the chair and put his hands on the counter, leaning towards Sid, who leaned backwards. He looked down at Sid’s feet.
“Bunny slippers?” He asked.
“They’re comfortable!”
“Uh-huh. Your reason of detainment. It doesn’t have something to do with those sirens, does it?” He said, apparently trying to be quiet. But his voice had an annoying habit of traveling annoyingly far and making any conversation with him public.
“Ummm… Not exactly. Not really. They’re loosely related. I guess it does have a little to do with them. But not a whole lot. Not so much as I should get the blame, no. But in the sense that there was nothing I could have done to prevent them or to made it in here 10 minutes ago.”
It is probably important to explain something at this point. A few months ago, an event had occurred which involved both The Man Behind The Counter and Sid, along with a bent horseshoe, a shot glass, a bullet, and a drunk fly, which had resulted with The Man Behind The Counter making a bet that Sid couldn’t make it to his shop every morning at 9:30.
The Man Behind The Counter thought for a while, and then said, “Well, you see, Sid, just yesterday I went out to buy a box of spoons, because mine keep disappearing.” He paused to look pointedly at Sid, who looked guiltily down into the pocket of his bathrobe, where there were several spoons jangling around.
“So I went out to buy some more, and I purchased a box that specifically said, ‘50 silver spoons.’ Cost me 25 bucks.” Sid narrowed his eyes and also leaned forward.
“Know what happened when I got home and opened that box?” The Man Behind The Counter continued, feigning obliviousness to Sid’s failed attempt at trying to look intimidating.
“I haven’t a clue.” If sarcasm could drip, Sid’s voice would have made a medium sized waterfall.
“I pulled out 100 plastic, crummy spoons. So, here’s the deal,” continued The Man Behind The Counter, switching to business mode on the last sentence. “You buy those spoons from me at the same rate that I bought them, and I’ll let today slide. We both come out ahead. I can go and buy some new spoons, and you no longer have to take mine.” His large lips spread in a smile that wasn’t very smiley.
Sid continued to glower for a while, and then without taking his eyes of the Man Behind The Counter he fished into his pocket and pulled out a twenty dollar bill. And three one dollar bills. And a quarter. And a dime. And 4 more quarters. 5 dimes. 2 nickels. And 6 pennies. Then he took one penny back and dropped it in his pocket. The reason why he had loose change in his bathrobe is completely irrelevant to the story.
“That’s only 25,” said the Man Behind the Counter, his smile starting to grow smiley.
“Yeah. That’s how much I owe you.” Sid said with growing uncertainty. “Isn’t it?”
The Man Behind The Counter let out a noise that probably was supposed to convey humor and can only be described as a guffaw.
“No,” he said, “you owe me the same rate I bought them at. 50 cents a piece.” He smiled, and this time the smile was maliciously smiley.
Sid did some hasty calculations. He never liked math. His mouth dropped.
“That’s 50 dollars!” He exclaimed.
“Is it now?” Said The Man Behind the Counter, obviously enjoying himself, and with the same smile still on his face.
Sid was bewildered. The stakes were high. 50 dollars! But if he didn’t pay, The Man Behind The Counter could say that he lost the bet, and that would mean…
“30,” Sid said, trying to barter.
“Come on now. 30? I don’t think you take me seriously. 45.” Said The Man Behind The Counter. Sid knew that this had nothing to do with the spoons. The Man Behind The Counter only used plastic spoons anyway. He just wanted Sid’s money to punish him.
“35.”
“40.”
“35.”
“40.”
“35!”
“40.”
“THIRTY-FIVE!!!!!” Sid was aware of everyone turning to look at him.
“40.” The Man Behind The Counter said in a calm voice. Sid glared at him for a while, but he had the upper hand, so Sid reached into his pocket and pulled out 15 additional dollars in a plethora of denominations that would take a very long time to list. The Man Behind The Counter continued smiling his smile that only made other malicious people smile along. Then he slowly reached a grubby hand under the counter and produced and equally grubby, battered, cardboard box that Sid noticed said “50 plastic spoons” quite boldly on the side. He also noticed that it had been opened and most of its contents removed. He snatched it and dropped it into his robe pocket, which seemed capable of holding more volume then if you measured its dimensions and used complex formulas to calculate it. Then he moved along down the food, which was behind those glass wall/ceiling things that people always rubbed their faces on, and if you were the last customer of the day they made you lose your appetite because you could barely see the food behind the layer of snot and grease. It didn’t matter how often they were cleaned, they always looked the same at the end of the day. Fortunately, it was only the beginning of the day so they were only a quarter covered.
The Man Behind The Counter sidled along until he was directly across from Sid, and without even asking prepared the breakfast that Sid had everyday: a croissant, 3 pieces of bacon, a spoonful of scrambled eggs, and a glass of milk, which The Man Behind The Counter had specifically made sure was warm for Sid’s displeasure. He put it all on a plate (except the milk) and put that on a tray, which Sid took tertly, and after one more good stare stalked away to the table where he always sat to eat and read the paper*. He sat down to what was promising to be good meal, but suddenly a Thought ktgbqpded into his ear.
It is a well known fact to everyone except the people to who it is not a well known fact that in the universe there are oodles of little creatures called Thoughts. The Thoughts are invisible unless you have a super-green scope (kind of like infrared or ultra-violet, but not really). They only exist in 5 of the normal 10 dimensions. They float around on air drifts until they see a nice place to start causing havoc: a mind. The Thought will then drift over and enter through the ear with a sound that only travels on 1 of the 3 sound dimensions, but if heard can only be described with an onomatopoeia such as “ktgbqpd.” Theorist believe that it makes this sound because the Thought must go through an organ that is meant to hear, so it must make a sound that brains refuse to accept as a true sound, and therefore dismisses as never happening.
Once inside the head, the Thought usually filters through its host’s memories. If it is a nice Thought (excruciatingly rare), it will remind the brain of something it forgot to do. However, If it is an evil Thought (excruciatingly common), it will make the brain forget about doing something. If the Thought is just looking for a good laugh (excruciatingly somewhere in the middle), then it will remind its host to do something that really doesn’t matter at all, but the Thought will give that thought a sense of urgency, so that the host runs about very quickly doing very pointless actions.
Sid randomly and spontaneously remembered that he never turned his alarm clock off, and since it was an outdated model, It would still be ringing.
He flew out of the chair, robe billowing very dramatically and showing off his very undramatic white legs. Spoons jangling in his pocket along with a lot of spare change and a bullet, he ran into the street.
He started to run diagonally across the street towards his apartment, but he paused, noticing the world around him. The air had gone cold, and everything had a blue tinge to it. Sid looked around, trying unsuccessfully to reassure himself that things were not moving slower. People stopped walking and running about and very slowly turned their heads to look at something hovering above the middle of the street in the matter that suggested had time been working normally they would have gotten a kink in their neck. Sid also turned slowly to look into the middle of the block, and there, suspended about 20 feet of the ground by some unknown force, was… it had… it kind of looked… maybe it’s best if I describe how the design appeared to have been obtained:
Imagine going out to a large, grassy field and putting a hose in the middle, and then leaving that hose on for, say, a week. Then go and dig around in the resulting mud, turn it around, and get it nice and mushy. Take a huge glob, as much as you can possibly hold in your hand, and hurl it as far and hard as you can at nothing in particular. But before it gets there, stop time.
Now look closely at the shape of the object you have created. You will notice a large central slightly spheroid shape (with lots of bumps, and slightly stretched from acceleration) in the middle of a mass of mud flecks, ranging in size from about half that of the central “sphere,” to just barley a speck of saturated sand.
That was what the object hovering above 10th street looked like. Except it was huge, the center sphere the size of a large house, and all of the “little” flecks of “mud” were orbiting the sphere at greatly varied speeds; some of the outer small flecks were going fast enough to kill a person.
From the large center chunk a pillar of light came down. At the base, something strange began happening, although the word “strange” doesn’t mean much when there’s a giant glob of something that by all means should be dripping hanging over a street that until then had been quite normal.
It seemed as though energy from everywhere was being sucked into a vortex at the bottom of this pillar: Sid felt air rushing by him, and blobs of light were congregating to form another sphere (this one perfectly round) that was slowly growing. The whitish-yellow blob of pure energy grew to about 3 feet, and then its shape changed: appendages extended from the sphere, and more appendages from those, and it became the outline of a human (Sid found out later that it wasn’t completely human), and with a pop, it’s color changed from the boring, white-yellow to a short man with a terrible dress taste. He looked African, and he had a black shirt with screaming yellow polka dots, red and purple vertically stripped pants, and a black bowler hat. He wasn’t wearing shoes.
“Good evening, fellow Galatians,” He said in quite a normal voice. “Sorry to disturb you. If I can just have…” he peered around at the gathered crowed, going from face to face until he came to Sid. He reached into his pocket and pulled out what everyone assumed was a photograph and held it at arm length. He appeared to be comparing the photo to Sid.
“…you, come with me.” He continued, beckoning.
“Me?” Sid said, completely bewildered.
“Yes, you, come on.” He said, gesturing. Sid noticed he had a British accent.
He slowly walked into the middle of 10th street, into the center of the light cylinder. The strange man put his arm around Sid.
“OK, just relax, hold on, and here we go…”
And then, Sid was corpitiliquified.

*Except for that one day back in May when that old man had sat there. Sid sat down next to him, because he knew that everyone gets very uncomfortable when a random stranger comes and sits next to them when there are plenty of other seats around. The man stared at him for a while as Sid carefully ignored him. The tension grew. Sid began to sweat with the effort of not looking up. And then the little man went nuts. He grabbed the milk and splashed it on Sid’s face, chucked the glass through the window, swallowed all the eggs, and crumbled the bacon in Sid’s hair. Then he jumped up and ran away.