AtomicCafe1
10-17-2008, 04:49 PM
A short, kind of ditsy story. Feedback would be spectacular
My World
Johnny Winnwalker, for the first time in some twenty odd years, walked out of the Trinity Hospital’s front doors. It was eleven o’clock sharp. He had awoken from his coma just ten minutes ago and, though a little confused and a little stiff, he had detached the tubes that were connected to his body and walked out of the room, down the stairs, through the lobby, and out the doors. Nobody stopped him. In a normal state he would have found this very odd, but, being bedridden for the past couple decades, he didn’t give it one thought.
And the thing was, Johnny hadn’t the slightest clue that he had been in bed for that long. To him, he had just laid himself down to sleep the night before. The fact of waking up in a strange building with even stranger tubes poking into his body did not concern him. He simply shrugged it off. This carefree attitude, of course, was due to the coma effects still lingering in his system.
So there Johnny was, walking down the stairwell —having taken a twenty year leap without even knowing it— looking at the world as if not a thing had changed since he was last conscious. He failed to distinguish the bountiful devices surrounding him, or the cars, or the expressions on the people's faces. To him, they were all the same. But they really weren’t. It was a brand new world Johnny was entering.
And as he joined into the moving crowd on the sidewalk he decided he would stroll down the street to the nearest bus station. He would stay home today. “I’ll just have to call in sick,” he thought. “But first I better get a paper.”
He passed by several newspaper boxes, but he resisted getting one early on. The stands looked so peculiar; he had never even seen them before. And perhaps weirdest of all, the papers seemed to be free. But after walking past several burly men helping themselves to copies, he decided to receive the charity as well. He walked up to a vacant box, stretching his hand to pick one out. Only he was stopped.
“Nope. Mine!” an oaf of a man said as he heaved himself up from his chair a few feet away.
“Excuse me?” Johnny wondered.
“Mine!”
And with that, Johnny was brushed back into the amorphous horde of people.
“That’s odd,” he thought to himself as he looked back at the giant brute taking his seat. But Johnny, once again, carelessly tossed the fact away and continued onward.
And so, after a couple minutes of going along with the crowd and being totally oblivious to the radical differences around him, Johnny spotted a dollar bill fragilely floating a couple steps ahead of him. Out of boyhood glee, Johnny lurched forward, snatching the prize with pleasure. But the pleasure was short lived. A heavy-set man with arms as big as small tree trunks addressed him, pointing at the bill:
“Mine!”
“Um, sorry sir,” Johnny stuttered uncomfortably. “I just grabbed this dollar here off the ground. It sure didn’t seem like it was yours when you passed by it a second ago.”
“Nope. Mine!”
Johnny, feeling a losing battle nearby, surrendered and gave the man the dollar. “How odd,” he pondered as he walked away. “I have never seen anybody do that before.” And once again he was swept up into the stampede of people.
After he had walked a bit more, Johnny realized how tired he was. His bones and muscles seemed to be incredibly creaky. So he slowed himself down and plopped onto a bench that overlooked a great fountain. He rested his eyes for a few minutes and stretched his aching legs. No sooner had he opened them did he hear a high, snobbish voice:
“Mine!”
Johnny looked down at the source of the noise only to find two grimy, arrogant kids pointing at the bench he was sitting on.
“Mine!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Johnny proposed.
“Nope. Mine!”
Feeling it wasn’t worth the pain, Johnny submitted to the demands and trudged over to the edge of the fountain. Here he sat, consoling himself in thinking, “Oh, I didn’t even want to sit there. That bench was uncomfortable.” But his thinking was futile; it was certainly not what he felt. He had some strange feelings brewing in his stomach.
After these thoughts had passed, Johnny noticed a growing fondness for his new seat. The slapping of the water in the fountain behind him soothed his ailing body and mind, and after a bit he nonchalantly closed his eyes and let the warm sun sink beneath his skin. He took it all in for a long while and then, after losing track of time, he slowly propped himself up. As he opened his eyes, a sparkly object glinting over in the grass caught his attention. He had to know what it was.
Johnny heaved himself up from his relaxed position and quickly made his way over to the shiny object. But, when he was mere yards away, a pesky child dashed in front of him and grabbed the glistening item. Johnny gave up on his desire, but then a snarling emotion overtook him.
“Nope! Mine!” he asserted with his palm out to kid. “Mine!”
The kid, surprised at seeing a full-grown man competing for the object, flicked it out of his hands and sprinted out of site.
Johnny, picking up the twinkling thing, felt satisfied.
“Mine!”
My World
Johnny Winnwalker, for the first time in some twenty odd years, walked out of the Trinity Hospital’s front doors. It was eleven o’clock sharp. He had awoken from his coma just ten minutes ago and, though a little confused and a little stiff, he had detached the tubes that were connected to his body and walked out of the room, down the stairs, through the lobby, and out the doors. Nobody stopped him. In a normal state he would have found this very odd, but, being bedridden for the past couple decades, he didn’t give it one thought.
And the thing was, Johnny hadn’t the slightest clue that he had been in bed for that long. To him, he had just laid himself down to sleep the night before. The fact of waking up in a strange building with even stranger tubes poking into his body did not concern him. He simply shrugged it off. This carefree attitude, of course, was due to the coma effects still lingering in his system.
So there Johnny was, walking down the stairwell —having taken a twenty year leap without even knowing it— looking at the world as if not a thing had changed since he was last conscious. He failed to distinguish the bountiful devices surrounding him, or the cars, or the expressions on the people's faces. To him, they were all the same. But they really weren’t. It was a brand new world Johnny was entering.
And as he joined into the moving crowd on the sidewalk he decided he would stroll down the street to the nearest bus station. He would stay home today. “I’ll just have to call in sick,” he thought. “But first I better get a paper.”
He passed by several newspaper boxes, but he resisted getting one early on. The stands looked so peculiar; he had never even seen them before. And perhaps weirdest of all, the papers seemed to be free. But after walking past several burly men helping themselves to copies, he decided to receive the charity as well. He walked up to a vacant box, stretching his hand to pick one out. Only he was stopped.
“Nope. Mine!” an oaf of a man said as he heaved himself up from his chair a few feet away.
“Excuse me?” Johnny wondered.
“Mine!”
And with that, Johnny was brushed back into the amorphous horde of people.
“That’s odd,” he thought to himself as he looked back at the giant brute taking his seat. But Johnny, once again, carelessly tossed the fact away and continued onward.
And so, after a couple minutes of going along with the crowd and being totally oblivious to the radical differences around him, Johnny spotted a dollar bill fragilely floating a couple steps ahead of him. Out of boyhood glee, Johnny lurched forward, snatching the prize with pleasure. But the pleasure was short lived. A heavy-set man with arms as big as small tree trunks addressed him, pointing at the bill:
“Mine!”
“Um, sorry sir,” Johnny stuttered uncomfortably. “I just grabbed this dollar here off the ground. It sure didn’t seem like it was yours when you passed by it a second ago.”
“Nope. Mine!”
Johnny, feeling a losing battle nearby, surrendered and gave the man the dollar. “How odd,” he pondered as he walked away. “I have never seen anybody do that before.” And once again he was swept up into the stampede of people.
After he had walked a bit more, Johnny realized how tired he was. His bones and muscles seemed to be incredibly creaky. So he slowed himself down and plopped onto a bench that overlooked a great fountain. He rested his eyes for a few minutes and stretched his aching legs. No sooner had he opened them did he hear a high, snobbish voice:
“Mine!”
Johnny looked down at the source of the noise only to find two grimy, arrogant kids pointing at the bench he was sitting on.
“Mine!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Johnny proposed.
“Nope. Mine!”
Feeling it wasn’t worth the pain, Johnny submitted to the demands and trudged over to the edge of the fountain. Here he sat, consoling himself in thinking, “Oh, I didn’t even want to sit there. That bench was uncomfortable.” But his thinking was futile; it was certainly not what he felt. He had some strange feelings brewing in his stomach.
After these thoughts had passed, Johnny noticed a growing fondness for his new seat. The slapping of the water in the fountain behind him soothed his ailing body and mind, and after a bit he nonchalantly closed his eyes and let the warm sun sink beneath his skin. He took it all in for a long while and then, after losing track of time, he slowly propped himself up. As he opened his eyes, a sparkly object glinting over in the grass caught his attention. He had to know what it was.
Johnny heaved himself up from his relaxed position and quickly made his way over to the shiny object. But, when he was mere yards away, a pesky child dashed in front of him and grabbed the glistening item. Johnny gave up on his desire, but then a snarling emotion overtook him.
“Nope! Mine!” he asserted with his palm out to kid. “Mine!”
The kid, surprised at seeing a full-grown man competing for the object, flicked it out of his hands and sprinted out of site.
Johnny, picking up the twinkling thing, felt satisfied.
“Mine!”