COLD BLACK MIRROR (standard:Flash, 5957 words)
Author: Danny Zil	Added: Oct 04 2016	Views/Reads: 2332/1434	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
10 BLACK FLASH TALES.

COLD BLACK MIRROR 

DANNY ZIL 

10 BLACK FLASH TALES 

1.	ORDINARY JOE 2.	CARE TO BUY A LOSER A DRINK? 3.	ONLY DEGREES OF
MISERY 4.	WAKE TO NOTHIN 5.	GRAVEDIGGER 6.	SMOKIN KILLS 7.	IT'S NOT 
YOUR DAY, JFK 8.	IS MY MUSIC BOTHERIN YOU? 9.	DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? 
10.	LEGEND 

ORDINARY JOE 

Ordinary Joe liked winter. The cold. The grey skies. The rain. The
darkness. You could hide in all that. Become invisible. Disappear. 

Ordinary Joe hated summer. The heat. The blue skies. The sunshine. The
light. You couldn't hide in all that. You were visible. Couldn't 
disappear. 

Things had started out fine for Ordinary Joe. In his teens, they were
lookin good. He was a handsome guy, beddin some of the more attractive 
girls in his school. Hell, even a couple of their moms. He was doin 
well in his studies. Engineerin. He was also throwin quarterback passes 
that were attractin the attention of the pros. 

Yep, everythin was lookin good. 

Then a motorbike accident left him with a metal pin in his throwin arm.
Sure he could still use it okay but he couldn't make the passes 
anymore. That pissed him off real bad an his studies fell away. 

Then he got one of his girlfriends pregnant an wound up havin to marry
her. They had the kid and he had to give up his studies an take factory 
work to support them. 

Then the mortgage. Then the second kid. The end of dreams. Friends fell
away. The drinkin started. The marriage fell away. The divorce started. 


Now Ordinary Joe was in his forties. Livin alone in a rented tenth floor
flat. Not many friends. No real interests. Occasional women but they 
got canned for one reason or another. Same way he got canned from jobs 
for one reason or another. 

Christ one time he'd been so desperate for money that he'd worked in one
of them care homes for old folks. What a stinkin job that was. Changin 
their diapers. Moppin their drool. Shovin mulched up shit into their 
toothless gobs. That didn't last. 

Now it was a borin repetitive factory job packin internet orders into
boxes. He could go a whole shift an barely say a word to anyone. Not 
that it mattered these days. Ordinary Joe had nothin much to say 
anymore an hardly anybody interested him. 

For daytime, the drug of choice was valium. For nitetime, the drink of
choice was vodka. Ordinary Joe drank himself to sleep most nites an 
drank himself unconscious at weekends. It would go on that way until 
the end. 

Starin out the window at the downtown scene on winter's nites, Ordinary
Joe could drink himself into the darkness. Sittin there, smokin an 
watchin the snow fallin, he often thought about how bad it had all 
become. Dead end job. Hardly saw his kids. Hardly any friends. Always 
chasin money. No hope of ever achievin anythin anymore. He was just 
another nobody. An ordinary joe. 

How good it had all looked when he was sixteen, seventeen. ‘Christ, if
you knew how your fuckin life was goin to turn out there'd be hardly 
any of us left,' he decided. 

Every day it was the grim struggle. The grim struggle to keep work. The
grim struggle for money. The grim struggle to stay sane. A convicted 
criminal was a prisoner on the inside. Ordinary Joe was a prisoner on 
the outside. 


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