Fearless – A web novel
Chapter 7 – The plan
The day was coming to an end. I don’t know for sure how I knew as the lack of devices capable of measuring such things as passing of time was just as complete as the lack of light. The dank odour of earthen floor, human fear and stale urine assaulted me in a slightly more tangible way when there was nothing to fasten my wandering eyes on. They felt hollow and dry, suffering more from a need to see than the actual missing out on seeing what I knew was there. An odd sensation of body knowing something that mind really didn’t care to ponder. I did ponder, although not seriously, the plan.
Ah, yes, the plan. I was not terribly worried about the execution of said plan, or any consequences of “the plan” failing. As I have mentioned previously I have no fear. So my heart didn’t thunder erratically and my stomach was as serene as a Master level Zen guru on chamomile.
I had no fear for my own safety simply because fear is just another four letter word to me. I had severe concerns of other kinds though. A few issues regarding what my publisher would do when I failed to submit before deadline would have to be dealt with at some point. He was a real dickhead jerk off but he paid good money for my yarn spinning. . I had no fear of starvation and homelessness. That didn’t mean that I wouldn’t starve when wandering the streets of Ottawasearching for a dark alley where I could search for scraps of edible things in friendly companion with a skinny Labradorpoodle mix with mange. I was fearless, not stupid.
My mind lingered only momentarily on the M Malone financial situation, a shade longer on the landlord who had his chubby fist pounding my door at this very moment without a doubt as the rent should have been handed in a week or so ago and he was under the illusion that his pounding my door would produce cash just like that. This kidnapping had really been imperfectly timed but I shrugged it off and finally got to the point in my mental list of things I couldn’t fear but that nonetheless could become very inconveniently uncomfortable.
My brain raced hop skipping and twirling passed things like possible danger of involuntary bloodletting, eventual need for financial damage control of a possibly creative kind and complicated actions to be executed as part of “the plan” in only a few moments. Then I started to drift off, into a waking dream or simply attacked by one of my more imaginary states of mind I couldn’t say. It was an image I had cultured and nurtured in my mind for a long time, and as silence and darkness lulled me to fitful dozing, I found myself in front of it. I hadn’t seen it for some time and was mildly curious about the changes it had gone through. I walked toward it, floating more than stepping, and came to a halt at the gigantic door. The gate that protected my aware from my unaware.
The door was dark wood, about as thick as my ass, armoured with black metal bands hammered out by a big strong sweating blacksmith at some unfathomable imaginary time ago. That same leather clad hairy brute had also shaped robust looking hinges and bolts to hold the thing together and in place. Here and there, in no very orderly fashion protruded steel spikes with crusty blackish stuff covering the spear like tips. Embedded in the wood were pieces of broken glass and dismantled disposable razors. Framing the cathedral monstrosity, a razor-wire tangled vine in full bloom with toxic looking rodent eating hybrid venues fly-trap grew happily smacking its petals. As a friendly message to all visitors the ground before the door was littered with vicious looking bear traps alongside lazily rippling puddles of quicksand.
I swatted a curious flower out of my face, hopped over a toothy trap and ignored the puddle sucking my foot as I stepped to the door and opened it. It creaked and grumbled, sputtered and shivered in indignation as I stepped through. There I saw my nemesis. There I stood face to face with the image of my doom. There, on the far side of a mental block that had stood strong since I had built it when I was twelve years old and had just realized that fear was a verb as well as a noun and something that other people had all the time, was the one thing that could disconcert me. I looked upon the ultimate destruction of the me…. A whisper out of the darkness fragmented my trip into emo land and I slammed the door shut and flipped it the bird. I shuddered and closed my light deprived eyes and thrashed about with directing focus on the soothing safety of substantial peril at hand.
“Malone.” The whispered rumbling came from a bit off to my right and I turned to Dinky and then immediately towards the door where Dinky was heading sneaky fashion. For such a big person Dinky the oaf could move very quietly. I wondered if that was just a natural talent of oafs or if Dinky was somehow special. Oh, he was special alright, that’s not quite what I mean. I mean that since. The click of the lock saved me from further blundering through a newly discovered landscape of mindless gobbledygook.
I had had a long hard talk with Dinky. I had made it very clear and simple. He had looked at me with his wonderfully, oh damn, blue eyes waiting for me to talk and I glared at him. I spelled it out so that there could be no misunderstandings. He was still holding the pathetic piece of tissue and the puddle of piss had not yet quite sank down through the top soil of my cell.
“Dinky, You, me, escape, now!” Dinky had stared at me, eyes shining, jaw grinding back and forth and front to back for a second as he stuffed the paper in a pocket and smoothed his beard, considering. I could tell by then that the oaf wasn’t afraid of me anymore and a new thought was developing in one or more darkroom chemical baths in the back of his head. A blurred picture may or may not have become clear to him then. He smiled and winked.
“Ok.” He had said. As far as I knew, that was the total extent of “the plan” and now it was happening. “The plan” was coming in to play. If I only knew exactly what “the plan” was.