Short, SHORT fiction - One of THOSE Weeks

[MalReynolds]

His bedroom resembled a prison cell, although the only thing keeping him locked away was his lethargy. There was faint music piping into the room from his computer speakers which sat beneath a layer of dust and trash. His arm hung over the bed, brushing the dirty carpet as he stared at the alarm clock, which changed from 12:59pm to 1:00.

His arm came up and brushed his face – the music was a slight electronica and a high pitched man crooned about missing a girl over many miles. As the music played, the man swung his feet over the side of the bed and corrected the inside out leg of his sweat pants before slipping them on and tossing a red shirt over his head. Stumbling over trash, he made his way to the door.

The man looked over the railing, three stories up, down to the main hall below where his mother was pushing a cart of books towards the back door. He listened until the back door shut and heard the sound of the car pulling out of the driveway before he made his way downstairs, passing his brothers bedroom on the left portion of the second floor and down the last staircase, stopping to pick up his car key from the side table beside the front door.

The front door, the man thought, was an anomaly. His tired mind comprehended the solid nature of the door, but frowned as it swung open, which flummoxed him slightly. There was a man standing in the door frame, glaring through a black ski-mask. The young man frowned as the arm gripped his shoulder and pulled him outside.

“Josh!”

The name was alien. The name was his brother’s, not his own.

“No,” Not-Josh replied.

“You look like Josh,” the man said, hustling Not-Josh down the stairs to the waiting car. There was a driver, Not-Josh noted, wearing shades. The car was fairly non-descript and Not-Josh wondered if those were the real plates. Oh well, no time to ponder, into the car he went.

“I’m not Josh,” Not-Josh managed.

“Then who are you?” The car peeled out.

“I’m his brother.”

The man in the ski-mask turned to the driver. “Says he’s his brother.”

“Yes, I do say,” Not-Josh frowned.

“You do say you are him?”

“What? No. I’m not him.”

The driver scoffed. “Yeah, haven’t heard that one before.”

“If you want Josh, you could take him. He’s probably still asleep. He’s a pretty big –“ Not-Josh paused. He was going to finish with, “Loser,” but remembered waking up less then ten minutes ago. “He’s probably still asleep,” he repeated.

“Assuming you aren’t Josh, does Josh like you?”

Not-Josh thought about it. “We get along, I guess.”

“Then consider yourself officially a hostage,” the ski-mask man said, smiling.

Not-Josh the Hostage frowned.

“Yes,” he thought bitterly to himself, “It’s going to be one of those weeks.”