And the Experiment Continues!

I'm really looking forward to seeing how my mood on a given day affects my writing, even within the same story. The fact that I'm not planning ahead leaves this story subject to my mood swings and life circumstances; even the weather. This could be exciting. Let's get back to it.

Smells have a funny way of sticking with you. Like how the smell of cookies can instantly transport you to your grandmother's kitchen. Only this smell was not like that. It was vile, almost malicious, and filled my heart with dread. Like a weight upon my tiny soul. It was almost more than I could bear as I struggled to maintain my consciousness.

It was fear that carried me through in the end. Fear of what an encounter with something that could cause such oppression from afar would do to me if it found me. I held onto that thought and stumbled back towards my house.

My world appeared, on the surface, to be remarkably the same. The cottonwood seeds still littered my yard, dancing in the wind gusts. My basketball still sat in the grass, sunbathing where I had left it days earlier. But I knew something was wrong now. My flight response had left my heart pounding in my chest, each beat like a hammer strike.

My mother was at work and wouldn't be home for several more hours. So I continued to fly, past my house, spilling into the street. "I'll go to Derek's house," I thought, "His older brother is always roaming around in those woods. He'll know what it is."

Now Derek's house was over a mile away, but in my heightened state I managed to cover the distance in record time. World record, it seemed to me, though it surely was a laughable notion. But it's a worthless exercise to try to convince a frightened child of such things.

I will once again make mention of the odd nature of memory, as this detail has always stuck with me. Perhaps it was the adrenaline. But the insignificant details that rally to recollection when summoned once more in old age never cease to astonish me. As I ran, I recall being struck once more by the seeming normalcy of the neighborhood. There was Mrs. Johnson's dog Baxter chasing a squirrel across the lawn. It struck me that he had caught one once years ago, and had sulked for days to have lost his "playmate". Dogs are dumb.

And so I arrived at Derek's front door.