No Escape

No Escape

 

Simpson woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Being tied to the bed he couldn't go anywhere so he went back to sleep believing he wanted to have a better dream.

 

He didn't. The high intensity light shinning on his face from above pierced through his closed eyes and made him want to open them to make the light go away. Of course it did no good.

 

Next Simpson willed himself back into a dream where he lay sunbathing on the beach in Aruba and got up to go to the water to cool off from the oppressive sun.

 

Wilma, his on again off again girlfriend, startled him awake with her smoker's raspy yell. “turn off the goddamn reading light. Wait! You peed the bed, you bastard you!”

 

He ignored her and fell back asleep determined to get into a better dream world. Fat chance. He jolted himself awake this time to see his two duffels stuffed and parked by the door. Wilma pushed him telling him to get his wet ass out of her house and no, he couldn't shower first.

 

Simpson decided to give dream world one more chance but Wilma would be having none of his nonsense and kept shaking him awake and profanitizing until he got out of bed, dressed and turned over his house key. He walked towards the highway smelling of pee hoping he'd wake from this nightmare and catch a ride out of town with a lonely attractive woman looking for a companion.

 

After the third car had stopped to pick him up and then drove off without him Simpson realized he stunk and would have to dream himself a solution. Hefting his two duffels, Simpson walked from the turnpike entrance and wandered around a neighborhood peeking into cars to see if anyone left their keys. He spotted a sprinkler watering the front lawn of a nice Cape Cod style house and dashed over. He undressed, pulled out some dry wrinkled clothes from his duffle and then ran back and forth following the sprinkler's movement taking himself a bracing cold shower. Not having any soap he rubbed himself with dirt and then the porch light came on and a police car drove up and Simpson, far from being scared or troubled, finally realized he’d been awake.

 

The cops let him dress and put him in the back seat to take him to the station for booking; and on the way he dozed off into the beginnings of a new dream, where, picked up by a gorgeous woman in an RV, he left the shotgun seat and walked back to the head to relieve himself.

 

 

Paul Beckman

 

 

Paul Beckman has four story collections, a novella published and a new collection, ”Kiss Kiss” due out in early 2018.. He’s had over 350 of his stories published in print, on line, and via audio. Paul runs the monthly FBomb NY flash fiction reading series at KGB. He had a micro story selected for the 2018 Norton Microfiction Anthology.