Stomach Wrenching Sound

"Keep going!" he said to himself.

"Why?" his thoughts countered.

"Why not?"

Tim had come to a crossroads. Actually, it was a freeway exit. Exiting
onto Hwy. 84 would take him to his new job. Remaining on Hwy. 6 would
take him towards the Twin Bridges and then a turn onto Hwy. 185 would
take him over Cooper's Bridge to FM 1637, which would take him
home.

He exited.

"Great, now why'd I do that?"

Tim did not understand his feelings. On one hand, he needed this job.
His business had failed and "real" work was his only choice. On the
other hand, he felt horrible about the new job.

When he went to his interview everything seemed fine. And even the
first twenty minutes of his orientation, this morning, went well. But,
when he saw the three-ton machine fall on top of the two helpless men
everything changed. The sight of human guts spread across the ground as
if they belonged to insects that had been stepped on by a giant foot
had a profound affect on him.

He swallowed, turned onto Hwy. 84.

Five minutes later he pulled into the Lockomotiv parking lot. The guard
on duty gave him a friendly wave.

"Someone's happy tonight," he muttered. He did not wave back.

He was working the graveyard shift for three reasons. One, his business
had failed horribly. Two, this was the only position available. And
last, but not least - "Not least by a long shot," he thought - he
wanted some time away from Joyce.

Joyce had not understood why Tim could not keep the business. He tried
to explain that a family oriented bookstore could not stay open when a
strip club moved in next door. But she wouldn't listen. It wasn't like
he had just given up at the first sign of naked skin. He looked into
relocating, but he could find no space available in a good neighborhood
much less at a good price. Once, he even had the idea to turn the place
into an adult bookstore, but he was sure that his customers would not
agree with this decision, plus the strip club had its own interior
video and bookstore so no luck there.

Finally, his business income dwindled so low that he was the only
employee remaining and after three straight seventy-two hour work weeks
he decided that closing down was his only option. He had only his
dignity left that last business day and when he got home that night his
wife stripped him of that. She said that no loser would sleep in her
bed. Lying on the sofa, he decided that when he got enough money he
would divorce her.

To get that money he had gotten a full time job. Now he was walking
into the warehouse of an air conditioner manufacturer for his first
night of work. He passed the blood spot from that morning and nearly
vomited on the stain. He walked into the cafeteria, found his
supervisor, followed him onto the warehouse floor and began work.

Two hours later he was working a press brake when he heard a stomach
wrenching sound that made every pain of the last five months come back
as if to re-attack his weak flesh. He realized the sound had come from
the man operating the press behind him. He ran around the press to find
his coworker on the ground with no head. Blood gushed over Tim's steel
toe boots.

The coworker had been bending the corners of a few five-foot by
ten-foot sheets of metal. He apparently was not paying attention to his
work when one of the sheets bent upward and decapitated him. Tim stood
and stared at his severed head. The lips were moving. He was saying
something. Impossible, it was just his nerves not realizing they no
longer served a purpose. He looked closely at his lips as they mouthed,
"Save me."

Tim stood up straight and turned pale as a ghost. This man could not be
saved. He was gone.

Two men who had also heard the sound now arrived. "Another one?" said
one.

"They're startin' to drop like flies," the other stated
sarcastically.

"We're gonna have to look into a new insurance company."

They both laughed.

Tim was gone. He wasn't surprised by the lack of humility before God
and Death, but he could not take it. As he ran to his car he saw that
the guard was asleep in his booth and his TV was on casting an eerie
light over his motionless face. He looked at the monitor. All he could
see was a bundled mash of skin and pubic hair. "That's why he's so
happy." he thought, "Maybe I'll just go ruin his night." He walked over
to the guard's booth, slung open the sliding glass door, grabbed the
back of the man's chair and pushed it over spilling the guard onto the
floor. "Fuck me, harder!" screamed the TV

Without explaining anything he walked to his car, left the parking lot
and never came back.

Ten minutes later he pulled onto Hwy. 185, heading towards home. He
would call in the morning and explain why he could not continue working
there. That would be no problem. The problem was how to explain his
early arrival to Joyce.

He would tell her the truth but she would just call him a coward and
make him sleep on the couch for a fourth consecutive night. So he
decided to tell her that he was let off early because there was a lack
of work that night. Yes, that may be the only way to get a chance at
sleeping in his bed tonight.

He did not enjoy lying to his wife, but it had become a habit since she
started acting like the world hated her. She somehow believed his
business had failed because she was destined to a life of
poverty.

When he married her she was, to him, the most beautiful person on
earth, inside and out. But when they found out that he could not
produce sperm she became bitter. She seemed to think that he was
infertile on purpose and he wanted her to be miserable. She had
gradually become a hateful being full of self-pity.

He was about halfway across Cooper's Bridge - a structure spanning the
rock quarry he had spent most of his childhood exploring, not to
mention the place where he and Joyce had first made love - when he had
the blowout.

He heard a loud bang, lost control of his car and drove off the side of
the bridge.

As his headlights shone onto the rocks below, he did not panic. He did
not fear. He did not think of his life. The only thing he did was ask,
"Why? Why now?" Then it came to him; this would look like a suicide.
There was no way the cops would know about the blowout, all his tires
would more than likely pop on impact, and even if they didn't, the one
flat would be attributed to the impact. Plus, he did not have enough
time to hit the brakes before becoming airborne, so there was no skid
marks. It would look as if he was through with life and had decided
this to be the best way to end it. After all his depression had been
recognized by his friends.

The insurance company would not pay off in the case of a suicide.

Joyce would receive no money.

He smiled.

She had made his life a horrible existence and she did not deserve to
reap the benefits of his death. As he looked at the rock he was
approaching he noticed a bug sitting on the rough surface. "Poor little
guy," he thought.

The car smashed into the rock. The sound caused Tim's eardrums to
burst.

As he lay bleeding to death from the wound that was caused by the
steering column being impaled in his stomach he thought of his coworker
that he had left just minutes before and that he soon would join. "At
least no one is here to joke about my death," he thought.

He let out a long breath and died.

The next morning as the body was being removed a paramedic noticed the
fresh bug guts between the car's windshield and the rock. "This guy
must've really hated bugs."

Another guy chimed in, "Jeez, someone should've told him to use
Raid."

They both laughed.