L I F E

By Nick Sturtz

Ding Dong. Ding Dong.

The door alarm beeped as Phil walked in the corner store on 10^th and University which was only a few blocks away from his house. As he walked through the doorway he went straight for the beer (which was the main reason he had made the trip in the first place). The store was run by a group of Koreans. Phil had never liked them and they had never liked Phil but they managed each other seeing as Phil went to the corner store at least once a day. The lights were almost never on and the place was usually dirtier than the dump (and smelled worse). He reached his arm into the freezer and felt around for what he thought was the coldest, freshest tall can of Budweiser. He turned around and tried to remember if he had remembered to bring any cash out.

Oh No! Did he forget to bring his money?

“Thank God!” he exclaimed.

He found a crumpled five dollar bill in the back pocket of his jeans. He pushed it onto the counter along with his beer.

“Can I get this and a swisher?” asked Phil

It was the younger clerk that worked on weekends. Phil liked him more than the other clerks mostly because he could under stand what the kid said. The young Asian man in his early twenties typed in a few numbers on the register and reached under the counter for the cigarillo that Phil had asked for.

“Three Eighty-Two,” said the clerk.

Phil grabbed the swisher along with his beer and turned out the door and down the sidewalk. As soon as he bent the corner to walk down 10^th street, he ripped of the thin plastic covering and began breaking down the swisher he had just purchased in a vertical line until it was split all the way down. He let the tobacco that had once been squeezed tightly into the cigarillo onto the sidewalk only to be blown away by the next gust of wind. He let his tongue slide along each end going back and forth sealing together the tobacco leaf and the thin cardboard-like paper on the inside. He turned left at another corner and thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out a tiny, purple bag of dro. He began breaking the nugget into tiny little chunks catching every single crystal, leaf and bud in his open palm. When the weed was broken down to his liking, he dumped it into the swisher that he had just broken down. With precision, he rolled up the blunt and sealed it shut by licking it.

He walked up his stairs to the front stoop while fiddling through his pockets for his keys. He opened the door and it creaked open revealing the cluttered dirty mess that was Phil’s living room. He threw his keys onto the counter grabbed the lighter that they had landed next to and sparked up the freshly flipped blunt. He could feel the sweet smoke going deeper and deeper into his lungs. After a few seconds of holding it in, Phil let the smoke out in one giant cloud that filled his living room. Instantly, he began a raging fit of coughing. Over the next few minutes, Phil’s living room got a lot smokier. His eyes began to close and his moth became dry. He began to think of what he had stocked in the fridge to munch on. But he lost his train of thought and wound up passing out on the couch.

            Phil opened his eyes. All he could see was darkness. In the distance he could see a sliver of light. It started getting closer and closer until it was almost right in front of him. But before he knew it he had squeezed out and he was overwhelmed by brightness. He was completely naked and there was a man in a white coat and a mask holding him.

“Why am I so small?” Phil thought to himself.

            He tried to say something but all that came out was a gurgling, wailing noise. The man in the white began talking to someone behind Phil that he couldn’t see.

            “Have you thought of a name for him yet Ms. Cornisius?”

            “Yes. I’m going to named him Phillip.” replied a woman’s voice.

            The doctor’s white latex hand swooped in with a pair of scissors and cut the umbilical cord connecting Phil to his mother. He wiped him down, wrapped him in a baby blue blanket and handed him to his mother. A sense of warmth and security flooded Phil’s newborn body.

            Phil opened his eyes. He was sitting on the floor in his favorite blue overalls watching Sesame Street. He was just learning to walk and he thought he had finally got the hang of it. He pushed himself up from the floor into a standing position. He looked like a tree swaying in the winding ready to fall at any time. He took a deep breath and lifted his right foot up and forward at the same time. This was where he had to get the timing right otherwise he would fall on his face like he had done last time. Right as his foot landed on the carpet, his left foot shoot up and forward just like his right foot had done a second earlier. He kept this going as long as he could until he was too tired and his little legs could go no further. Phil sat back down where he had been sitting before and continued watching Sesame Street.  He was so proud of himself. His first steps.

            Phil opened his eyes. It was his first day of school. He was so overwhelmed. How had he gotten here? Time was moving too fast for Phil to even think about that. All of the kindergarteners were lining up to get their teacher. Phil wandered over to the group after recognizing a few kids he had seen around the neighborhood. But most of the faces he saw were faces of strangers. There was one boy that Phil recognized from his block that lived a house or two down from him. He had short blond hair and was missing a few front teeth in his smile. Phil was taller and bigger than him but the boy wasn’t particularly small. His name was Max or Mark or Matt. It was something like that.

            After receiving the teachers they would have for the rest of the year, all of the new kindergarteners were led to their classrooms. Phil’s teacher was a fat grey-haired woman with pillows of fat and sagging arms. He was disgusted. Wandering around the colorful room, Phil unsuccessfully tried to find a familiar face. Before he knew it, the teacher announced that it was nap time.

            Phil opened his eyes. He was gasping for air. There was churning salt water rising up to his head. He tried to swim but could barely tread the water and began to sink. He could hear his mother screaming.

            “No! Somebody help my baby!” she screamed.

            Phil thought he was going to die. He couldn’t hold his breath any longer. He closed his eyes hoping his last breath wouldn’t be at the age of seven. Right as the water started to overcome him he felt a huge strong figure dive into the water and grab him. He was pulled all the way to the shore by his savior. He was coughing up water everywhere but he way alive. All he could hear was his mother crying. His heart was pounding. He was in shock from his near death experience. He couldn’t keep conscious.

            Phil opened his eyes. He was back in his dirty smelly living room. He felt much different than he usually did. It was as if his vision had been cleared of a haze. The room still smelled of weed. He looked at the clock on the counter over in the other corner of the room. He had only dozed off for five minutes. He slowly sat up with a groan and walked towards the refrigerator. He swung the coke white door open revealing the almost empty interior. Milk, cheese, some random vegetables, condiments, and a few other things were all that occupied the fridge. He grabbed two slices of white bread out of the cupboard, stuck a slice of cheese in-between them and stuck it in the toaster.

            “I need to go to the grocery store.” he said to himself.

            He closed the door, walked out of his house, walked down the street to the grocery store. He bought a feast fit for kings. He was so excited that as he was crossing the street where the grocery store was, he didn’t remember to look both ways and was hit and killed by a car.