The Time of Day

When could this have happened? Shattered glass covered the floor of the business, little diamonds sparkling on the concrete tile. He had been there the whole night, sleeping next to the heater with a thick wool blanket wrapped around him and a needle in his vein. He was naked, so the wool made his flesh itch the entire night. All over his body there were small red scratches from the blanket. The needle was uninterested.

He had heard nothing the whole night, nobody coming in, nobody talking, And especially nobody throwing an old Panasonic television set through the window sending it crashing through the room, knocking over mannequins and paper dolls. But there it was, lying inches from his face, still plugged in with the broken mannequin bodies lying around it, faces contorted in agony. The news was on, he saw, and blood was painted the screen. When he saw that it was not his blood, but rather blood flowing from the anchorman’s mouth in the form of news, he relaxed and threw the blanket across the room. He now knew he was trapped here, with the glass circling his body, keeping him from going anywhere unless he wanted stitches crisscrossing all the way down his feet. He knew that this was no different from any other ordinary day in his life.

When could this have happened?

Originally published January 7, 2000