A Day In the Death of Walter Zawislak by Molly O'Keefe

Author:Molly O'Keefe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Molly O'Keefe
Published: 2020-01-17T16:00:00+00:00

15

Walter’s knees buckled and he fell backward in the mud and grass of the little girl’s—Beth’s—backyard. It sure as hell wasn’t the alley with all the broken glass and shame.

“Well, that wasn’t quite what I had in mind,” Peter said from somewhere behind Walter.

“No shit.”

Walter closed his eyes until the world stopped spinning. Until he stopped seeing the look on his brother’s face.

“It’s mind over matter, Walter, with the dizziness.”

Walter lifted his head and searched out the boy. He was sitting cross-legged on the porch beside Beth, watching her industriously braid a doll’s yellow yarn hair. He was in a sea of pink plastic and blond yarn.

“Well, maybe if I wasn’t being jerked in and out of these damn days, my mind could get used to it.”

“Maybe.” Behind his glasses, the boy’s eyebrows nearly skyrocketed off his head. “If you wouldn’t make a mockery out of the days that are supposed to be good memories, I wouldn’t have to jerk you around. Seriously, you were getting an award!”

“You sound like my old man.” Walter groaned and rolled to his side, the nausea gone, but the shame lingering like grease.

The boy muttered something about not blaming the old man, but Walter ignored him. The novelty of this little adventure had worn off. It wasn’t going to be all basketball games and MaryAnn Arneson’s breasts. Every day that boy had in his computer was going to be some day Walter had messed up.

The boy grabbed his pager and Walter sighed, resting his head in the mud, wondering who he needed to talk to, or pay, or beg to get out of this mess.

“I’m going to have to move you up a level.”

“Level?”

“You were considered an easy file. Statistically, men like you either go back and relive your war hero day or the day they married their soul mate.”

Walter closed his eyes, denying both days.

“I’ve got people piling up out in that hallway,” Peter groused. “I need more time.”

“I’m not stopping you!” Walter cried. “Let me go so you can get back to work!”

“I’m not going over this with you again, Walter.” If looks could kill, Walter would have been...well, more dead. Skewered to the ground perhaps. “There.” The kid tapped one more button, slid his fancy machine back into his pocket, and grinned like the smug little prick he was turning out to be. “You are now considered a special case.”

“Good for me,” Walter muttered, flopping back in the mud. The sky was the bluest thing he’d ever seen. “What do I get?”

“Me.”

Walter sat up. Shaken.

It couldn’t be.

He turned toward the swing set, searching out the new, terribly familiar voice.

“Over here, Walter.”

Walter whirled toward the house and there, standing next to Peter, was his cousin Dan.

“Hello, Walt,” Dan said, older and paunchy in a yellow golf shirt and tweed jacket. He pushed open a door to a dark room filled with pink spotlights and a thumping bass line. “Let’s go have a drink.”

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