One Piece Missing

ONE PIECE MISSING.

DARREN WORROW.

One Piece Missing

Darren Worrow

Copyright 2013: Darren Worrow.

Published by Purple Papaya LLC.

Second edition published via Smashwords 2015

No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from the author.

No similarity between any of the names, characters, institutions, persons or substances in One Piece Missing, and those of any persons living or dead is intended and any such similarity is purely coincidental. The scenarios depicted in this publication are solely for the purposes of entertainment and are not intended to promote or condone any activity deemed illegal by law.

www.darrenworrow.webs.com

1.

Overwhelmed was the little boy by the sheer enormous size of the hall. Anxious he was too as his mother told him that it was the school he would be going to next year. It had a foul odour of dank and musky clothes; beyond that a smell of sick and disinfectant, he didn’t enjoy being there one bit. However anxiety is short-lived in a four year old and he took to finding an ideal spot where he could hide and become Batman with his dinky Bat-mobile toy. Using his fingers as the controller the boy zoomed the toy car across the wooden slats of the floor, causing a dust storm behind it as he wailed engine noises.

Abruptly and without warning he was pulled up onto his feet, immediately in tears because he had been separated from the Batman toy car which remains on the floor. His mother sighed, bent down to pick it up and shoved it into his hand. It was not the issue that he had it back; it was the issue that his imaginative game was interrupted and so still he continued to verbally protest. His mother ignored the cries, brushed the dust from his tank top and rubbed her hand down his brown corduroys, look at the state of you! she moaned, You’ve got it all over your face! She then proceeded to take out a handkerchief from her handbag which she spat into and wiped it over the boy’s face.

Pulling him further away from the table she magically produced a Herrington jacket, held it up to his tummy, giving an examination and a quick hum she then said, Try this on. Before the boy could move she had turned him round and he ceremoniously held his arms straight from his back as she slips the sleeves of the jacket over his arms. She gave a hum; another lady told her that it suited him. His mother was not so sure; she whipped the jacket back off him and placed it onto a table. No thanks, she addressed the lady and moved on, tugging the boy by the scruff of the neck, c’mon.

With one hand grasped firmly by his mother’s hand and the other flying the Bat-mobile through the air the boy toddled on trying to match his mother’s pace. It was then that he broke free of the grip, intrigued by an old man staring at him with a look of horror. The expression was unbeknown to the boy but it struck him as fearful. The man was standing behind the tables with a heap of old toys and board games in front of him. He looked ragged, with unkempt brown curly hair, swamped with lashes of grey. When the man realised the boy noticed him a look of immense wonderment altered his wrinkled face. He looked worn out before his age, an old man to the boy but in reality only in his mid-thirties.

Gripped by the meeting of eyes the man picked up a box and presented it to the boy. It was an old puzzle, must have seen a decade or two through and was as worn out as the man himself. The boy leaned forward his mother stopping only slightly further on to examine another jacket. The boy looked at the picture on the box, he was taken in by the beauty of the lady painted on it, encapsulated for reasons the boy could not explain. The man could only gaze at the boy and so the child refrained by fear of him failed to look up at his face again. He did however have an enormous desire to have this jigsaw puzzle and so he yelled, Mum!

By the way he was holding the box his mother knew what the question was before the boy had the time to collect them in his mind and she stomped over and snatched the box from him, What do you want this for, it’s just an old puzzle, it’s too grown up for you and look, she observed and pointed to the writing in pencil, scribed on a corner of the box that had the layer with the print of the painting worn off, it says it’s got one piece missing…..you don’t want that rubbish; how about these Fuzzy Felts, she continued grabbing the nearest toy she could see in order to distract him from the tatty puzzle box. Fuzzy Felt Monsters look, she added for good measure.

No, want puzzle! exclaimed the little boy and his mother sighed, not even paying attention to the desperate, longing expression of the man, his desire to reach out and grab her written over his face but far too fearful to carry it out. She rummaged in her purse and clipped it back shut, handed the man a ten pence piece and hurried her son away, the boy looked around in a state of confusion, the mother never noticed but the boy picked out the teardrop on the old man’s cheek.

2.

Smooth flesh tendering against rougher, more rugged skin, satin slides beneath, gasps of pleasure fills the air, feminine moans of delight, perspiration, drips of fluid secretion, more gasps for air and grunts, trapped in a bubble of bliss, an ambience of joyful sensation, ultimate climax until the bubble bursts by a yelping cry, just one word, a question asked in confused alarm; Toni?

The female flesh instantly turns rigid and cold, a face peers above satin, another one word question, Dave? Shock, dismay, apprehension and other emotions alter the atmosphere. Excuses, badly conceived, no time to think straight, the sadness, the anger, the fear of how to react. The bastard, my girlfriend, my confusion switching to anger, my anger to red mist, and an evil fills the air, a horror rests on my shoulders as I bolt upright, awake, too soon, the dream gone but momentarily not forgotten. The dread of another day, the hurt from last night’s poison. My brain caving into itself, my bed sheets crumpled and dank, the realisation that this was many months ago and my motivation that life goes on shadowed by the sensation of regret. She was never to be considered a girlfriend, the friend bit wasn’t correct. Fuck buddy, was a better term, but still I could have, I must have, I wanted to love, not her, just someone. Lonely, here I was again, lonely in my lonely room, turned insane by my art, that blistering creek of creative nonsense. That blood, the passion the hurt, the pain, the dagger that is my art.

I take out a cigarette and scramble my hands along the floor scanning for a light. My eyelids like lead window shutters, the soreness of their neighbouring skin. My nose, filled with matter, trying to suffocate me with no guilt. My mouth was as dry as a desert, sand drift, rough, a want for a crying out, a need to announce my upset to this uninhabited dark bedsit. No one cares, no one wants to be my friend, hate, hate for them all, is there at least a minuscule glimmer at the end of this long tunnel, I doubt it.

Prise myself out of bed is my first mission, it’s so cold in this dark, puny bedsit even when it is spring outside; a cold spring I’ll give you, but spring none the less. Despite the absence of warmth there are kids outside in the park. I gather it is their noise that woke me, their happy screams of jubilation, so merry, no cares; envy rides my neurons as I wonder to the window to glare at them with a jealous snarl, unlit cigarette hanging haphazardly off my dry, bottom lip.

Next I struggle to the sink, find the least skanky glass and fill it with water. One huge gulp, I can feel it smoothing the raw throat, do I need this cigarette, really? I must find my lighter. I look in my jean’s pocket and sure enough I find it, spark the fire that warms my addiction, or one of them at least. I peer across the room at my nemesis and breathe out smoke clouds. It stands, white, proud, annoying me, staring me out like it hates me. I hate it, every bump of that canvas, it’s getting no attention from me today; I’m just not up for it. Why did she have to go and shag him, my dream coming back in shards of hateful memory? Why do I even still ponder this, it was months ago? I should consider myself free, a single guy with potential, but I don’t, seems I crave despair, I love the blues. Depression is a wonder, a delight, a necessity, the bleeding hearts of artists. All I can produce is dark, squalled and disturbing marks, drawing in the disheartened and dejected the broken and miserable. That twat will still buy it though, he seems to be buying everything I do, for that I should be happy for; he is keeping me in a constant supply of beans on toast…and…….

I need to see the agent don’t I, promised didn’t I? Get dressed; get out of this depressing hole. I reach for the sock draw, why select this item of clothing first? Who am I trying to kid, I giggle at my own thought and reach into the draw……a