Perspective
John M. Palinkas
It is 8:00 a.m., an alarm goes off with free form jazz music playing. Jerry wakes up and hops out of bed and opens the curtains. He looks outside to see the sun is smiling, and birds are chirping with a few dancing about. Outside people are skipping down the street without a care in the world. Jerry turns around and sees his wife in the kitchen cooking breakfast. She turns around and smiles back at him.
“Good morning sweetie. Did you sleep well last night?”
“Yes, I slept well last night dear.”
“Wonderful to hear,” said Jerry as he walked over to give a hug to his wife. She hugs him back. “I love you so much,” whispered Jerry.
“I love you too” replied his wife.
Jerry’s watch starts to beep, he releases from their loving embrace and looks at his watch. He looks back at his wife. “I have to go, but I will see you later tonight.”
Jerry walks over to the door and leaves.
As Jerry walks out of the apartment complex he sees everyone walking around with smiles. He sees cars bouncing side to side with smiles on their faces, kitchen utensils walking about, and cats and dogs having pleasant conservation. Everyone and everything is just as cheerful as he is.
“What a beautiful day. Good morning world!!!!!” exclaims Jerry.
Everything turns and looks at Jerry, and say, “Hi Jerry.” Jerry’s smile grew bigger, and he now walks with a skip in his step and waves to every person or thing greeting him on his way to work.
Jerry stands outside of his glass office building that seems to be sparkling. As he enters the building he is greeted almost instantaneously by the receptionist.
“Good Morning Jerry”, she said cheerily.
“Morning”, Jerry said with a broad smile on his face and a wave of his hand as he walked past the receptionist who smiled back as he went to the elevator. He hit the number 8 on the elevator panel. The elevator started to go up and the elevator music started to play. Jerry hums along with it until he hears a bing and the doors open. He sees some people working in their cubicle, others are chatting with one another, and others are by the water cooler. He steps out of the elevator and starts greeting everyone.
“Hey Jeraldl. Kim, how are the kids doing?. Steve, my man. Gery, looking sharp…..”, as Jerry greets each person and gets a greeting back his grin grows bigger and bigger to the point it is uncomfortable to look at. Jerry sits down and begins to work.
Minutes go by since Jerry’s arrival, joyful muttering and humming is coming from the office place.
“Why hello there Jerry.” Jim a coworker eagerly greets Jerry.
Jerry turns around to see his co worker Jim standing right behind him. “Jim, how’s it going there buddy!” Jerry exclaimed excitedly.
“I’ve been absolutely positive Jerry!”
“That’s great to hear Jim! Hey, are you going to the meeting today?”
“Absolutely, I’m heading there right now. Hey let’s head over there together.”
“Great Idea.”
Jerry gets up out of his chair and starts joyfully walking over to the area where today’s meeting is happening. They arrive at their destination right as the meeting is about to start.
“Good day Jerry and everyone!” the boss said being in his joyful mood as always. “Now let’s get down to business shall we.”
Everyone waited in the room with this eager look on their faces as they waited for the boss to tell them how they are doing this quarter.
“Everything is going up this quarter all due to one person's hard work, dedication, and positive attitude towards everything. Which is why I would like to give a promotion to Jerry”, says the Boss enthusiastically.
Jerry was in shock that he was getting a promotion at his company. This only made him more cheerful than he was before, to the point that his whole body was shaking with joy.
“Way to go Jerr!. High five!”, said Jim putting his arm up. Jerry gave Jim the hardest high five he had ever gave anyone in his life, making sure that no one could match his in a million years. Their hands connected and sent Jim back a little.
“Also Jerry, there’s another idea I want to discuss with you since this is a perfect time to do so”, said the boss. Jerry turned to give his boss his full attention. “Happy birthday”.
“How did you know”, said Jerry with a surprised look on his face.
“I always know when it’s your birthday Jerry. I always know.”
The receptionist brings in a cake and everyone starts singing. This is literally the best day Jerry could imagine. The only thing that could make it better would be…
“Jerry take the day off. Enjoy your birthday, but only after you eat some of your cake.” This made Jerry only more happy.
Jerry is now outside his office building and starts walking down the steps a little when....
“Hey there Jerry” a voice said. Jerry turns to see a beautiful red shelby mustang car talking to him.
“Why hello there car. What do you want from me.”
“Well Jerry believe it or not, from this point on I’m your car to enjoy.“
Jerry smiles from ear to ear, gets in the red mustang and starts driving down the street. He turns on the radio and free form jazz starts to play again. Jerry continues to smile as he drives down the street. He makes a left, then right, then a left again. Then he starts to swerve while driving. Swaying his head side to side with the music as this is going on. Another car starts to tail him following Jerry’s swerving motion. Everything seems to be perfect as Jerry starts to drive toward the sunset. Then boom!
Mary wakes up sitting in a chair in the kitchen with a foggy memory of what happened last night. She tries to move her hand to her head but finds it hard to move. She also feels like her body is being squeezed a little bit. Mary looks down to see herself tied to a chair and is freaking out, by the second thoughts starts pouring in to her mind while she is trying to remember what happened last night. An alarm goes off and a man hops out of bed and opens the window. From what Mary can tell the man is in a black suit and seems to be taller than her. The man turns around and Mary finally gets to see an unfamiliar face with a crooked smiled.
“Good morning sweetie. Did you sleep well last night?” said the man.
“What?” said Mary.
“Wonderful to hear”, said the man as he slowly approaches Mary with open arms. Mary panicking now, tries even harder to break the ropes holding her down. With every struggle she makes the tighter the roping get. Eventually the man makes his way towards her and starts squeezing her. His grip was so hard it was hard for her to breath, and tears starts coming from her eyes. The man leans in a little more until his breath was right on her neck.
“I love you so much”, the man whispered into her ears.
Mary tries to get out of this man’s grip, fearing what would come next. She starts to scream and cry for help in the hope that one of the neighbors would hear her. Then a beeping goes off, and the man releases his grip on her to look at his watch. Mary starts to scream even more not knowing what the beeping is for, and only can assume the worst. The man looks back at Mary with his crooked grin, which looks even more crooked than before.
“I have to go, but I will see you later tonight.”
The man leaves the room with Mary still continuing to scream for help in the hope that someone will come.
Frank is walking to work with his breakfast in one hand and a holding a cell phone in his other hand. He is talking on the phone and seems to be a little agitated at the person on the other end. “No. Yes. That’s not what I’m saying. Yes, of course. My mistake”, Frank said. He hears a voice in the background, but ignores it since it is the city and there is a bunch of strange stuff always going on. “Look, all I’m trying to say is I don’t think it’s a great idea to go down on it just yet.” “Look can we discuss this more thoroughly when I get there? Cool, see you then.” Frank hangs up his phone t and looks around to see a man across the street talking to a street light. Fascinated, he continues watching and eventually sees the man pick up something out of the trash, eat it, and then continues on his way. Frank is left standing there confused and a little bit disgusted from the events he just saw.
Bob is leaning over the floor plans of the building. Making sure the crew is prepared to follow everything they need to do today. He gets a call on his radio. He looks over and answers.
“Hello?”
“Sir, a civilian just entered the constriction zone.”
“Well get him out.”
“Sir, we tried but he just walked past us and went up the service elevator.”
“Well go up there and get him out.”
“Yes sir, right away.”He hangs up not really worrying about the man who just entered and goes back to what he was working on. A few minutes pass, and he gets another radio call.
“Sir you may want to come up here and see this for yourself.”
“Why?”
“Well, he’s just sitting there, waiting.”
“Well if he is just sitting there, won’t it be easier to apprehend him?”
“Well sir, the look on his face is frightening. I think we should get the authorities involved.”
“Jim, it’s only one guy. We don’t need to worry about it and don’t bring in the police. Just go over there and get him out of there by any means necessary.” Bob slams his radio back on the table and continues what he is doing.
Jim, frightened, walks over to the guy who is sitting on a bucket out in the open, alone.
“Excuse me sir.”
The man turns “Jim, how’s it going there buddy!” he exclaims.
Jim notices the man has the most intense smile he has ever seen, which Jim finds disturbing and sends chills down his spine. Jim steps back, a little worried about the next move he makes.
“Yyyyou are in a restricted zone.” Jim says with a stutter.
“That’s great to hear Jim! Hey, are you going to the meeting today?”
“What!?”
“Let’s go” the man gets up and leaves.
“Go where?, hey Hey HEY!”
Jim follows after the man as he leaves. The man now sits on a platform with steel beams in another open space.. The man sits there shaking with the grin on his face that grows bigger and bigger by the second. Jim slowly approaches the man, and the man is shaking more and more. Jim knows he should get help, but not wanting to be reprimanded by his boss he continues to approach the man.. As Jim finally gets close enough to the man to grab. The man suddenly rises and swings his arm towards Jim and strikes him. Jim stumbles backwards towards the edge and falls with the last thing he sees, is the man’s face with that insane smile. He plummets 8 floor to the ground below.
The Television is turned on to the news. Alana, the news anchor, is on the screen ready to present breaking news.
“Good afternoon everyone, today we have an urgent announcement about a man killed at a construction worksite, a kidnapped woman and now stole a red mustang and is driving down the street. We have eyes on the seen as we turn to our helicopter cam.” The screen switch over the scene where you see a red mustang speeding on the street driving with cops trailing it. “We have no idea what the subjects intentions are, but we can assume he means nothing but harm to the people around him and... Oh my! Oh my God! The man just drove right through the park. We have no idea if any people were harmed. He seems to be driving off road right now. We have no idea where he is going. Wait... no, no.... He seem to be... cut!” The camera cuts.
“The man has just driven off a cliff. Stay tuned to find out more.”
Hours pass since the accident happened. “The authorities have identified the body as a man named Jerry Simon. He recently escaped from an insane asylum.”
The TV turns off.