Contest#95 KARL'S DOORS

Contest #95 2445words

DECISION TIME

KARL’S DOORS

It was just a piece of pink, ratty looking paper, driven by the slight breeze, floating past the other junk in the gutter. It rolled and bounced over cigarette butts, bottle caps and other pieces of discarded paper to face it’s demise in the mouth of a hungry pigeon. The pigeon pounced upon it immediately, believing there was some delicious morsel to be found on the dirty page of someone’s receipt book. Oh, there was a morsel all right, but luckily the pigeon couldn't read, and missed the scribbles written in haste on the receipt’s torn page. The pigeon, in the middle of the sidewalk held the page with one grey toe, and hungrily grabbed the corner of the wadded paper with its beak.

Immediately the pigeon was set upon by a score of it’s buddies and the paper ball was tossed up from their cooing horde like a hacky sack between teen players, first flying up into the air and then passed around quickly by pecking bills, and then back into the air again.

Karl was walking down the same stretch of city block as the horde of pigeons. He usually ignored their crowd gatherings, seeing the bird as a flying rat, and not worthy of his interest. This time, he had noticed they were playing some sort of a game with a piece of paper, and being a bit of a jerk he ran into their midst to ruin their fun. He glanced down at the piece of paper they were tossing around and said out loud, with a curious tone “ Hey, this is a receipt from a hock shop.”

Karl picked up the tattered and dirty piece of paper and uncrimped it, not paying any attention to the wet spots and grime it had gathered from it’s time as a hacky sack. “Ya, Baby!” He explained, again loud enough for passersby to hear. “That’s what I am talking about!” He carefully folded the piece of paper and turned around walking to a small store in between a laundromat and Gene’s Super Bagels. The store had been there forever, at least since Karl had been old enough to explore the town on his own. Mr. Peter’s had always owned it, and still did a good job of loan sharking, even without the “and Son,” that was on the sign outside. Mr. Peter’s son was still a topic of gossip. He had gone missing at the age of 22 around ten years ago amid gossip including drug use, alien abduction or prison time. 

“Peter and Son, Second Hand Items,” was painted across the top half of the board in dark red letters. Below that, written in smaller black lettering was the rest of the advertisement, “BUY, SELL, & TRADE,” and finally at the very bottom, perfectly centered was the word, PAWN. Written in Pale yellow lettering so as not to be easily noticed, even forgotten perhaps by the locals.

Karl didn’t think about any of these things as he walked into the store and past the shelves full of tools, stereos and speakers, laptops and things that probably hadn’t worked in years. Nope, his mind was on the item on the receipt with Peter & Son clearly printed across the top. He rang the bell on the counter one time, hesitated and then pounded on it until Mr. Peter walked out of the curtain leading to the back. He was almost bald, and his mustache was the same level as the thin fringe of white hair hanging over his collar. He was hunched over, and walked with a shuffling sort of limp. Karl was scared of him when he was little.

“What do you want boy?” The old man sharply said to Karl, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.” Is that you Karl?” He asked, then sighed deeply. “I haven't seen you in over ten years…” his voice, now quiet, trailed off. His gaze was fixed at the pigeons fighting over some garbage across the street.

“Well, I got this from an acquaintance the other night in a card game and he said to come get it.” Karl lied, and handed the old man the dirty paper scrap.

The old man reached out his gnarled hand and grabbed the receipt.

“Uh, I don’t know, the same guy got it right back out,” he said, placing the ticket back on the counter in front of Karl. “But I will go look.” The old man moved toward the curtain, again pushing his glasses up his nose. “Wait here.”

Then Karl glanced at the tickets back. There was a little map pointing at something on one side of two lines, and some tiny words he couldn't quite see. “Never mind,” he yelled to Mr Peter, still behind the curtain, rummaging. “I’m good.” he opened the door quickly and stepped out on the sidewalk. After a few steps he heard the door jingle as Mr Peter opened it calling after him, “Karl, Karl!” What he didn’t hear was the rest of Mr. Peter’s words, they were drowned out by a teenager driving by in a very loud impersonation of a car. The stereo was blasting and muffler was all but absent, dragging underneath the car, bouncing making sparks to the time of the blaring music.

“My son…” were the words Karl didn’t hear. Mr. Peter was still staring after Karl even when he had gone out of his sight. Mr Peter’s glasses were thick as coke bottles, and he could not have seen Karl after the first five feet of his absence. Karl knew this, and turned around to see the old man taking off his glasses and shaking his head,  just as with one hand he wiped a tear from his cheek. 

Karl brushed this completely off. He was headed to the spot in the drawing, somewhere in the alley, located between K and J,  just another block past where he had first found the receipt. He was already on “K,” so he guessed that the space between the lines on the receipt, was the next road to the right, an alley. 

Now normally, in this day and age, Karl would not have gone down any alley. Not even one in the same home town as he had grown up in, not even in the daylight. But here he was now, looking from side to side frantically for the two rectangle shapes drawn halfway down the lines on the back of the receipt.

“Bingo!”  Karl softly whispered to himself, looking around again and again, as if he thought someone was following him. He had found the place, he thought. In the middle of the block directly across from each other were two doors that matched the exterior of their respective buildings exactly. The one on the left was brick red, and had a small sign on it just at eye level, “IMPIGNORATE.” To his right there was the other door, as gray as the building towering straight above. “DEFENESTRATE,” was the single word written on the concrete gray opening.

Karl was a fairly smart guy, but he did not have the slightest idea what either word might mean. Except, besides being a jerk, Karl also was the sole owner of a filthy imagination where he had immediately combined defend, mastrubate and copulate with the word fecaL.

Karl was about to make one of the worst decisions ever, he acted without thinking. He had his trusty Google phone on and charged, and in his pocket, right under the crumpled pawn slip. Instead of hesitating one tiny moment, just to check what the words on the door might mean, he slipped inside the gray door.

Eyes wide with wonder, Karl viewed a town almost exactly like his own. Yet, he was supposed to be inside of a building. He whirled around to see there was no door behind him, it was the side of a tall building. He heard voices yelling and looked up to see a dark object being pushed out of the window. In three steps he was out of the way, and a good thing it was. Thump. The dark object looked like a body and Karl leaned over to see a pool of blood forming around where the face of a portly gentleman with gray hair was now laying facedown. He wore a shiny sharkskin suit with pleats ironed sharp enough to cut your finger.

“Look out!” a woman’s voice came from above, then “AND your little dog too!” followed by a small body of a little dog thumping to it’s death, followed by intense giggling of both male and female voices from above.

“Oh my God!” Karl was shocked by his shoes. “I have to call the cops!” He started to run down the sidewalk, pulling the phone out of his pocket, when “plunk,” another suited body fell to it’s certain death from above. “Help,” Karl felt sick to his stomach. “Someone help me .please,” and he fell down in front of a small store just a couple of blocks away, blacked out.

Mr. Peter wiped the tear from his eye, the jiggling of his flabby, wrinkled belly hidden from stares of the people that were across the street feeding the pigeons. He went back inside of his shop, turned the sign from open to closed and had a good laugh as he pulled down the shades.

“What a nincompoop that boy of mine is.” he moved beyond the curtain to a ancient desk next to a soft leather recliner, and an old dial type phone. He sat down in the chair and leaned back, a crooked smile on his face.

The old dial phones were so obnoxious.”BRRNNNG, BRRNNNG.” The old man answered the phone, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Hello?” he smiled.It was the same voice as always.”We have a Mr. Karl Peter here unconscious, he had a receipt in his pocket with your store address on it, we hope, we uh need, could you help us, the hospital needs to contact his next of kin before we can start the procedure.”

“Yes, This is his father.” The old man replied. “I will be more than happy to send that right over,” he chuckled,”You know the release form. This time though I need you to put him just outside the door. We are gonna skip ahead because this is not working. Yep. Yep. Yes, I will be there shortly.”

The old man gently hung up the phone. He opened the drawer of the desk and grabbed a set of keys, shut the drawer and flicked off the light. Locking the door behind him. He slipped between the panels of the still closed curtain and opened the front door, quickly stepping outside, and locking the door behind him with the key from his desk. He turned toward the direction Karl had taken earlier as he had left.

Karl woke up not remembering a thing. A pretty girl was staring intently at his eyes, shining a flashlight directly into them, and waving something back and forth in front of him with her hand. Her shiny black hair created a perfect frame for her olive skin and intensely green eyes. He had seen her somewhere before, but his head felt like he had had a parade trample through his brain cells, a cell kicked out of place here, another smashed to an untimely death like the head of the first…

“Hey!” Karl exclaimed a little loudly, “Do I know you? He bolted upright in the lounge chair, almost touching the pretty girl’s bosom with his face. “I know you dont i?”

She spoke softly,”I do not think so, Mr. Peter.” She was wrapping a fuzzy blanket around her shoulders. With her free hand she reached out toward him with a jacket made of shiny shark skin. “Here, put this on we have to go right now.” she opened the door of what looked to be some kind of doctor office to an empty hallway. “HURRY! She exclaimed, looking around the corridor before stepping out,”They will be here any minute!” 

“Who will?” He asked as he rose groggily, putting on the vaguely familiar sharkskin jacket. “Who?” He repeated, fast on her heels as they ran down the hallway to a door with an exit sign that seemed to be a backdoor to an alley.

“Never mind.” She motioned for him to follow her, and they ran down the dark alleyway for about two and a half blocks. Suddenly she opened a door and pushed him toward it. She had moved so quickly, he did not understand how she could be behind him at the same time he was following her. She held the door open,just enough for him to go through.

Her breast was rising and falling so hard he thought her shirt might rip open, Her breath making faint wisps of fog when she exhaled. She smelled like candy, or fruit, something so familiar, yet so vaguely alien to him. He loved her, he knew that. It was the only thing Karl did know. He stared at the girl longingly, his mouth spurting his words out as usual. Without thinking he blurted out, “Will you marry me?” Plunk. He saw the body start to fall from a widow just above her head.

Karl Peter grabbed the pretty black haired girl by the arm, and pulled her through the door out into the alley he had walked down just a few hours before.

“Who is this?” The old man stepped out from behind a dumpster as he asked, looking like a secret agent, or a lab technician with his trench coat pulled up at the collar and his thick glasses.

Karl started to speak, but the girl cut him off, “Mr.Peter,” she began to speak, looking at the old man and was cut off immediately.

“I know your voice, you are the doctor that took the shell from his brain. You brought back a man from his death.You are his wife and savior. When he becomes lost, he looks for you, not me.He doesn't want to work with me, just you and politics, always politics The old man began to cough severely at the end of his tirade,. Blood started to come with each cough until his handkerchief could no longer hold it all.

“Both of you,go inside the door, that says” impignorate” then you will understand. My son had the ticket upside down. He went…( cough,) inside the wrong door. It’s all for my grandchildren.”

The old man slumped a little and fell to the ground,no longer breathing.