He’d never been what you’d call a good person.
Maybe it was childhood trauma, an abusive father and an absent mother who turned her head when his dad removed his belt for the slightest infraction.
Maybe it was because he’d never been very good at school, and his frustration converted to lashing out against his peers who were smaller and meeker than he.
Whatever it was, he wasn’t a very nice man to be around, and even he knew that.
His friends were at best drinking buddies, and he’d been divorced twice.
He didn’t have anyone you’d consider close.
Years of eating poorly and drinking daily had contributed to his rather rotund figure. His lack of attention to hygiene contributed to the slovenly appearance; often unshaven with a stain on his shirt.
He didn’t have much respect for the environment around him. He was the kind of man who would shoot at a rabbit with a .22 without bothering to kill it and end its misery.
His life was a continuous wasteland of waking up, picking up a breakfast sandwich from 7-11, reporting to work as a maintenance manager at a large office building in Tampa, getting off work and getting a six pack and a fried chicken dinner at the corner store, and sitting outside his pond side home and listening to the Rays game or talk radio. He often threw his cans into the pond, watching his litter float away.
Tonight he felt drawn to the edge of the water.
As he approached the edge, he dipped in the tip of his Croc-covered foot, the tepid pond water seeping through the iconic but vulnerable holes.
He stared down at his submerged foot and took another step. In the twilight, he did not see the large, prehistoric shutes disturbing the otherwise still surface of the water, gliding silently closer.
Lost Sole Stories 