Antipode.

Evan left the casino later and a bit more frazzled than usual that night. The graveyard shift just seemed to drag on and on, so what was ten more minutes? He lazily shuffled out to his car in the middle of a cloudy, but mild night. The man was tired, and all he could think about was just making it home.

The drive was fine, as most of the major roads and highways were deserted at that hour. He stayed to his usual lanes, the path Evan had driven often enough for the pavement to become familiar with the cushion of his car’s wheels. They cradled him to his exit, and the lone vehicle voyaged up and down a series of hills that curved around each other. He finally made it to the entrance of Wood View, the suburban apartment complex Evan and his wife called home, a modest community of cedar and pine buildings, nestled atop a wooded hillside in Kansas City, Kansas.

At the end of the lengthy, winding drive to the rear of the complex, he stopped to back into the only empty spot at the end of an unusually full parking lot. He slowly emerged from the driver’s side door and breathed a sigh of frustration, perhaps relief, or both. The walk to his door capped off another long night in the life of this recently married 27 year old.

“You think they could’ve made a bigger lot,” he mused while unlocking the deadbolt that separated him from the sanctuary of his living room. Evan entered, dropping his keys and other belongings on a glass table by the door. He kicked off his shoes and quickly proceeded to his computer – still awaiting him in “sleep mode” from the previous night. As tired as he was, he wasn’t about to go to sleep while a story idea was left unresolved.

He removed his work-issued blazer and tie, tossing them aside before sitting down. As the computer gradually came back to life, Evan loosened his dress shirt and cracked his knuckles. He had been anxiously awaiting the chance to get back to his unfinished project on the hard drive, even more than getting back to his wife, Laura, who was still sound asleep in the next room. As the seconds on the clock ticked by unnoticed, he hammered away at the keyboard, opening a file called “fold.doc,” otherwise known as his story he had been crafting for years, The Fold.

previous : back to top : next