NaNoWriMo 2009, Excerpt #1
Here’s a little bit of Chapter One, laying out just who the main character is. Â Enjoy…
The next morning was Monday, Jack’s day off. He awoke just before noon, alone in his bed and sprawled diagonally in the deep depression that his body had made over the years, as was his custom on any day regardless of if he was scheduled to work or not. Sunlight cracked through the gaps in the cheap, white, plastic blinds over the one window in his bedroom, stirring him from sleep at the usual time in lieu of his alarm clock. He rubbed his eyes, white crusty flakes tumbling from the corners, and reached for the pair of glasses on the beer case next to the bed that served as a night stand. The world came into focus.
He sat up and looked around the room, waiting for his body to become acclaimated with the waking world. The mattress, an old, used affair that he had salvaged from the dumpster when he moved in, sat on the floor against the wall opposite the window. His hand ran across the sheets. They were filthy; he would have to see if he had enough quarters to wash his bedding today, but most likely he would not. He looked straight ahead at the telescope, an old treasure from his high school days that never managed to excite his inner astronomer. It was, Jack thought, pure luck that he hadn’t pawned it years ago.
Jack rolled up and out of the depression in the middle of the bed, landing his feet on the floor and slowly hoisting his short, stocky frame up to standing. He stretched, then scratched as his crotch and his face simultaneously, and lumbered toward the door at his right and out into the small vestibule that connected the bedroom with the bathroom, living space, and the hallway outside.
He went for the bathroom first, standing at the toilet, relieving himself of the pressure in his bladder while examining himself in the mirror that extended across the entire wall above the small vanity and toilet. His torso was soft and doughy, wispy blonde hair cascading over his entire body. His face was round and boyish, and he wore a scraggly goatee with the express purpose of making sure he looked more his own age. Above his bent glasses was his short, unkempt dirty blonde hair, and behind the thick lenses were dull, gray eyes.
A shake, and he tucked himself into his torn, shabby boxer shorts, washed his hands, and lumbered slowly to the minimalist galley kitchen at the near end of the living space. He examined the fridge, empty save for some flat two-liters of Coke, a good portion of a case of Grain Belt Premium, and random piles of condiment packets. A look in the freezer revealed a lone pizza and a pile of cheap burritos that he regularly picked up from the convenience store on the corner of his block. A burrito would do, and he tossed one in the microwave.
Breakfast was on the torn, brown couch, another of his furnishings salvaged from the dumpster, and he failed to find anything of interest on the few broadcast channels he could get on his old television. Not wanting to linger in boredom, he stuffed the burrito and washed it down with the last few swigs of one of the two-liter bottles. A quick brush of his teeth and Jack sniffed the pile of clothes in the corner of his bedroom for the least offensive pair of jeans and a Vikings t-shirt, then shoved the rest of the pile into a garbage bag. He peeked at the mason jar of quarters and, judging that there would not be enough, left his bed sheets for yet another week.
