Out and About

He looked like the Wrecked star Adrien Brody was undergoing a nightmare kafkaesque transformation into a hippo, and was nearly there. He stood, a slouched tubby figure surrounded by the detritus of his life. His floor was a sea of old pizza boxes, torn discarded moo moos and empty lilt cans. Surveying his realm he began hiking towards the front door. Cans crumpled and tore into jagged shards of aluminium, boxes resisted and collapsed instantly under his fat clammy paws. He had hoarded these items over many years like a poverty stricken kleptomaniacal Croesus. Reaching the door, gasping impotently for breath he bent forward resting, regaining strength for his final journey to the door.

With a push he opened it and made through it to the relatively flat and easily traversable corridor. He was pushed back halfway through. His blobby thighs were caught, jammed tight in the door frame. This had happened before, smiling at his cunning he made to pull back then walk sideways, crablike through the door. It didn't work. He was caught firmly between the rotting sides of the door frame. In a fit of pique he flailed his flabby sausage arms around fiercely. This shed drops of tepid brackish sweat splashing onto the cracked linoleum and ripped his moo moo at the arm pits.

"HELP!" he bellowed down the corridor, he stopped, waiting for a response, distant sirens wailed and petered to silence. The corridor was deserted, wall paper peeled revealing sallow coloured mould thriving beneath. Water persistently dripped from the light fixtures. Drip, drip, drip. He could feel the insipid mildew smell invading his pores. He would die here, he knew it.

He was red faced, breathing hard, panicking. He slumped forward into unconsciousness.

He awoke lying on the corridor linoleum. His feet scrabbled frantically, trying to gain purchase on the sodden linoleum, but couldn't. Slipping back to the floor and relaxing he realised that he had survived his ordeal. He rolled onto his back laughing manically with relief.

Then the realisation struck him, he could never return to his home. Like a modern day Ahasver he was doomed to roam the Earth homeless for the rest of his days. He sobbed inconsolably whilst methodically pulling himself arm over arm along the corridor to McDonald's.