This is from the Cafe Writing prompt for this month: "Necessary Rituals."

This is a character from my novel in mental progress, Lost Highways. He has no name at the moment; he's only the vague impression of a face and a talent.

I used the flash fiction option and a free-writing mindset.


                                                     ~*~

                                          "A Ritual of Necessity"


He didn't go out often.

Most of what he needed could be found on the internet and ordered in as much quantity as he required. From clothing to food, toiletries to kitchenware and everything in between.

But there was only one place that sold the tobacco he liked. The kind that tasted sweet and slightly fruity and didn't scorch his lungs with the taste of sour earth like some of the lesser brands did.

For that, he had to walk into town.

Once every two months.

He rolled out of bed on those mornings, just before the sun was due up. He'd found there were fewer people on the sidewalks then. It was much easier to move untouched.

The uniform required was long pants, faded with many washings, and thick-soled boots. Shirts with long sleeves, even in the humidity of the summer when the air coming in off the beach was stifling. Long gloves on his hands, the edges slipping under the sleeves of his shirt; the leather was soft, supple enough he could still feel textures through them but they blocked the flashes of lives from his mind. His neck and face he left uncovered, save for sunglasses when the day was bright. On his head he pushed a well-worn hat low over his eyes.

Every month before he stepped out of his house onto the sandy beach front, he made a side trip to the little room at the back. Small and square, it was filled with a drop leaf table and two chairs, a sagging couch, and a number of brightly colored rugs. On the built in wooden shelves lay an array of knickknacks--items gifted to him after some particularly well received sessions. He never asked for them.

Before his outing, he'd choose one at random. On one day it might be the little glass snow dome of Flagstaff, Arizona, on another the chain of hematite or the expensive letter opener. And he'd pick it up and hold it in his gloved hands with all the care of one holding a poisonous snake. He'd wait for those flashes of other people's lives. Wait for the visions to assault his brain and leave him blinking and holding his head to clear it of other people's histories.

Wait until minutes had passed and he knew that if the flashes were going to come on him they would have done so already. He knew one day they would, knew it like he knew the sun would rise in the morning, that the moon would wane across the night sky. And when that day came, he would pull out the pistol he kept tucked away in the very back of his closet, inside a small lock box buried under a pile of blankets.

Replacing the knickknack, he'd turn from the room, locking the door behind him, and leave through the front entryway of his house, hands stuffed in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the world.