Defibrillator

(*I realize of course the thing is not what it sounds, but here is where I stick my pick:)

He was climbing and sweating. Funny how going up the escalator takes so much effort. He’d taken all the right steps, all the proper precautionary measures… He knew how to outfit; how to fit in; how to stand out just enough to the established yet speculative eye.

But after all these years, today for some reason, having come this far, come all this way, almost to the very, very pinnacle… After having bowed so very low, and groveled down enough for such and such esteem, he now felt a growing discomfort around the collar.

Perhaps his heart was no longer in it? The win: what did it mean? His pulse raced still. A wave of nausea and heat spread across his ample mid drift and a once stalwart chest. A farce suddenly dawned on him in the bright spotlights closing in. Just a few more minutes…

To what? Confusion was setting in. A meeting, yes of course it was! A very important meeting. He needed to prop himself up on all the fragile lines within the building he himself had been so busy building on the back of this who and that deal, and deed, and whatnot receipt.

These stairs suddenly seemed to have so many zombied hands mechanically reaching… from his finely tailored pantleg, to his underpants; from shirtsleeve to his ears… a hissing sound so much like a big balloon deflating, dirigible ...and then he was falling back, backwards, on his bottom, to the very bottom, and someone was stripping him of his Tissot Powermatic and his keys, his last shirt, and now thumbing through his leather wallet. Lies upon lies were cuing in suit, barebreasted as he was, now.

Lights were fading fast. He whispered hoarsely; he had to “make it up to…” but he was in for quite a shock. He might not make it at all... The doors of Heaven of course are closed to the camel’s obsequious cousin who carries more than two humps of baggage.

He’d have to tell the truth. Face the facts. Just once would be enough, to himself, to save this life… Stand clear! And in his darkness, it was soundlessly recognized, the Defibrillator only works sometimes...

06.29.2022

Pick a Word & Pick it Apart Challenge @Last