Did you ever get tired of watching life pass you by? Most people let life happen to them expecting to just go on with the flow of the universe.  Sometimes I let life walk on by over me in cleats. That is how it feels right now.  I let myself become a curmudgeon. I let my personality life that I created for myself fall to the way side when I came back to Omaha.  I became who I was not who I spent years becoming. 

(this is more of the story and not edited so much though i did pick through it a few times.  nothing to say other than my classes were frikken dropped since i pont know how to read a payment schedule. but at least i have one class recovered)

The soft heavy rain pattered gently on his thick black hair but to Thomas each drop felt like a tiny hammer on his skull.  A chill wind wafted softly over and around him as he walked to his car but all he felt was the rain and his throbbing headache.  It was much better than it was before; however, its relentless insistence despite the aspirin meant that he was getting a migraine on top of his hangover. 

“Great, I hope this isn’t a seeker mission today,” he grumbled lightly under his breath as he fumbled in his pocket quietly as possible for his keys.  “They take too much concentration.”  

The thrumming rain echoed off the car roof into the empty parking lot as he stepped into his car.  The monkey stopped scratching his head as he eased into the driver seat and closed the car door.  Thomas closed his eyes and searched for his currently elusive calm center. 

Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Focus on the beating of my heart. 

The pain is heat.  Breathe out the heat and breathe in the cool fresh air. 

Within moments his headache was all but forgotten and Thomas could start the car without fear of tears of pain from the noise.  That little mantra has saved his sanity more than once.   Like so many other things he forgot where he picked it up from but it didn’t really matter.  His full focus was essential for his job.  Without it, he was almost worthless to his employers. 

With a twist of the key, he pulled out of the parking spot and headed towards Johnson and 101^st.  As he turned the corner into the street, the car stereo kicked on and began to play the closing notes of the “Blue Danube.” 

“Hmm, just where I left it yesterday after work,” he noted as the waltz ended and the speakers began to weep out the slow sullen industrial song next on the mix CD.  He barely noticed the colorful vivid gardens of the surrounding houses glowing against the bright green of the rain freshened grass like the ends of rainbows.  He did notice the drifter in the ratty green and yellow letterman jacket skipping far up the street like a giddy schoolgirl.  The stranger stopped skipping as soon as he saw Thomas’s car coming down the street.   Without slowing or turning his head, he drove past and made as many mental notes about the stranger as possible from the corner of his eye. 

One of the reasons Thomas moved into this particular neighborhood was the constancy of the neighbors.  Most of the homeowners were well to do and owned businesses in the city.  The people in his apartment he had checked out through the Company and later on his own with his home computer. The fewer surprises, the better.  He had designed a search engine specifically targeting personal history a few months ago as a side project.  It had outperformed the search provided by the Company by such a large margin that he decided not to tell anyone about it just yet.    Everyone was legit and almost all had something to lose.  The job brought out a more than healthy paranoia the longer you worked it.  The drifter could be nobody but it was best to prepare in case he was somebody dangerous.  But why was he skipping at his age?  He had to be at least thirty, maybe older.

Thomas blinked and roused himself from his thoughts with a sudden realization.  Without thinking., he had turned down the lonely gravel road that went through the edge of the woods.  The houses were sparse here, with vast yards fenced only by tall cedars and oaks.  The road eventually went back onto regular streets and was pretty well taken care of, but he was not worried about getting lost.  He had been down this road a hundred times before; this fringe of wilderness was calming and Thomas often drove down this path at the end of a bad day.  But right now it was out of his way.  He was driving by her house. 

It took all his self-control not to slow down as he drove by the raven haired woman’s house.  Since he caught a glimpse of her while driving past a month ago, her face kept popping into his thoughts.  She was beautiful from what he saw in the distance but there was more to it than some silly infatuation; there was something familiar about her that Thomas couldn’t quite put his finger on, something haunting. 

She wasn’t in the large bay window and that was the only one not completely covered or made of dark colored glass.  As soon as he passed out of the blue and tan house’s line of sight, Thomas quickly pushed the gas to make up for lost time.  Gravel and bits of thick mud flew from under the tires as the car threaded its way through the path.  As an afterthought, he flipped the switch on the Cloaker. The car was now invisible to every laser, radar, and sonic detector on the road now; it was even secure from the next three generations of equipment that law enforcement would get for the next ten years.  Standard issue equipment, courtesy of the Company. 

He raced on as his tires married to wet slick asphalt, fishtailing and sliding down the streets until only a mile was left to the rendezvous point.  He stopped as the light ahead turned red and tried to sort out his irrational behavior. 

Pain began to creep up behind his eyes as he tried to focus.  “Stop acting like some goofy lovesick teenager,” he told himself.  The windshield wipers squeaked on as they flicked the rain away.  The dreary sleepy city was blurred and cleared in time with the sonata playing.  Thomas flicked off the CD and began to center his thoughts again. 

In his mind, Thomas was back in his bedroom at his computer.  The whys and whats became open windows and a mess of files.  With just a few keystrokes and clicks, the clutter was gone and all that remained was an empty screen, ready to use.

His headache receded as all the excess fell away and the mission stood clear.  The black thermos rolled in the passenger seat and taunted him with its sloshing.  “I shouldn’t have gone out last night,” he grunted as he turned the corner with the green light.  As he approached the rendezvous point, the skipping drifter was all but forgotten.