A Life Wasted

Big Surprise

The rain had intensified so much that I couldn't see out the windshield of the truck, which made me feel safer as I would be hard to see. I was still shaking uncontrollably so I needed to move around to warm up, which was hard to do in the confines of the truck. I had wanted to take off the orange jumpsuit now that I had the Carhartt overalls, so I removed the overalls then began to take off the orange prison jumpsuit. I was shocked at what I found when I pulled the jumpsuit off. Unknowingly I had soiled myself. And not just a little. At some point during the past two nights I had lost control of my bowels and completely evacuated. Exactly like what happens when you die. That second night I had believed I was close to dying, but didn't realize how close. 

I cleaned myself up as best I could and hid my soiled underwear and orange jumpsuit under the truck's seat. It was all frozen now, but I figured it would be a surprise to someone when the weather warmed up. The movement had helped as I was no longer shivering. The sun had risen, though it was hard to tell because those low thick clouds still obscured it. In a short time, it stopped raining. Feeling a little better after the rest, I got out of the truck, found the road and walked up the side walk like I belonged.

With my hair cut, baseball cap and gloves I felt pretty well concealed. My biggest concern was my shoes, which were orange canvas prison shoes. The shoes were torn up and dirty and the Carhartt overalls partially covered them, but if anyone got a good look at my shoes they'd call the cops. Going barefoot would not be an option so I stuck with the shoes and hoped no one would notice.

I walked down the sidewalk for one block before reaching a cross street. I stopped at the street just as a police car drove by. The car was going slow and the officer stared at me as he passed. I waved and he waved back. He kept going. As I watched the police car drive down the road I noticed a building that looked familiar. The sign out front said Dentist Office. I'd been to that office before. When I'd had a tooth ache the Sherriff's Deputies from the jail had taken me there. Knowing what I'd seen before I turned my head and looked in the other direction down the street. Two blocks away I saw the jail. The same jail I had escaped from two nights ago.

At some point during my run I'd gotten turned around and returned to the small town I'd been running away from. My first thought was to turn and run. To get as far away from this town as possible. But it was just a thought. I couldn't possibly run. There was no run left in me. There were a few good things about being back in the town I'd escaped from. One is that they wouldn't expect me to be here. The other was that I knew a few things about this town. For one thing I knew where the Wall-Mart was. I turned right, away from the jail, and followed the police car that had passed me. The Wal-Mart was a mile away.