Running out of Time Part 2

Here's another couple pages from my novel Running out of Time

Ketchup is good on everything. People put ketchup on meatloaf to make it tolerable. That’s to say the food, and not the girl.

            As I was coming to grips with what the mystery woman’s name could be, I lifted my foot to step above the curb that must have been three inches from the road, and as I lifted my foot, the sole of my shoe caught on the cement. As I continued forward, the cub gripped ahold of my shoe and ripped the sole clean off. “Are you serious? Right as I am going to go on a date. The great universe decides, oh hey, screw you Greg. Hope she likes hobo feet. I hate the universe, and its pretentious assholery.”

            The universe and I were not on good terms. The universe thought it would be funny to break the handle off of my bathroom sink while I was shaving my face, and attempting to conserve water, because I care about the planet. Even if the universe was a dick, I would have been more okay with it, if it hadn’t been stuck on boiling hot water, so that not only was I forced to waste water, but I was also forced to fill my entire apartment with steam. Once I had left it was like a sauna in every room but the kitchen.

            A man set his hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay, man? I don’t know what your beef with the universe is, but I gotta say this is pretty groovy.” Shaggy from Scooby-Doo pointed at a nearby store, which boasted a sign claiming shoes were buy one get one free.

            I left the sweaty grasp of Chin Beard the Magnificent, and hobbled over to the store front. I honestly couldn’t remember what had occupied the space where the store now was. Actually, despite the shoe sign, the only other indication that I     was about to step into a story was a tapestry on the front window that simple had WARES stitched into it. And as I thought about it, what kind of deal was buy one shoe to get one shoe free? Wasn’t that the same as buying a pair of shoes? Shoes typically came in pairs.

            I stepped inside the business? Inside was just a narrow shop with a standard glass counter top on one side. A few shelves on each side of walls. The shelves were relatively bare and remarkably dusty. There was one shelf full of just blue lucky rabbit feet key chains. There was a shelf with a snow globe of what I could only describe as Gotham City. When I picked it up to shake it, I saw that the flakes were bright orange and red. There was a genie lamp on one side that was missing the cap. A copy of a book with the gold embossed letters starting to flake off. It was impossible to tell what the book had once been, because it was utterly blank. There was a jar of some shadowy black ooze that had sense grown an ice colored fungus on the inside of the glass. There was black wide brim hat with RZ printed on the white band on the top. Then there was small white dagger that seemed to be luminescent.

Then finally there was a white unbranded shoe. It had a blue star painted on the outer side that had a red gemstone glued into the center. It was at the very least a corny looking shoe that under any other circumstance, I would never wear. But right now I needed to find shoes, so that I was guaranteed to make a good enough impression that my date might actually want to sleep with me.

“Oh. My name is Dazzo the Hobo Clown. Would you like to share a bread stick with me?” I could see that working in maybe two alternate realities. No more or less. A wisp of cold air smelling of dust smacked into my right side, informing me that someone was approaching from the back end. “It isn’t too smart to leave your front desk unattended. What could stop me from taking your “wares” or your money?”

The man, who despite everything I wanted him to be, was very average looking. He didn’t have a suspicious looking eye patch or two golden teeth. Instead he had dirty blonde hair cut close to his head, and a moderate amount of stubble coating his face.