January 17, 2009 (17/365)

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A man charges wildly down the street with no care for those around him. He runs like a man on fire, a closeup of his face reveals panic inflamed by fear wrapped around a single thought: Get home. He reaches the steps of the inconspicuous brownstone, nearly wrenching out his shoulder when he grabs the handrail to spin him in a tumble up the stairs. If it weren't for the forward velocity you'd see him shaking visibly now as he crashes through the door, drawing a deep breath that sears his throat and lungs like acid.

The angle changes and we see, from the inside, from the end of the short hallway, the broken door behind him recoiling from the wall... bits of the window glass falling from it to the floor. But he's already past them, nearly leaping the last few feet to the kitchen doorway on the right of the hall. The breath released in a wail as he entered the house, "Dad? Dad??" He loses his balance trying to make the final turn at full speed, barely keeping his feet under him as he disappears from our view into the kitchen.

For a moment, all that can be seen of him is a shadow cast by the harsh kitchen light into the hallway displaying, in a macabre shadow-theatrical pantomime, his sudden, flailing stop. He recoils backwards from the kitchen as if he'd unexpectedly charged through a door into Hell. Finally losing his footing in the sudden retreat, he hits the hallway wall opposite the kitchen door hard and slides to the floor in one motion that is everything but smooth. In his tumble, his gaze never leaves the vision before him while his memory is written with it in fire; his body limp and jaw slack as if every once of energy left in him is spent, in that one moment, in preventing his life from draining from him.

"What have you done, dad?? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE??"

[end]