A Savage Life
Chapter 5

The last time I felt this invigorated was when I was 15 years old. I was hanging out with these older men and causing terror and mayhem on the streets until I realized that those men were the mob. I knocked the teeth out of the janitor’s mouth and grabbed a mop and a bottle of cleaning spray. These weren’t the weapons I had in mind, but they should get me far, that is until I need a gun. Come on now, I’m not that stupid. This is the 30th century, I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to see an intoxicated, katana wielding maniac running down the halls screaming like they’ve been set on fire. This will be more like a Star Trek movie, only without Captain Kirk leading the show. But this is the Joshua Show, starring, drum roll please, me, and this is the part where I get the heck out of the Psycho Zoo using a mop, a spray bottle, three rolls of toilet paper, and a pudding bowl that is still the same tan mush I saw earlier today. You’re all probably going, “Wha-why?” I’ll tell you why, it’s all I have and hopefully getting beat with a toilet paper roll will make them too ashamed to come after me.

I run down the whole hallway knocking over men with my mop and spray bottling people in the face. I ran past Dr. Sickley just enough to hear him grumble, “I turn my back for five minutes just to hear that a maniac is running down these halls spraying people with ammonia and hitting people with a mop.” I didn’t touch him because I knew that I’d probably incite a riot, and that would not be good in this case. Less chaos equals more concentration. But where to replace the door? Suddenly, a dark thought crept into my mind. “What if there’s no door?” I think. But I said, out loud, “Nah, gotta be a way out.” And that doomed me.