The Wish

As the speech came to an end, Ollie got up from his chair, rat in hand, and continued his original plan to gather books for his new home. After picking up all the books he could carry, he made his way back to the apartment building. By the, the sun was setting and the air had turned crisp. Ollie’s usual good mood was at an all time high as he walked in the front door of his new apartment with Rufus by his side. He was immediately greeted by a mattress leaning against his wall with a note attached to it.
“Picked this up for you today Ollie. Hope you like it! -George”

Ollie couldn’t contain his excitement; he threw the mattress on the floor.

“Watch out Rufus! Cannonnnballlll!” he yelled, jumping straight to the middle of his new bed.

All the sudden, his unlit room turned a bright white. He looked out his window and was almost blinded by a light in the sky.

“What the hell?”

Ollie ran out of the door and up to the roof, finding George and a whole group of other people he thought he recognized. He ran up to George to thank him for his gift and find out what the light in the sky was that everyone was freaking out about.

“Ollie! I just wished for a Lambo and look! It’s right there! Make a wish Ollie! Maybe it’ll come true like mine! George replied ecstatically.

Ollie was astounded. He could wish for anything and it would come true. He thought harder than he ever had, and finally realized what he wanted.

“I wish for a flat screen TV and a bunch of cool stuff for my new room!”

The Return of Rufus

Assuming that George would follow through with his promise, Ollie continued his day more optimistic than ever. He walked down the street with a grin on his wrinkly face, greeting every person who walked by. Now that he was getting his own apartment, he figured he should decorate it like real homeowners do.

“The library,” he thought to himself. “I’ll decorate my apartment with books. Then all my visitors will think I’m smart as hell!”

Ollie continued to strut his way down the street until he arrived at the library, where his day took an unexpected turn.

“Oh shoot! Is that Ryan Lochte?” he exclaimed at no one in particular. “That’s that swimmer guy ain’t it?!”

Ollie walked up to the crowd gathered around Ryan, and he soon realized Ryan was about to give that speech everyone had been talking about. Ollie’s curiosity completely distracted him from all the books he was about to take as he hurriedly found a seat to listen to Ryan’s wisdom. Just as Ryan was about to begin, the crowd screamed in disgust at a rat that scurried across the stage.

“Rufus! My boy!” Ollie ran up to the stage and grabbed his pet rat as everyone stared in disbelief.

“Oh buddy, I was so worried about you! I thought the tornado done sweeped you away! Oh Rufus, thank God!”

The crowd sat in silence at the peculiar scene unfolding in front of them, but Ollie just made his way back to the audience, rat in hand. He was too excited to see Rufus to pay attention to most of the speech, but after awhile he had calmed down enough to listen.

“After being so successful in the olympics, it was really hard for me to accept that that part of my life was really over. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get it back, but I’m so thankful that I have moved on to a better part of my life. I have really learned how to focus on bettering myself, and cherishing all the positive things that have happened to me since.” Ryan preached.

Listening to the speech, Ollie realized that he, too was in the midst of a big change in his life. Even though he was ecstatic about his new living situation, he already missed the tent he had called his home for quite some time. But he knew it was time for a change, and now that he had Rufus back, he couldn’t have been more excited.

The Beautiful Aftermath

It was 2 AM, and Ollie awoke to the crashing of his empty whiskey bottle as the wind carried him and what was left of his tent towards the eye of the tornado.

“Oh shit!” he screamed, struggling to get up in the midst of the strongest wind he had ever felt. He ran fast, faster than he thought he was capable, until he reached the front door of the apartment. He rushed through the doors and limped toward the opposite corner of the lobby, trying to avoid the monstrosity he had almost just encountered. Ollie didn’t get scared very often, but this was definitely enough to make him fear for his life. He left everything behind: his home, his blankets and pillows he had collected from the junkyard, and his best friend, Rufus. He couldn’t believe he made it out, but he almost wished he hadn’t. Sitting in the corner of the lobby with his head between his knees, he tried to process what had just happened, and finally, after hours of listening to the storm and thinking to himself, he drifted off into a deep sleep.

“Ollie! Are you okay? Ollie, wake up buddy!” Ollie opened his eyes to see George hovering over him, and he realized the nightmare he thought he had was his reality.

“I’m up.” he sluggishly replied. “I’m horrible, George. My house gone, Rufus gone, everything’s gone.”

“Ollie I promise you you’ll figure something out. Rufus couldn’t have gone too far! He has to be around here somewhere, right?”

“I guess so, but I still don’t got no home anymore.”

“Listen Ollie, I’ll have to figure everything out first and you can’t tell anyone, but I can get you a space up on the 13th floor. It’s a little spooky up there since no one ever goes up there, but it’ll be nice.”

Ollie’s heart filled with happiness. “My own apartment! No freakin’ way!” he said.

“Well, I don’t know about all of that, but it’s definitely better than your dumpster tent,” George laughed, and Ollie joined him.

Ollie couldn’t believe he would get to call himself a real resident in a real apartment building. The day had gone from his worst nightmare to the best day he had had in a long time.

Hole in the Roof

The first thing Ollie could think to do was run. He’d never been questioned by a police officer, and he wasn’t about to change that. His prosthetic leg seemed nonexistent, his veins filling with adrenaline as he ran as fast as he could away from the apartment building.

“Ollie!” a voice he recognized as George yelled from across the street. Ollie came to an abrupt stop as George walked over to him.

“Why are you running?!” George asked, concerned.

“Well, uh, actually, I don’t really know. The police was ‘bout to ask me about Mr. Evans. I got real scared and so I just started runnin’. Now that I think about it I donno. I didn’t even do anything, haha! Somethin’ ‘bout those blue uniforms just gets me all freaked out and stuff.”

Before George could reply, a colossal wind nearly pushed Ollie to the ground.

“What the hell!” Ollie screamed, and a downpour of hail began to crash down on the two confused men.

“We need to find cover Ollie. Let’s go!” George yelled over the storm.

“Cover?! What about my house? I gotta go save my house! And Rufus! Oh my goodness, Rufus is all alone!”

And just as fast as he ran from the police, Ollie ran back to the apartment building to his tent. By the time he got there he could barely feel his fingers.

“Damn it’s cold,” he thought to himself. He crawled inside his home to find Rufus alive and healthy.

“Thank God you’re okay buddy. I was real worried.”

He sat in his tent reflecting on his day and wondering why he ran from the cops in the first place. He figured it would be fine since they can’t accuse him of something he didn’t do. At least that’s what he hoped. His thoughts were interrupted by a piece of hail falling on his head.

“Oh my goodness Rufus. There’s a hole in the damn roof!”

Ollie angrily picked up what was left of his Jack Daniel’s and took a large swig. The wind from outside rushed in as another piece of hail fell through the hole.

“Eh, I’ll fix it tomorrow.”

Spot 207

“You can swear all you want, you drunk old fool. But there’s no such thing as a talking dog.” Coco’s words played over and over again in Ollie’s head as he quickly walked down Williams Lane, making his way back to the apartment building. While Ollie did believe in many peculiar things, he had never thought of the possibility of a talking dog.

“It’s impossible,” he thought to himself. “Maybe I saw somethin’ wrong…I was still pretty wasted,” he laughed.

Ollie thought back to the previous morning. George had just told him the horrible news of Mr. Evans’s passing.

“He’s dead, Ollie.” George said, leaving Ollie dumbfounded.

“I was here sleepin’ the whole night! Wh-what coulda happened?” Before Ollie even had a chance to hear George’s answer, his attention was diverted.

“What is it, boy?” he heard a female voice say from around the corner of the parking deck. He looked over and saw a woman who he recognized immediately: Maple Ryn, parking spot 207.

“I think it’s Mr. Evans,” said another more masculine voice, this one unfamiliar to Ollie. He didn’t remember ever seeing Maple with a man. Intrigued, he strode towards the exit of the parking deck, completely forgetting the fact that he was mid-conversation with George.

“Ollie! Where are you going? Did you even hear a word I just said?” George yelled as Ollie began to walk away.

“I uh-I gotta go. I’ll catch up with you later George!”

As Ollie got closer to Maple, he grew more confused. She wasn’t with anyone except her dog.

“Hey how you doin’?” he asked Maple, clearly more interested in the German Shepard staring up at him.

“Good,” Maple and the dog said, simultaneously.

Ollie’s eyes grew wide. He was speechless. He must be hallucinating. He looked up at Maple and tried to formulate a sentence.

“Well we better get going!” Maple anxiously cut him off and ran back to the building.

⋯

Ollie finally arrived at the apartment building. He was determined to find Maple to set things straight with Coco.

“I ain’t no fool,” he thought to himself as he slammed the front door behind him. “I saw what I saw.”

He hurried towards the elevator, completely ignoring his surroundings. Seconds after he pressed the button, he felt a tap on his shoulder.

“Excuse me sir,” a man with a noticeably deep voice said. Ollie turned around to a man in a blue uniform towering over him.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions about the murder of Mr. Evans.”

The day started at...

The day started at 6:47 a.m. Ollie jolted up from his makeshift bed, his sleep interrupted by the sound of police sirens ringing in his ears. He tried to stand up, forgetting he had recently upgraded his home to a tent he found behind the dumpster, and hit his head on a broken rod poking out behind his chandelier: a flashlight tied up by a string.

“They’re comin’ for me Rufus,” he jokingly slurred to his pet rat, still drunk from the liquor he downed the night before. “I’m gonna go see what’s happenin’ out there. You don’t go nowhere, and if I don’t come back, don’t forget to lock the door, okay Rufus?”

Ollie unzipped his tent and crawled out onto the cold concrete of the parking deck. The radiant glare of the sun made him hardly capable of opening his baggy eyes. After struggling to stand up, he made his way to the opposite end of the parking deck with squinted eyes, confused by the scene in front of him. He felt a form of discomfort as he saw a crowd of policemen surrounding a parking spot: spot 303.

“That’s Mr. Evans’s parking spot,” he mumbled to himself.

He limped toward the spot, still unaccommodated to his new prosthetic leg that the doorman, George, gave him, when he was halted by a line of yellow caution tape. He leaned over, trying to get a better look, but he was immediately stopped by a policeman.

“This is a police line. Back away immediately,” ordered an officer with a noticeably thick moustache.

“Excuse me mister police officer is that Mr. Evans? Is he okay? I just wanna know if he’s okay. I really like that guy.” rambled Ollie, as he suddenly noticed George out of the corner of his eye talking to another officer.

“George! It’s me! Ollie!” he yelled, running towards the doorman he adored immensely. “Is Mr. Evans okay George?”

Ollie’s question was immediately answered just from the look in George’s eyes. Suddenly he didn’t feel so drunk anymore, only hopeful that he would be wrong about the words he anticipated would come out of George’s mouth. A lump grew in his throat as George spoke.

“He’s dead, Ollie.”