Free Medora Wars by Wick Welker

intervals in between the conversations of two characters. It was a man and a woman discussing something about kissing, that was starting to bore into Dave’s head, making it pound with each heartbeat. He hated the contrived romance but hated himself more for letting it make him feel lonely. His hangover had been exquisite, made even worse by additional muscle pain all over his body from a training exercise yesterday morning. He knew he would regret going drinking with the rest of the squad the night before, and was now paying dearly as he leaned over in bed, looking down at the aluminum bowl on the floor that had collected a significant amount of vomit.
    For the past half hour he wanted to get out of bed to open the blinds and let the morning sunlight into the room, but his body was resisting. The dim glow from the TV screen had given the room, as well as his mood, a sickening artificial feeling that was clinging at his thoughts. His mind was also lingering on the coffeemaker in his kitchen. He wondered the time of day and realized that he probably had not slept past 4 a.m. in the past six months. There was no sleeping-in during training, not on the weekends, not ever. He had grown to enjoy the early morning sunlight and the small sense of accomplishment he felt running around a track in early morning hours.
    “It’s shit like this that gives a person stability. You know?” Michaels said to him once as they ran, panting deeply while looking forward.
    “What?” Dave asked.
    “You know,” she said, “getting out of bed to do something—to do anything, whatever it is. You’ve got to be doing something all the time or you go crazy. Believe me, I know, because my shit went crazy once,” she said, sprinting past him.
    Dave rolled over onto his right side and wanted to go running, but at the same time, also wanted to throw up. He continued to lie still until the wave of nausea passed, and he was finally able to sit up on the side of the bed. Why did I drink so much ? he thought, not quite remembering how he got home. He remembered Michaels’ long hair as she sat next to him on the cracked vinyl of the barstool. The first time seeing her in civilian clothes had sent his mind reeling. Oh yeah , he thought, that’s why I drank so much . Looking down at his palms, he saw small slits of sunlight passing through the blinds resting across his hands. The red light from the digital clock read 11:47 a.m. He stood, went to the window, and drew the blinds open.
    Looking out across the front lawn, he saw a large crowd congregated around the house across the street, with people walking into the garage, and around the side of the house.
    “What the hell?” he said to the empty room, squinting his eyes. As people moved into the front door of the home, he saw several bunches of balloons tied to the mailbox, and realized that they were having an open house.
    Yawning, he turned to toward the TV to turn it off, and then stopped when he heard a familiar commercial jingle come on that brought with it a flood of memories. He remembered distinctly arguing with his old boss, Janice, about some color scheme that could go along with the lettering of the granola bars. There was a ridiculous meeting with the owners about how the natural color of granola didn’t have synergy with the color scheme that Dave had designed. He remembered being furious at having to hear the word ‘synergy’ so many times in one meeting. And now the song from the TV, along with shooting granola bars across the screen, completely amazed him at everything that had happened since he worked in marketing two years ago. He thought about the last time he saw Janice on top of the roof, with both her arms missing. Sitting back on the bed, he picked up his cell phone and dialed, waiting for the line to pick up.
    “Hey, hey! I haven’t heard from this guy in forever.” The voice on the other line had picked up quickly.
    “Hey man. Yeah, I’m sorry, I really haven’t been