Pantsless in the jungle

Ralph runs to the kitchen to rinse out his glass from his nightly drink. Wednesday nights he has a rum and coke while watching the latest game shows offering millions of dollars to people no smarter than he is. He runs his glass under the faucet before tossing the glass into the dishwasher. Before rushing out so as not to miss the answer to what is the square root of 4, he notices the trash is lying open by the back door and a small pool has formed of either a barbecue sauce or fudge topping from his dinner.

The next commercial wouldn't be for five minutes and the pool was beginning to gather towards the overflowing electric plug containing ratty extension cords to the refrigerator and microwave. He could sit back and watch his show while waiting for the microwave to short out and take out the rest of the building or he could chance not finding out the latest answer. He made a choice he would regret on a sound decision.



Trying to avoid freezing but unwilling to put pants back on, Ralph opens the back door to the enclosed rear stairwell and rushes the bag to his garbage shoot. Before he can get back to the door, a breeze rushes in and sucks the door closed in front of him. Pantsless and keyless, Ralph begins to shake the door on it's frame gripping the handle tight. He thinks to himself frantically searching his memory for any place where a key could be hidden. The doormat is hiding nothing and the top frame of the door holds nothing but dust and dirt.



A humming noise begins to drown out the shaking of the door in its frame. Ralph stops shaking the door as he notices his shadow on the door. There are no other apartments in the rear section of the building directly across from his door and Ralph's building isn't the type to have apartments with good lighting or undamaged doors. Tenants in his neighborhood are not the type he would want to turn his back on or have sneak up behind him.

Against his flight or flight instinct as Ralph had no fight instinct, he turned in time to see the flashes of light come up the stairwell before pain in the top of Ralph's skull too his vision leaving only the sound of his body hitting the floor and the feeling of the world wrapping around him like a warm blanket. Ralph could only hope it wasn't the blanket he spilled his dinner of buffalo wings on the night before. He saw himself awakening in the hall way coated in teriyaki before he passed out.