THE PARADOX EFFECT

It's the innate, preprogrammed need to live that saves my life. It's the same automatic muscular reaction that engages when you suddenly see a spider crawling towards you or a snake slithering your way. Millions of years of evolution have baked in this auto-pilot evasion and it's thanks to this that I find myself diving through the air for the cover of the giant dumpster.  I land with a thump and an ungracious role, grazing my palms and forearms on the rough concrete. Simultaneously I hear the Ting! Ting! Ting! of bullets hitting my metal protector. I've parked next to this hunk of junk every day for well over a year. In all those days never did I think it would save my life.  Pop! Ting! Another piece of high velocity lead is arrested by its rusting steel exoskeleton, followed by the sound of movement up above. Specifically, what I think sounds like a man rapidly descending the fire stairs. A quick glance around the side of the dumpster confirms it. I suddenly realise t...

Motivation and confidence are key to a successful life and business. The unmotivated, unconfident person fears failure, and never truly believing in the possibility of their own success spends their life wallowing in remedial work and doomed business ventures... I listen to a business studies seminar on my cell through in-ear earphones as I finish up the last of the prep for the breakfast shift. I've made it a habit to record every class. I like to re-listen to the lectures as I find that I miss a lot of important information the first time around. I'm what they call dyslexic. I wasn't diagnosed until I was in the latter years of high school, by which stage I feel my formal education was beyond saving. As an adult, I've since found that I learn much better visually than aurally. If you sit me in a room with someone talking at me for an hour or more I have a tendency to drift off after about five minutes. I guess these days it would be diagnosed as ADHD for which a slew ...

I've always hated offices. I'm always loathed to enter them because it's where authority resides and ever since my first day of school I learned I hate dictators. Patrick's office I dislike with a passion. I've only ever been in here once before, the day he hired me. The day he sat me down and made sure to make me feel like a worthless piece of shit, the day he said that he was doing me a huge favour by giving me a job. ' Taking a chance,' he called it then and he reminds me of it now. "I gave you a chance, I did everything right by you, but you've let me down. I hate to say it, but I warned you, you didn't listen, and now you're fired." Patrick barks across the unfeasibly large desk that divides us. It's got to be compensation for something. A work space this large in an office this small wreaks of inadequacy in the manly department. Some men compensate with cars or motorbikes, this man sought to bolster his mid-life lag with an ...

'Last order up,' I call to my co-workers as the waiter takes two creme brûlées out. Christoph, Tammy and myself exchange exhausted looks.  'We made it guys, I'm so impressed. You both did incredibly well.' Neither say a word. I think they're both in a state of shock. The evening service was busy as hell. This time of the year always is. There's a tension that pervades the festive season everywhere you go. Societally, we set impossible tasks to achieve and spend every waking moment stressing about them. To me, this time of the year is farcical to the point of absurdity.  Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Christmas Grinch. I don't hate the festive season. Quite the opposite, this time of the year brings me a great deal of enjoyment, but for different reasons than the mainstream narrative. I feel that it's been hijacked by corporate overlords with only one concern, their bottom line. It seems the spirit of human kindness is an insignificant addendum...

Again I'm woken by the incredible pain in my thigh. I feel it before I see it. There was something blissful about being unconscious. I floated in a myriad of images, void of sound, enjoying a weird story that had no linear narrative. Being there was sublime compared to my present reality. I open my eyes, expecting to see one of my four captors standing over me, but I'm alone in a small room that is void of paraphernalia. The only light comes from a large floodlight outside the warehouse shining through a sky light cut into the ceiling.  The bullet wound in my leg continues to leak blood. It pools among the wrapped cling film around my thigh, oozing out and running down my calf to the floor. I don't know how much blood you can lose before you die, but I seem to recall it's a lot less than you might imagine. I guess it depends on where the blood comes from. If the bullet struck an artery I'm sure I'd bleed out in a short time, maybe even a matter of minutes. With ...

Getting from the diner to the restaurant where I work has taken much longer than I hoped. Despite driving as fast as I could, it's taken at least half an hour to get here. I pull into my dedicated parking spot at the back of the restaurant right next to the dumpster. I open the door in a hurry and bang the edge of it into this rusting hunk of junk. Shit.  I check the damage to my car door. Go slow Susan, stop rushing, you're here now. Rushing only causes mistakes. Words of advice I normally give to my daughter when I see her not paying attention to what she's doing. If you go slow, you'll do everything properly, once. Easier said than done. It's not until I push open the staff entrance door to the restaurant that I realise that in my haste I haven't locked my car. Double shit. I need to start taking my own advice.  In an effort to calm myself I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I'm about to go back to my car to lock it, when I hear, 'About time! Get ...

I wake to the excruciating pain in my thigh. I open my eyes, my vision blurry at first, clarity slowly following. I try to move, but find that I am bound to a wooden chair by many layers of plastic cling film. Who ever wrapped me did an incredibly thorough job as it is really hard to breathe and impossible to move my limbs. My legs are soaked wet with blood from the bullet wound in my thigh. Beneath me a puddle of my own blood expands across the worn concrete floor. I am incredibly weak, nauseous, my vision rolling. I'm about to pass out. I feel the darkness descending, when, Bam!  Something strikes my face bringing me back from the cusp of unconsciousness.  I startle, look up and meet the eyes and pock marked face of AR15. Behind him stand the two other mercenaries who abducted me. Even in my abused state I can feel the tension emanating between these two lackeys. Their argument from the van pervades, not forgotten or forgiven by either. I look around the dim room. It is a va...

I try my best to remain calm. It's hard, given that I can feel the cold muzzle of the gun Mads presses into my stomach through my sweater. The beast leans close to me and spit-whispers, 'Now, I don't suppose you've got that five hundred you owe me on you right now, do you?' I cut him a dirty look that reads: Of course I don't. 'Well, then in that case, it seems we have a situation. Unlike last time, I'm not about to let you go without settling your debt.' 'I haven't got five hundred dollars on me, and I haven't got five hundred in the bank.' Mads just smiles at this. 'That's okay, if you can't pay in cash, you can always pay in kind.' He lowers the gun from my stomach to my groin and presses there. I feel a sickness spin in my stomach, I am literally ready to vomit, but I somehow manage to hold it down. My one year AA ring glistens on my finger. I regard it for a moment, thinking just how important it is to me. Every t...

A chill runs the length of my spine, causing a tingling sensation in my fingers as the man who once tried to kill me slides into the booth only inches away. His meaty thigh touches mine and I recoil in disgust. I do my very best to hide my extreme hatred of this man. Meet Madison McCormack, people who know him call him Mads to his face and Mad behind his back. He is a beast, no other word describes him better. He's so overweight he makes obese people look slim. He has a permanent layer of sweat across his brow that he constantly mops with a handkerchief I believe was last washed in 1992. He's a professional mouth breather with the most rancid case of gingivitis known to man. Despite his behemoth size, Mads can move quickly, and when angered his temper is murderous.  I keep my sight fixed on Michelle sitting directly opposite me, but in my peripheral I catch Mads looking at me curiously, sure that he knows me from someplace, but evidently he still can't quite pinpoint where....

The first thing I become aware of is the constant pain at the back of my head from where I was hit. My hearing returns slowly, then my eyesight. The pain amplifies as I regain my senses. I've been hit before, plenty of times when boxing, but this hurts like nothing else. Imagine a blowtorch to the back of your head, then a block of ice intermittently applied to it. My vision is severely limited. At first I think maybe my eyesight has been affected by the blow somehow, but I soon come to realise that the darkness comes from a bag tied over my head. I lie flat on the ground of what sounds like a van or maybe a small truck, it's hard to be sure.  I listen intently and catch a conversation between two of the men who abducted me. I can't understand a word they're saying, not because the hum of the van is too loud, but because they're speaking in their mother tongue, Chinese, Japanese, Korean maybe?  From what I can make out, there are two men in the back with me, while t...

I keep my foot heavy heavy on the gas doing at least twenty miles an hour more than the speed limit.  I weave in and out of traffic with only one thing on my mind right now, Michelle, and just how close to the edge she is. I've been there too many times to even think about. I know only too well the drowning sensation of being sure you will never be free of your dependancy on illicit substances. But here I am, well over a year dry and no sign of ever going back to way things were. I approach a T-intersection going far too fast, but I'm not worried, I remain in perfect control. I do as I've done a dozen times and pull hard on the hand brake as I spin the steering wheel and drift around the ninety degree turn. I wouldn't do this if the road was dry, but my Oldsmobile has a low center of gravity and my tires are worn enough that on a rainy day like today there's next to no chance I'll roll.  My car fishtails as I come out of the drift, but I counter steer and soon h...

I glance ahead at the track, visualising the moment I'll cross the finishing line. Forty seven steps, that's my goal, to make it to the end of this one hundred meter track in a few as forty seven long strides. My record so far is forty eight. Usain Bolt managed to complete it in forty one steps, but Usain is no mere mortal.  I concentrate on my breathing,  I look up and around the field as I have practiced a thousand times before. Not another soul in sight. It's nice having this space to myself. No distractions, I can focus completely.  I take my starter's stance, breathe deep and count down in my head, three, two, one... then I launch into my sprint.  As I run I concentrate on the technique I have refined so diligently over the past year. Keep your eyes locked on a point beyond the finish line. Keep your arms close by your side to reduce wind friction. Launch high on every step, aiming for longer strides. Swing your arms as hard as you can using their mome...

I was supposed to be working tonight but I swapped my shift with Julio, another chef, so I could get a decent sleep and be fresh for when my wonderful little lady arrives.  Julio, I will kill you. " I swapped shifts with Julio, I'm picking up my daughter early in the morning." "That's great, I'll be sure to tell everyone when I call to cancel their bookings." "You're not going to cancel all the bookings." "No, I'm not, I'm going to call a temp' agency and get an over-priced under-skilled chef in for the night and fire your ass if you're not here within the hour." "You can't fire me because Julio hasn't shown up." "Watch me." "But-" "-No buts. This is your shift, you're responsible for it. If you're not here in seven minutes you're fired." "I'm stuck in traffic at least fifteen minutes away."  "Then you've got fifteen minutes to get h...

...My eyes are drawn to the horizon where another blurry plane comes in to land at Newark Liberty International airport. I check the time, it's 4:52pm, or there abouts. The clock on the dash of my 2001 model Oldsmobile Alero isn't atomic. It's a total pain in the ass if I'm being one hundred percent honest as it loses time by about two minutes every day. I've gotten used to it by now, like I've learned to embrace every other quirky peculiarity of this car.  The cars are bumper to bumper, backed up as far as the eye can see, which for me is about fifty yards, anything after that becomes a blur. Normally, being frozen in this glacially moving traffic would annoy the hell out of me, but today I've vowed that nothing will shake my good mood. Lucy arrives tomorrow morning on the red-eye from Las Vegas, landing at 5:27am. Finally, I'll get to give her a hug after three months without.  Three damn long months.  That I haven't seen my daughter for so long ma...

I press the muzzle of the gun to his head.  My hand no longer shaking, a stillness has overcome me. The nervousness I felt only seconds ago has gone. This foreign object in my hand, this object that has the power to end life with as little as a squeeze of a finger, no longer seems foreign at all. In fact, the opposite, it is now familiar, so dearly familiar. I feel strong holding it, its power supreme.  He remains perfectly still, fear-frozen, terrified that any movement on his behalf might incite me to send a piece of lead crashing through his forehead, tearing apart the jelly like tissue of his grey-matter and out the back of his cranium, Jackson Pollock'ing the wall with his final thoughts.  I'm lucid. Aware. This isn't like a dream. I feel present. More present than I have ever felt. It is now clear what I have to do, and why I must do it.  As my grip tightens, as my finger begins to pull on the trigger, I can't help but think that only twelve hours ago I was sit...