The entrance to the tunnel was his only way out. The entrance to the tunnel was his only way out. His wound was festering, his bruise expanding, slowly claiming more of his face. He was beaten earlier at the grocery store by the cashier with the docile eyes. He counted out some coins, but didn’t have enough to pay for everything so he asked the cashier to take the fungus off the tally, but the cashier became furious, jumped over the register and started pounding his face with the pork chops of the next customer, the same pork chops that just a moment ago were live pigs on a conveyer belt.

He was nursing his face when someone banged on his apartment door. A young woman, an employee of Ethereal Comm, Inc., and she was also furious. She used a cable in her hand to lasso the man, started to drag him out onto the landing, down a flight of worn out stairs, pulling him into the cable room where she planned to tie and keep him until she had a secure connection.

The man barely escaped this vicious attack, bolted up the stairs and barricaded himself inside his apartment. He was tending to his swollen neck when another knock startled him, he heard the voice of the landlady so he opened cautiously. She was holding a cat like an umbrella in front of her and the cat scratched and attacked him and he used his hands to deflect the blades of the claws. He slammed the door and the cat yowled disgruntled. At that moment the bank clerk flew in through the window, breaking the glass, rampaged through the flat and began to throw minuses at the poor man who hid in a suitcase stuffed with his only belongings.

There, inside the hole of a sock was the entrance to the tunnel, his only way out.

You have just read the series Midweek Pick-Me-Up. Always on Wednesdays. Always written to a prompt (in bold), in 5 minutes or else the screen goes blurry. An edit here, an edit there, and now it’s yours to share.