By: Jason Sinkhorn

My eyes opened.  The early hour beckoned me.  A small beam of light shone through the small window in my basement sleeping quarters.  I arose from my bed with all the grace of a newly born baby deer trying to stand up.  My eyes began to become heavy as if saying "Get back to bed fool! Only three hours of sleep?  You're not a machine!"  Why then I ask will my eyes not shut at night, but wait until they have opened for a new day to decide that they need rest?  I trudged up the stairs to the bathroom.  I was about to punish my eyes for their resistance to waking up.  For after this, they would not try to shut again until late that night.  I wet a small green washcloth with water.  I pushed the water-logged rag over my face and into my eyes did the rag attack.  Gently, but ever so meticulously I did banish the weariness and sleep from my eyes.  Finally the battle was over.  I was awake. 
After a quick breakfast, I decided it was time for me to do what I was brought here to do.  For you see, this was not my dwelling, but that of my sister.  She was gone to her place of employment, and I was to run….the garage sale.
I opened the large door.  As it inched it's way up and open it creaked and squealed.  Then finally, as if a barrier had been put in it's path, it slammed to a stop.  I sat in my soft, yet ugly and tore up chair, waiting.  Waiting.  Now the world outside was given a small, yet significant, look into the way my sister lived her life.  Included in this barrage of items were some belongings of her boyfriend and also her roommate.  At first glance, you could comprehend that they are athletic people.  The small box shaped corridor, with a full clothesline as a temporary back wall, was filled with items from the sports of softball, basketball, and even a bag for clubs to play the leisurely game of golf.  From the clothing also could one draw an athletic assumption.  Jerseys, workout clothes, arm and leg braces, warm-up suits all plagued the table tops.  Yes, it was a look into their lifestyle indeed. 
The tables were littered with other items of many different prices, all very  reasonable.  A new blacklight, the nice fluorescent type, sat next to an old faded orange ice scraper.  Directly across from me was a working microwave priced at one dollar.  Madness I thought.  One dollar for a modern miracle of cooking.  I plugged it into the nearest wall outlet.  I begin to press some buttons.  "Beep." A blue glowing number nine is displayed.  "Beep." A number one accompanies it.  "Beep. Whiirrrrr." The microwave fan spun, heating the glass of water I had put in.  It works!  Why then only mark it worth one dollar, when it is worth much more?  If I were that microwave I would be insulted.
But I am not a microwave.  I am a person.  A human.  More of a man than a hu really.  I sit and keep my lonely vigil over the abundance of things that only desperate men would try to steal.  Cars. trucks, the occasional SUV, all drove by.  None stopping to partake of the amazingly cheap prices for quality used items that lay before them.  I watch them pass by, almost mocking me.  Their eyes and body language says, "You are wasting your time.  Go do something more constructive."  But I sit.  Waiting.  Waiting. 
A single large white van pulled up.  It parked in front of our garage sale sign.  I closed my book that I had been reading, ready for the challenge of taking money, calculating change, and wishing the people a nice day.  The door opened.  A man, nicely dressed, got out with a leather briefcase.  Oh irony!  Cruel irony, how you torment!  A salesman!  A salesman, going next door to peddle his wares.  Why could the neighbors not come browse our items first?  Instead they listen to the man's tired speech.  I tried to hear it, but the many cars going by, and also by the neighbor's door as they invited him in muffled it.  How deviant this salesman is to park his van in front of our place of bargains, blocking the people's vision.  A mixture of anger and mischievousness filled me as I thought of how great a revenge it would be to break into his van, put it in neutral, and push it into the middle of the street.  For you see, it would teach the salesman a lesson, but also serve as a vehicle dam.  The people coming down the street would be forced to stop.  They could see our sale, and may come browse for lack of anything better to do.  But I kept myself from doing this deed.  Perhaps it was the fact that the chair in which I sat sank down nearly to the floor,  making it difficult to stand, or perhaps it was the fact that this wasn't my junk and I wouldn't profit so I wasn't that desperate.  A garbage truck beeps somewhere nearby.  A small bird perches on the guttering then flies over to the salesman's van and poops on the windshield.  Serves him right I thought. 
A car slowed down.  They stopped.  They got out of the car and started walking towards our sale.  "Hello.  How are you today" I ask politely.  "Fine." They mumble back as the older gentlemen taps the front of his cap bill.  They walk in.  After about twenty five seconds they walk out empty handed.  I didn't say goodbye.  The church bells rang in the distance as the blue hatchback raced off back towards its original destination. 
As they left a feeling of complete boredom enveloped me.  I tried to contemplate things I could do.  I could sit at the end of the driveway and make angry faces and obscene gestures at the people who drove by mocking me.  I could stand in the street and play in the traffic, jumping out of the way of cars like an action hero.  I could also just sit right here.  So that's what I did.  I sat, wondering if I sat long enough, maybe I would grow roots.  I sat.  Waiting.  Waiting.
Only two hours more I told myself, but that brought no comfort whatsoever.  A small bit of laughter wells up in me as I think about taking the baseball bat, knocking out the sales van's headlights and replacing them with the duck slippers under the table.  I decided, however, to go in for a brief moment to get a little snack and also to use the restroom.  I had drunk a lot of water that morning.  I need not say more.
When I came back out, there were still no people to be seen.  What a dreaded town.  What a dreaded day.  Dread and waiting.  Waiting.  Oh the tumultuous torture!  Even my hyperactivity was being challenged by the sheer boredom and loss of interest.  Could it be that there was something so meaningless yet so powerful that it could dull my imaginativeness and hyperactivity?  No!  I wouldn't give in.  Not to this!
The bells tolled again.  Oh the joyous bells telling of the passing of another hour.  Ringers of good news are they.  Then silence.  Total frightening silence.  Like the silence immediately before Death takes his prize.  "Oh to be that prize," I thought pessimistically.
Then my heart was lightened and brought back to life.  For I  saw something that sparked my interest.  A light.  Yes, the headlights of the salesman's van were left on.  Sweet revenge and reverse irony.  The headlights that I had so wanted to bash in were left on to kill the battery of the van.  It was as if life had walked up to the salesman and said "You wanted to park here, so now you are…and for a long time."  Life laughs in all of our faces sometimes. 
Not a single paying customer yet.  No one, save the older couple has even set foot here.  Not even the people in the beat up station wagon have stopped.  The kind of car I've seen at least once at every one of these things I have ever passed by. 
Good lord!  What is wrong with you people?!  We have a blacklight for five dollars!  A microwave!  A working almost new microwave for one dollar!  One measly dollar!  What more do you ingrates want?  Are you so consumed with your petty habits and daily schedules that you couldn't take five minutes to browse what we have laid before you and so kindly priced so we get no profit!  You all make me wish for nightmares.  Horrible, violent, relentless nightmares just so I have something to do.  Maybe I'll get lucky and dream about a one hundred thirteen-car pile-up with that stupid white sales van on the bottom, and I'll be comforted by knowing that the very nice and workable twenty dollar CD/Car Stereo wouldn't be in the heap of twisted, mangled metal.

Oh to the devil and his minions with this garage sale.  It isn't worth going mad over.  I'd rather be swimming in a pool of scorpions, bees, snakes, and rabid mammals than to be in this garage one more minute of this day.  Waiting.  Waiting no more.  The bell tolled the noon hour.  The deadline.  The end.  It was time to close.  Oh bells you toll the true beginning of my day.  I will now go into the world and torment all those others who mocked me.  Ha ha!  Sweet revenge is upon you all.