Episode #9: The Journey

Gathering himself, Tom had taken advantage of his lucid state and known exactly what to do. A cold sheen of sweat coating his face, he had (with a stealth unknown to him) coolly retrieved the spare key that he'd secretly copied for his mother's prized possession, a 2000 Toyota Camry. This car was the only material object that Mrs. Ozanksi kept from her boys, and her meticulous care of it had made the local auto repair shop as standard an errand as the grocery store. Once, when the check engine light had gone on, the atmosphere at the Ozanski household had been so grim that one would have thought that a member of the family had been struck with a terminal illness. Tom had known that he would need a key for his mother's car one day with his peculiar foresight, and he was certain that his furtive trip to the local Home Depot's key copy center one afternoon when his mother had been sick with the flu had been intended for this very moment. Putting his large loafers on and fumbling for his 'lucky' football jacket, Tom walked purposefully towards his window and quietly opened it. Barely seeming to notice the seven foot drop in his elevated state of mind, he dropped to the ground with a resounding thud, rolled over several times and calmly climbed into the driver's seat of his mother's car.