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Chapter One
Every night before he went to bed, Winston Mansfield filled in the daily crossword puzzle. Winston
liked puzzles. He always said they make your mind sharp and help to combat the effects of old age. Before the crossword, he brushed his teeth with a whitening toothpaste for two minutes exactly, flossed his teeth to perfection, and rinsed his mouth with a fluoride rinse for one minute. His clothes for the next day were chosen from a selection of neutral grays and browns and his shoes, one black and one brown, were shined to perfection. He would fold the lucky chosen neatly on the small black table by his bed, just the way his mother taught him. He showered before that for ten minutes, ate a healthy dinner of no more than six hundred calories before that, and watch the local news the hour before that. Winston liked to be kept up to date on the comings and goings of the world in which he lived. It made him feel involved in life, like he was a part of something grand. He felt like he was participating, even though he never did anything with the information.
Every day after work, Winston Mansfield walked his chocolate lab
with the white spots on his feet for exactly forty-five minutes. He called the
dog Spot because that was its most dominant feature. He and Spot would walk out
of the house, stop to urinate by the mailbox, and continue the route down the
sidewalk to the left for one half mile at a brisk pace. First he passed the
houses of the rest of the middle class, modest sized, single story homes
painted in a variety of colors from white to off-white. Two years ago, a woman
and her two children moved to the neighborhood and painted the house across the
street a vibrant blue. They were from out of town. Six months later the woman
moved. The city repainted the house white after numerous complaints, and all
was well again.
Half a mile down the
road, Winston turned left again entering a winding suburb road where the houses
grew an entire floor in height. The houses were immaculately painted white with
a darker off white trim. Each door was painted in a light color of the
occupant's choice, never dark or unseemly. Winston loved to live in such a creative
neighborhood with its variety of door coloring. It was an azure sky, the houses
forming sharp lined clouds. Left, right, right, left, left he turned down the
well paved street until he came to the one dark spot in what had to be the
entire city. Three quarters of a mile after the second left turn was a small
single story house, a sheep among the gods. The house, if one could call it
that, looked like it had been abandoned since the beginning of time. The door
was black with red trim and protected by a separate screen door. The roof was
red and falling apart, much like the rest of the house. The walls were decayed
wood and were at one time painted black. Time and exile had turned the paint a
fair gray. The boards on the windows were painted black and the yard was
unseemly. More than once had he tried to petition the city to tear down the old
house and remove the blemish from the otherwise flawless skin of his life and
more than once he was denied, each time citing a section of the city charter
preventing historical landmarks from being torn down. No one knew what had
happened there that made it a landmark and no one cared to find out. The people
avoided the house like white after labor day.
After exactly one half a mile, Winston turned left, walked
another half mile past more modest homes, turned left again through another
subdivision built for a king, and finally arrived back at his home on
Plainsview Drive. The two mile walk took forty-five minutes at a brisk pace.
Every morning, Winston Mansfield woke up at exactly six am. He
dressed in the clothes he had laid out the night before, ate his low calorie
cereal (one cup with half a cup of soy milk and a piece of toast), read the
morning paper, fed Spot, and began the drive in his white hybrid car to the office
where he worked. On his way, he stopped at a local coffee shop for his daily
morning latte. He arrived at the office at exactly eight am.
Every day at five pm, Winston Mansfield waved goodbye to his
coworkers, shut down his computer to conserve electricity, asked the boss about
his wife, and drove home from work.
Every
day his life was perfect, and Winston Mansfield loved every moment of it. 
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