Even time traveling to and from my various meetings is used productively. In the car I return calls I might have missed, conduct interviews with potential business partners and vendors, and dictate text messages into my smartphone using the built in voice recognition software.
Speaking of phones, I don't know what I'd do without my device. It's literally the key to mobility in this modern world. Without it I'd be tied to a desktop computer talking on a landline all day. With this amazing little device I can be anywhere, do anything, which helps me juggle all the things I need to accomplish. I conducted a business meeting on the 15th hole of the golf course the other day, closed some important work and was able to get back to quality father son time teaching my 8 year old to swing his new clubs. Some might not condone such an interruption when you promised to spend time with your children, but I look at it differently. If I wasn't able to take that call, to stop playing for 10 minutes and resolve that business I would not have been able to go at all. It's this technology that makes free time like this possible.
I try not to be so absorbed in my phone that I don't watch where I am going, but sometimes it cannot be helped. I think that's how I ended up on my back like this, some lunatic tearing at me like a drug crazed psychopath. I was walking out to my car after a quick business meeting in town and reading a couple e-mails from a consulting job I do on the side. I must have been too absorbed in typing up my response to see the lumbering stranger in front of me. He attacked with lightning speed and animalistic ferocity. My phone was hurled into the air as I felt myself being forced to the ground. His breath stank of disease and illness, and his clothes were torn and rotten. He was clearly homeless, based on his attire and the long unkept hair and beard, but there was something else too. He was having some sort of allergic reaction to something. His eyes were caked with a thick yellow film that dripped down his face and into his scraggly beard. His teeth looked rotten, caked with a thick black mucus that seemed to ooze our of the corners of his mouth and pool in his bottom lip before dripping off the front.
"Stop!" I called out in protest, using my arms to push his snapping jaws away from me, but he didnt not react. Instead he continually tried to bite my hands, my arms, anything he could get his teeth to. I called for help but none came, and I began to feel the growing panic of fear welling in my heart. Looking around for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon I found myself completely at his mercy. I thought of my children, expectantly waiting at home for the family movie night I had promised them when I left the house this morning. I imagined their tears as my sweet wife tried to explain what happened to me and I felt tears of my own fogging my vision. Suddenly the scene changed, and I imagined each of them being attacked in a similar way, with no father there to watch over and protect them.
A fury I'd never known surged within me, a primal instinct to protect what was mine, and I screamed as I plunged my thumbs into his eyes. It was soft and disgusting, and the yellow pustules burst and spilled across my face. A mix of copper and decay filled my mouth as I tasted his thick fluids and I felt a wave of nausea hit me like a truck. Oddly enough, the monster didn't even react to this relatilation. I expected a cry of pain, but instead he continued trying to bite the hands now buried in his face.
"What are you?" I asked in disbelief, and began wrenching his head back and forth in an effort to pull him off me. His body felt floppy and weak, as though he still had the full strength of a man but has frail, weak joints and bones. I managed to wiggle out from underneath him and spun onto his back quickly, a move I had perfected during years of varsity wrestling in high school. I placed one hand under his jaw and another on his forehead, thrusting my knee into the back of his neck. It was a submission hold that almost got my expelled from school after trying to use it in a match, and one that instantly put anyone caught in it completly under my control. His hands lashed out at me, awkwardly trying to grab me from my perch of power.
Without warning, I felt a pop and his neck felt suddenly loose, falling to the side as though his head was no longer connected to his body. I stood up in shock. Had I killed him? The guilt and horror filled me with remorse and dread. What would happen to my family? How could I explain that it was only self defense? Would anyone believe me?
As I stood pondering my situation a hand grabbed my ankle, digging boney fingers into my skin. As I tried to pull away the head flopping on the pavement began snapping at me again, bobbling horribly on the concrete as the jaw worked back and forth. A large gash on its forehead exposed its skull, but no blood emerged. "What are you?" I repeated my question in a whisper. He responded with a gargling choking sound, and I kicked my ankle free. Taking a step back, a rubbed my forearms and knuckles where he had tried to bite me. Looking around for my phone I saw the glass screen was cracked. I picked it up and tried to dial a number, but it wouldn't even respond. I looked back at the building, resolved to go inside and get help when two large black SUVs pulled up, blocking my way. Men in suits poured out and grabbed both us, putting us each in separate vehicles. A bag was pulled over my head and I felt the pinch of a needle in my arm before everything went dark.
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