A Few Quiet Days

The early morning gray mist diffused the predawn cool December light over the calm Mediterranean Sea. It was impossible to tell where the sea ended and the grey sky commenced. The water barely moved where it met the small
pebbles of the private beach. Vertical cliffs sealed each side of the beach from incursion. The shear cliff from the beach to the road insured that the small tunnel to the villa's garden was the only possible access. The first man leaned awkwardly against the cliff. His glassy dark brown eyes blankly stared at the featureless seascape. His mouth drooped open like someone who continually breathed through their mouth. He was not breathing. He had involuntarily given up the habit earlier that morning. The second man on the beach did not look at him, but stood at the water's edge gazing into the gray mist. His eyes almost as glazed as the dead man's. His head throbbed from the jet lag and the cascade of events
that had swept him across the Atlantic. John Lewis Strut thought how impulsive he had been in the past week. He had transplanted himself from a regulated Midwestern life to the south of France, where the only one he knew was his host. He could hardly remember any of his college French from years ago. Strut's mind drifted back over the years to his college days at Indiana University. Strut's reminiscence were partly to clear his mind of the past and partly an obsession with his despair. Strut had attended the Indiana University on a scholarship. He lived at subsistence level the first four years of his prelaw work. At the end of his Senior year he took a job as an automobile salesman to try to avoid working part time
during his graduate law terms. The news paper's advertisement for the job was intriguing. High income, and a personal car to drive. Some of his fellow students had paper routes or worked in a fast food restaurant to earn extra money. This seemed to be on a higher plan. A promise of high pay, and especially a car, was perhaps a little out of reason for a short term job. He had just received his bachelor's degree. He could pretend that he looked upon this as a potential career.

The agency's show room's gleaming new cars made a tempting contrast with his eight year old junker, which was proving less and less reliable. The salesmen moved in and out of their small cubical offices to deal with several waiting customers. A large glass enclosed office was perched above the cubical offices like an eagle's nest. Strut could see a man standing rigidly before the massive desk that dwarfed a some what miniature dark complected man
behind it.

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