Jacob flicked up his wrist lazily and the watch in turn lazily flicked up into his line of sight. He already knew the time. Five twenty-two. He did this everyday, like some ritual that had to be done or else the day would never end. And every day, he got the same response from his cheap little watch. Five twenty-two. Eight more minutes until he escaped this cubicle. He almost chuckled. There really wasn't any escape, he'd be here tomorrow. He was always there, it seemed. Weekends were blurs of nothing, they came and past. But he was really always here. Even his dreams were full of this dour place. In four minutes Ron would come and begin to empty out-trays. Jacob never understood this ritual. He had worked in this place under its white cleanliness and florescent tubes of pale light, and yet the forms that were outgoing always said the same thing. They were order forms, and they had always ordered the same raw materials. Ron was a relic of the past, having been working in his little broom closet office down the hall for the last thirty years. His job could have been easily replaced by a computer. He was a veteran, though, and the company hung onto him like some sort of badge of honor. He showed that they were bearable enough to grind away your life with. Jacob felt sick at this notion. He himself would likely end up a relic, too worn down by the grind in his short four years here to muster up the boldness it took to get away. One day he would become a medal of bearability.

Five twenty-six. Ron knew the time instinctively as well, and like clockwork his bulging form escaped the broom closet and waddled down the hall. His time here had not been kind, as a more fat, disgruntled, sweaty, and bald man there is not to be seen. He waddled around, collecting papers, and them retreated back to his office. Jacob loosened his thin black tie that lay over his pale, this chest, then cradled his shaggy black head into his pale, this arms and awkwardly long hands. He let out along, this sigh. He needed out. He was trapped by his cube. The other feigned individuality by putting up calenders and little mugs intended to be humorous. They were supposed to be comforting, supposed to make a sense of contentedness. It was for naught, he had decided long ago. No one could be content here.

He looked at his watch. Five twenty-eight. He almost punched his monitor. Instead he sighed again, and grabbed his coat to leave. No one would notice. No one ever noticed.

The coat didn't help at all. Wind cut in between the city streets, piercing into his bones like ethereal razors. He didn't care. Jacob didn't care for much anymore. The sun was about to set.. The cold, the sun. It was autumn. He hadn't noticed. He hadn't noticed anything for a few years.

He had been walking for a few minutes, letting his feet lead him where they would. The sun had hidden itself behind the buildings. The only real light besides the faint peekings from behind the skylines were the old street lights that hazily lightened the side walks and alleys stained with grime and ill-repute.  Jacob shivered. He didn't like living in the seedier part of town, but it was cheap and local. Besides, his apathy was enough to kill off any vestiges of a want for a decent life.

He wasn't far from his hovel. Hovel... it was what he called that apartment. He despised his hovel. It was just another cubicle in his life. Just another inescapable reality in Jacob's life. Just like his dead-end job, his mind, his apathy. They were beyond his control. He had given up too long ago. Suddenly, he felt very sick. No, he told himself, he shouldn't be thinking. He tried not to think. He didn't like thinking, it was futile. He forced himself into thoughtless gray.

Jacob smelled garbage. Close to home, he though before he could stop himself. No one ever stopped using the old dumpster near his building even though the city had forgot about it. It sat in that alley, overflowing it's filth. The scent was palpable. He tried to put the thought out of his mind as he passed the alley and the street lamp across from it when something forced hi back into reality.

A darkened figure grabbed his by the arm. He jerked Jacob into the alley and slugged him in the jaw with a right cross. He then threw Jacob back into the depths of the alley, slamming him into the side of the overflowing dumpster. He found himself in a rather awkward position, as he scrambled in his mind for thought and could not find it when he spent most of his time forcing thought out. He immediately noticed his teeth were not quite as solid as they previously were. He spit out a bicuspid in a fountain of blood and saliva.

The figure approached Jacob. He was slightly shorter than him, but the brute hulked over him with thick limbs and and a barrel chest that strained his stained gray hoodie and shabby, holed pair of jeans. His dark, meaty hand extended, and at last he spoke.

“Gimme yo wallet,” he growled. His voice sounded like his tonsils where made of chainsaws.

Jacob shivered. He had gotten a surprising amount of blood on his white shirt and his coat had come halfway off in his short flight. He never brought his wallet to work. He only ever needed a few dollars for a meager lunch, sometimes not even that. He did not see this going well.

He pulled off his coat the rest of the way and struggled up to survey his surroundings, trying to forget the tooth on the ground and the thumping in his jaw. The dumpster was behind him, taking the bulk of the alley. The street was some distance away, and the mugger was between him and somewhere no more safe and of no more hope. There was a phone in his pocket that he had felt crunch in the fall in his pocket that had kindly left a bruise on his thigh. The alley was populated with countless black garbage bags that lined the brick walls, hiding unknown boons and pitfalls, and an old couch covered in multicolored layers of filth resided across from the dumpster, mostly blocking the deep end of the alley. There was also an old kitchen chair that resided on top of the bags that lined the brick wall that was almost completely fallen apart. Jacob searched his mind for something, anything that could be advantageous to his position. Nothing came up worthwhile, save for a brief remembrance of some sort of training as a child. He wrestled with the thought. Was it tae kwon do? Was it judo? No, there were no memories. They were dead thoughts from years past. It was hopeless.

“I...I-I don't have a wallet,” Jacob sheepishly spouted.

“You betta retink what you said,” the mugger snarled.

“I don't have a wallet. I don't need one,” he said, his words no bolder.

The mood changed. The figure started to approach Jacob. He drew a beaten up knife from the pocket of his stained hoodie and in a flash he was upon him, diving with his knife outstretched. Jacob almost managed to turn out of the way in time. The knife, aimed for his belly, caught him in the ribs lengthwise, piercing one and scraping against another. Jacob felt every one of the nicks in the edge as they carved their path through his bones. He screamed out with every fiber of himself.

Instinct managed to get a say through, and a memory from his childhood lessons came back. He acted them out as they came, grabbing the mugger's arm and throwing his hips with all his strength and feeling he had left in him. To his great amazement, the maneuver worked. The mugger in his own shock lost grip on the knife and was thrown back across the alley. He hit the brick wall and landed in a pile of garbage. Jacob touched the knife in his side, and pain flooded over him and he decided he couldn't breath. It took all his strength to stand.

The mugger was up in a flash. His hood had come off, revealing a face of a pugilist. His head was shaved and filigreed by grooves and scars. His nose laid bulbous and flat and his face and teeth were rearranged by the fists of the malicious. He radiated malice. He charged Jacob, grabbing him by the throat with both hands, throwing him up against the wall of the alley. His hands turned to iron as they tightened like a vice while all the time bashing Jacob's head into the bricks. His vision began to fade away and his head turned to fire inside his skull. Blood trickled down his neck and over the hands of the mugger. It was over, Jacob though. He was going to die.

There was but one hope, one that came as a flash of thought before Jacob fell unconscious. The shaking of his body caused the knife in his side rattle painfully. There was no point bracing himself, no point in considering the consequences. Necessity forced his hand. Jacob grabbed the knife and wrenched it out. He then jammed it into the mugger's belly to the handle.

The mugger stopped choking Jacob, and walked back a few paces and fell to his knees. His face went blank with surprise, his jaw slightly ajar and his hoodie turning black with blood. Jacob scrambled to get away, but fell to the  ground as his brain told him to with pain and dizziness.

The mugger looked at the knife. His breathing was starting to labor. Jacob looked at the knife. The black slick of blood was only growing bigger. The mugger slowly put his hand on the knife and pulled it out. Just looking at the act reminded Jacob of each little nick that marred the edge of the knife. Blood began to spew forth leaving most of the hoodie black as he approached Jacob.

Jacob fell into panic. This guy wasn't about to give up. He looked around, desperately seeking a solution. The mugger, now on his feet, slashed awkwardly at him, severing into his upraised forearm. Pain rushed back into his mind as the nick chewed into the flesh.

His vision was starting to blur. His head felt like it was on fire and he was still bleeding. Despite it all he forced himself to come back with all his will. He crawled away over the bags that lined the alley until he went over the broken kitchen chair, which broke and tripped him. He mugger stumbled towards him, still slashing out with the knife and desperately clinging to the idea of victory. He was upon Jacob.

Jacob continued his attempt to get away, but his arms were tangled in trash and broken chair parts. The mugger was nearly on top of him, still holding his battered knife outstretched, still gleaming the want of killing in his eyes. Jacob managed to untangle himself from the seemingly dissolving trash bags. He tried to use the broken legs of the chair as support, like moldy snowshoes over disgusting snow. Most of them simply snapped under his weight. The mugger managed to stumble up to him and slashed again, raking the knife across Jacob's back. Jacob started to breathe hard, and using a sturdy leg of chair he turned himself onto his back.

The mugger looked at him with desperation. Jacob's grip on his chair leg tightened. Without fully realizing it, Jacob swiped the leg in front of him blindly. To his surprise, it connected with the knife, sending it flying down the alley. The mugger and his mark looked at each other. The mugger had stopped breathing and fell to his knees, holding his hands over his bleeding gut to try and hold the blood in, his eyes asking why this had happened. Jacob again brought the leg in a fierce strike, this time fully realizing his intent. The blow again connected, this time with the scarred head of the mugger. There was a slight, sick crunch. The mugger fell silent, his hands and mouth dropped. He fell over into a crumpled pile.

Jacob found his coat and tied it around his stomach to try to keep his side and back from bleeding any more. He stumbled out to the pavement, a distance that a few minutes ago would have been insurmountable, and collapsed at the lamp post. He felt his consciousness starting to slip. He looked at what he had done, what had been done to him. He wasn't going to live like this anymore, ho told himself. If he was going to live that is, he told himself back.

The propped himself up on the lamp post and pulled out his cellphone. There was a deep crack over the screen that no longer projected anything useful, but otherwise seemed to work. Working off memory, he clumsily punched in nine-one-one.

“Hello, this is 9-1-1 Emergency, what is your emergency?” a sweet voice asked.

Jacob wheezed a few seconds before he could muster a voice. “I'm.. I'm at the corner of Oak and Queen and I'm about to die.”

“I'm sending an ambulance right now. Tell me what happened,” the nice lady said.

Jacob had a hard time staying awake. He tried to recount the events of the evening, but he kept blacking out. In the distance he heard sirens.

“I... I-I hear them coming...,” he spoke out loud. “I'm...”

He started to lose consciousness. The ambulance screeched to a stop and he saw two people jump out the back. He smiled, and passed out. He felt like he was all right.