It was early dawn, as the edge of twilight rose over the horizon, the sun creeping over that imperceptible line that ushered night into day.

The green neon sign lured him in. It read WELLSBORO STREET! YARD SALE ON YOUR RIGHT! in bold black font.

The truck rode there, nearly without his control, rolling right as his hands seemed transfixed to this goal, to this yard sale.

The unseeming two-story white house looked like middle class as they come, common suburbia.

But lined up on the perfected lawn a tarp was strewn, so many wares, so many eras, so many treasures. His eyes peered out the window, a friendly middle-aged man and woman waving to him.

He could feel his body bending to their will – like he was meant to go there and look at the items – and his mind tried to stop him, but his body moved.

He quickly forgot his worries when he saw the games and consoles he loved as a kid in the one dollar pile: dozens of gray cartridges, a PlayStation, a Sega Dreamcast…

And he was ensnared in some kind of trance, some cosmic force willing him to the items…

Something spoke to him, something trapped, shaking within the cartridge which he picked up.

He was enchanted by it, moved by it. He was about to fork over a dollar when the middle-aged man took a bat to his head.

When he fell unconscious, the ritual began, the transmigration of his soul slow but so worth it…

When the ritual ceased, the blackness filling his eyes, he thought he was dead.

But he wasn’t.

He could feel. He could hear. He could smell. He could even see.

But he couldn’t move.

And he couldn’t scream.

His soul felt trapped somewhere.

Somewhere where he would never escape.

Somewhere where his personal hell would be to watch others be trapped by his same folly.

This is the Yard Sale.