Category: Short Stories

Life is a waiting room. We wait. We wait in line. We wait in cars and on buses and planes. We wait for phone calls and mail deliveries. We wait for appointments, promotions, birthdays and anniversaries. We wait for holidays and the passing from one year to the next. We wait for life. We wait for love. We wait for death.

An endless expanse of chairs draped in matching blue fabric that doesn’t quite distract you from the dated magazines meant to hold your attention until your name is called. Such is life, with our minds holding hands with smartphones and TV screens to avoid real human touch, or a connection made through more than a WiFi signal.

We breathe in the tombs we create for ourselves because we’re afraid of life. We construct walls made out of the past so that we can keep the future out. We wait for meaning in the meaningless worlds we’ve programmed to spoon feed us exactly what we want, and then we wonder why nothing surprises us anymore.

So here we wait for life to start happening to us when we should be out there happening to life. We’re stuck in a social Limbo of sterilized status updates and instant message dates. Love has become a formula you follow while sedated with compatibility tests and prescribed profile questions. Whatever happened to baring your soul; to being vulnerable with another human being without fear so that you can feel something real? It’s all too clean. Too safe. Too guarded.

It’s a lonely place coated in plastic with hand sanitizing stations; where starting a conversation is considered an annoyance and eye contact is avoided. We keep to ourselves with faces lit blue by our wireless phones. We say we’re connected, but we’ve never been more alone.

Featured photo by Andreea Popah on Unsplash

“Nobody’s seen The Smiths for weeks,” Jon told Rich on their walk home from school. “My mom said they moved, but at night I can see blue flickering, like a TV is on in there. Nobody moves and doesn’t take their TV.”

“True.” Rich feigned interest. They’d been friends since Kindergarten. Jon had always been into conspiracy theories.

 “So I think we should go over there. I think something happened to them. What if they got abducted or died?”

“Jon, I’m not breaking into your neighbor’s house with you and getting arrested,” Rich told his friend.

“Okay so the legalities of it are a bit of a grey area, but once we solve the mystery we’ll be celebrated.” Jon stopped on the sidewalk, putting his balled up fists on his hips and puffing his chest out like he was posing for a Superman poster.

“Yeah, or we’ll be arrested and never graduate high school.”

 Jon deflated and rolled his eyes. “Are you still coming to sleep over tonight? I’ll prove it to you.” 

“Sure, whatever. See you tonight.”

***

 “See? Look. Right there in the living room.” Jonathan had his eyes squinted against a pair of binoculars. He handed them to Rich.

 “Huh.” Rich thought Jon was seeing things, but there it was. The tell-tale blue flickering of a television. Could Jon be right?

 “Let’s just go look. Just for a second. A tiny peek.” Jon pleaded.

 “Alright fine but we’re not breaking in,” Rich scolded.

 “Promise.”

***

 The boys crossed the threshold between houses and poked their heads slowly up over the window ledge. They saw a television set to a station playing some soap opera. Wherever Jon’s neighbors were, they certainly hadn’t moved house. The place looked filled with furniture.

“They must be home.” Rich was saying. He looked toward Jon but his friend had vanished. “Jon? Jon!” He whispered into the dark.

“Over here!” Jon whispered from around the corner of the house. He was at the front door.

“Shit. I said no breaking in!” as Rich rounded the corner, Jon had turned the knob of the front door. 

“It’s open.” Jon’s eyes were wide as he entered the house.

What hit them first was the smell, like soured fruit. Next came the buzzing of flies and what sounded like whispering.

“We shouldn’t be here Jon. Let’s go.” Rich reached for Jon’s arm, but he was already walking toward his neighbors kitchen. Rich followed, covering his nose from the smell.

Ahead a few paces, Jon gasped and as Rich caught up, he understood why. There were Mr. and Mrs. Smith, sitting at the table. Their faces were turned toward the ceiling in matching purple grimaces, their mouths gaping, their throats bulging with… was that fruit he could see sticking from their mouths? The whispering they’d heard stopped abruptly as they entered the room. The boys screamed as an apple rolled from the table and fell on the floor. Rich couldn’t peel his eyes away from the Smiths. He looked closer. Their eyes had been gouged out and replaced with grapes. Banana peels draped from their mouths. Their faces were morbid fruit salads.

The boys backed away from the ghastly scene.

“Don’t leave. You’ve only just joined us!” A tiny voice, inhuman, from under the table. The boys looked down and saw a small brown creature dragging itself from beneath the stained and disheveled tablecloth. It was a slimy, rotten banana dragging itself with sections of peel that had been pulled away from a hollow-eyed face that seemed to be sneering at them.

More movement came from the floor, the counters, cupboards, and even the mouths of the Smiths. A shriveled apple rolled toward them, a section cut away to reveal a mouth, screaming their names in a shrill voice. An orange, with a blue furry spot that blinked open into an eyeball, watched them from the darkness of a cupboard. There were thousands of voices. The room was alive with them. Panicked, they turned to run but the rotten fruit moved quickly. Jon stepped backward into a watermelon that collapsed in on itself. Its insides looked like blood. Rich slipped on a banana peel. As the two tumbled to the ground, they felt the fruit slurping over their bodies toward their mouth. The last thing Rich remembered before passing out was his first taste of wine sliding down his throat as thick fermenting grapes cut off his breath.

The bombs fell in September. We saw the mushroom clouds blooming on the horizon and ran for the bunker. The air-raid siren wailed like a frightened child, cutting through what had been a serene summer day and pricking our skin with fear.  We weren’t prepared—at least not as well as we should have been. Months passed. The view through the small frosted port hole in the ceiling grew darker and colder. Whether that was from Canadian or nuclear winter, neither of us could say for sure.

We watched our scant supplies dwindle as we waited for any news of the situation outside and we took turns cranking the emergency radio, listening hard through the static. It gave us something to do when conversation grew thin. It was just Edith and I, and talking was never a strong point of our marriage.

By the end of October, three full shelves of emergency rations had became two. By mid-November, two had become one. By December, we started making a series of narrow choices between beef stew or stewed beef for our suppers, which were no longer happening every day. The barrels of water in the corner were becoming a concern. The waterline fell along with our morale as the holidays passed without word from the outside. We took turns cranking the emergency radio. Sometimes we could swear we heard voices— some reassuring words through the atmospheric snow. Edith started to talk a lot about death around that time and asked me what I thought it would be like on the other side. I told her I didn’t know. Truth is I was thinking about it a lot too, and I think death is probably a lot like the white noise coming from the radio: lonely and cold.

At night, it froze in the bunker. We huddled together under the scratchy green wool of a survival blanket we’d bought in the spring and watched our breath like smoke come out of our mouths. We spent a lot of time sleeping. I started to lose track of the days, the weeks, the months. Edith was growing thin and frail beneath her dress, now tattered and worn. Her face had grown long and gaunt and she didn’t really talk any more, just shivered and groaned at the pain.  My black slacks and t-shirt used to fit close to my skin, now they hung loose like an ill-fitted mannequin.

I caught myself wondering, in days, how many we could possibly have left. The barrel of water was now down to the last drops. We had started urinating in buckets instead of the small toilet installed in the bunker—just, you know, in case it got that bad.

It got that bad.

After the first day without water, our mouths dry, we started taking timid sips from the bucket, pinching our noses and trying not to vomit. I was mostly successful. Edith was not. After a few tries and a few dry heaves, she curled into a corner and cried. I watched as her tongue flicked out to catch the tears from her cheeks. At least she was still making an effort to conserve and survive. But, it wasn’t enough.

I awoke the next morning and kissed my wife’s forehead. Her skin was dry, cold. She wasn’t breathing. I wept, but no tears came. My voice was hoarse. I wrapped her in a plastic sheet and lay her near a far wall, where I slumped beside her to say… something. Anything. I’m sorry there are no flowers or mourners. I’m sorry you’re wrapped in a godforsaken sheet and that this hole in the ground has become your tomb. I’m sorry I didn’t prepare better. I’m sorry this took too long.

Time slumped by with its only measure being the smell of Edith’s purpling flesh growing in putrescence. My throat burned—begged for moisture, but the potency of the piss bucket became impossible to face. My body could only recycle the darkening liquid so many times before it outright rejected it. I cranked the radio with what little strength I had left. I could no longer hear the ambient static; either because my eardrum was now mad with it, or because the cursed thing was broken. I listened for voices but still none came.

The transparent plastic in which I wrapped my wife had taken on a dull, almost frosted appearance. The misty film seemed to separate, the texture growing. It wasn’t until one wet, shivering drop slipped down the inside of the plastic that I remembered my high school science class. The human body is made up of at least 60% water.

Water. Edith! Oh my sweet darling wife! My stomach heaved and retched at a thought so vile but so necessary. My head was so dizzy now, blurring in and out of consciousness. The end was close. I could feel death’s cold grips waiting just outside of my periphery. With what took all of my strength, I reached my arm across the bunker floor where I lay and I touched, with one finger, the edge of the moist plastic sheeting. Clear and somehow cool water dripped instantly down my digit and made a small pool in my palm. I pulled it close. It looked like water. It’s just water. It’s just water. 

My stomach heaved and I tasted bile but nothing came out. My greedy tongue lapped at the water, which absorbed instantly into the dried tissues of my mouth. With a surge of energy, or maybe it was just the hot adrenaline of survival, I reached again for the plastic, for the water in its folds. My withered fingers splayed and grasped at this new life source. I could see with sudden clarity. My shriveled limbs felt reinflated with moisture and energy. To my sudden horror and brilliant dismay, my enthusiasm had prodded a hole in the thin plastic. My index and middle fingers plunged with a squelch into the swollen and decaying meat of my Edith. I withdrew, seeing the brown rot that now coated those fingers. I felt my mouth fall into sagging o of dismay while my stomach betrayed me, growling and gurgling, wanting more water—wanting more food. I started… licking my fingers. The juices were sour and I gagged at the rot. The last thing I remembered before passing out was reaching toward my Edith, hungry.

When I awoke, the emergency radio was emitting a long tone, followed by a robotic voice.

“The National Alert Aggregation and Dissemination system is back online. This is a national emergency broadcast transmitted at the request of the Canadian Government. This is not a test. An attack with nuclear weapons was commenced on Canada on September 20th, 2017. Ten nuclear detonations were recorded across the country.  Communications were severely disrupted. The number of casualties is not yet known but is assumed high. At this time, the risk of nuclear fallout has passed and it is safe to exit your shelters.”

“I can’t” Laura said.

“Yes. You can” Jay replied, “Feel this?” he tugged on her harness “and this?” he knocked on her helmet.

“Yes, but-”

“But nothing. These keep you safe. I’ll be your eyes.” He touched the side of her face. The scar tissue had softened considerably since the accident. “Don’t worry. We’ll take it slow”.

“You don’t usually hear about blind rock climbers.” Laura smiled, “Thanks for bringing me”. 

“No sweat. Well, there will be some sweat. It’s 30 degrees Celsius, but you catch my drift.” 

Laura laughed. She’d rappelled down this ravine dozens of times, but this was the first time back since losing her sight. Part of her thought it would be pointless without the view, but the smell of lilac blowing up from below was sweeter than she remembered, and the caress of the breeze on her face was soothing. After being bedridden for weeks, she was glad to do something physical. 

“It’ll be an easy reintroduction. Come on.” 

She felt a tug on her harness as Jay attached her to her rope, then heard the click of him connecting himself. This was it. Her fingers trembled only slightly as she held the rope and, with Jay’s guidance, started backing toward the ledge. 

Getting started was difficult, but Jay’s calm and easy instructions got her through the worst of it. The two of them sat side by side in their harnesses against the cliff face. 

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Jay asked, bouncing lightly from foot to foot against the rocky wall. A few pebbles skittered under his boot and fell, clacking down the jagged wall and coming to rest somewhere out of sight. “You okay Laura?”

“Little anxiety. Gimme a second.” She felt the breeze against her body and held fast to the rope, taking deep steady breaths. 

Laura heard a snap , and a sound like rope unravelling fast. She scrabbled for the rock face, finding handholds, clinging to the rock, frozen. A sound. A crumpling from below like a backpack thrown to the ground after a long hike. Her rope still held tension. She leaned back, testing her harness. It held. She exhaled as relief flooded her. 

“Jay?” Silence. Laura held her breath. 

“Jay?!” She waited, “If this is a joke it’s not fucking funny.” 

She reached one timid arm to the left, holding her rope fast with her right. Jay was right beside her, had to be. She felt nothing but open air.

“Oh shit. Oh fuck. Oh-God-oh-God-oh-God.” a throbbing in her temple reminded her to breathe. She inhaled a long, trembling breath, “JAY!!!”. Only the reverberation of her voice in the ravine was returned to her. Startled birds evacuated the oak they’d secured their lines to. She reached for her back pocket before remembering Jay had put both their phones in the small waist pack he wore. 

Having no idea what she’d do when she got down there, she began lowering herself on the line. The descent into the ravine was agonizing. Her arms burned. Her lungs filled with fire. She could taste acid. 

When her feet finally found purchase on the unsteady rock, she collapsed in a heap. Her arms were numb. She gulped breath.

She felt around her, calling out for Jay. She could hear the gentle rushing of the small river that ran through the ravine. She remembered reading in a wilderness guide that searching in outward spirals was the most effective way to find a missing person. She kept her rope fastened to her waist and began crawling in a circle, letting the rope out a little further each time the sound of the river was closest.

She heard a moan to her right and reached out. Jay. She felt sticky hair and smelled metal. “Oh God, Jay, I’m here. I’m here.” 

She scuffled closer on scraped knees and palms, curling herself around him, careful not to move his body. With uncertain, trembling fingers she felt for signs of life. He had a pulse. He was breathing. He was alive, but barely. She placed a palm on a forehead that didn’t feel hard enough, or shaped quite right. A flap of scalp hung loose. He groaned beneath her. 

“Hold on. Please hold on.” She fumbled for his waist pack and located her cell phone. She jammed her thumb onto the fingerprint scanner and heard it beep to life. She felt dizzy. “Siri. Call 9-1-1.”

Everything went black.

She awoke to the sound of helicopters.

James straightened his tie as the limousine stopped out front of the restaurant. Mr. Frank Kravenport, the CEO of Kravenport Industries, surprised them with reservations to some French place where it was impossible to get a table. It was to be a memorial dinner for their colleague Doug Longman. Cancer.

“We’re here boys!” Frank’s voice roared, “Ahh, ain’t we in for a treat?”

James and three others waited while Frank hefted his weight from the limo before following him onto the deep red carpet that led to the front door. An elaborate awning in matching red bore the name “Le Restaurant de l’Homme” in gold script. James hadn’t taken French since 8th grade, but apples vaguely came to mind.

As the hostess led their small group of suit-clad men through the maze-like dining area, the smells from the food were intoxicating. The dimly lit tables provided a relaxing atmosphere. Strange paintings hung on the walls. James scanned the room, seeing portraits in various styles, all in elaborate gold frames. One painting caught his eye as looking just like Jeffrey Dahmer, but was probably some French icon.

The private table reserved for Frank in the back was expertly set with gold rimmed china and crystal glassware. Red napkins dazzled in gold rings. Fancy, James thought as they were seated.

“Now, boys, you know why we’re here. I took the liberty of pre-ordering for you. Steaks, as this is a special occasion.” Frank looked around the table at James and his colleagues, his face suddenly falling to a grim stare. “I’ve asked you all here firstly to honor Doug’s work, and secondly to see if any of you have what it takes to step up and fill his shoes. You can tell a lot about a man by what –and how– he eats.” His wide-mouthed grin returned and he looked around the table again.

The men each visibly straightened in their chairs. They knew Frank was looking to fill Doug’s position. He wanted someone with guts and someone who was ruthless. James looked sideways at his competition. Mike was vegan, and he already looked visibly shaken, so was hardly competition. He was already sweating.

The kitchen doors burst open and a train of three servers brought the pre-ordered steaks to their table. James thanked his waiter, who smiled down at him, “Bon appetit, monsieur.”

The steak glistened. It was huge, smothering nearly three quarters of the oversized plate. A small side of sauteed asparagus accompanied the meat, but nothing else.

Frank raised his crystal glass, “To Doug!” he proclaimed.

The other men raised their glasses in unison.

Frank had a fork and knife in his hand and was sawing away at the juicy cut on his plate. James followed suit, and stole a glance at Mike who was holding his utensils, the blood drained from his face.

“I’m sorry Mr. Kravenport. I can’t.” He simultaneously pushed the plate away from himself and his chair away from the table.

Frank grinned and motioned with his hand for Mike to leave, “You can pick your things up on Monday”. Mike made a quick exit.

And then there were three.

Ruthless.

James wouldn’t be intimidated. He eagerly cut up and began eating his steak, which was chewy and delicious. He kept close watch on his colleagues. Peter to his left was making steady progress. Matt to his right seemed to be having trouble. Frank was nearing completion. James ate faster, taking brief sips of water from the heavy, faceted crystal glass between bites.

Frank stared at them, a fevered grin on his face and grease shining on his lips. “Atta boy!” he was speaking directly to James, “nothing like a good steak to put iron in your blood!”

James smiled, meat juices coating his chin. Frank continued.

“In this business, you need to go for the throat until you taste blood. We need men at the top who will not hesitate to devour the competition.”

James finished, putting his fork and knife down.

Frank laughed hard, his hand slapping the heavy table.

James felt the steak heavy in his stomach. He looked down on his plate. A hair, silver, just like Doug’s. His stomach clenched. He tasted bile. He held his food and Frank’s eyes while he listened to the men on either side of him vomit.

And that was how James became Vice President of Kravenport Industries.