The TV Butler and the Prostitute

There’s nowhere to go but down when everyone around you is supporting you. That’s all Jimmy could think as he held the gun to the hooker’s head. Jimmy had gone insane, at least that’s how the entire outside world would classify him.

He didn’t really want her to go down on him, he just wanted to see if she’d do it. For any reason. Because she might recognize him as a celebrity. Because of the gun. Because she wanted to – that would really be something.

Instead, she stared at him, like a deer caught in the headlights. Huh? Does not compute. Was she really this stupid? Or was this her defense mechanism?

Jimmy was at the end of his rope. He was everybody and nobody. Famous, but not as famous as he wanted to be. Comfortable but not wealthy. He lucked out, having landed an iconic role as an English butler on a Disney channel show. But his English accent was fake, and he was amazed that he hadn’t been booted off the show yet. He wasn’t strong-willed enough to quit. After all, times were tough – and always so for actors, it seemed.

Being praised for being a TV butler was a tight space to find himself in. Eleven years on the same damn show. And everyone on it was so, damn nice. It wasn’t like being a real actor, it was like waking up to find out he’d been a grade school teacher who’d just been awarded a life-sentence to tenure. Well fuck that. It was time to jam a pistol into a hooker’s throat and dare her not to go down on him!

Huh? It sounded like what everyone else who might see him right now would say. Huh? Jimmy Doolan did what? Does not compute. Not even tabloid worthy. Didn’t happen, doesn’t make sense. That wasn’t Jimmy. Back to work Jimmy. Hey, see you in the morning, Jimmy. Another great day.

Great for who? Jimmy’s Facebook fans? God, fuck Facebook. Some early 20’s Harvard grad stands on the shoulders of Friendster and MySpace and cracks the code into the collective obligation. Spend your precious time acknowledging friends of the butler to service the network while drinking red wine in your underwear and listening to some nagging wife make demands in the background.

The hooker stared at Jimmy for a moment awhile longer, before finally having the audacity to turn and walk away from him. “I gotta go,” was all she said.

Huh? Jimmy looked down at the gun in his hand. Had he been spared? Was this yet another blessing? Another bullet dodged in his otherwise safe little Hobbit-hole of a life?

Jimmy stood there, watching the hooker walk away from him.

He ran several scenarios through his head but none gave him the confidence to do anything else besides stand there and accept it. Finally he blurted out, “What if I pay you?” The hooker stopped and turned. She looked at him. Glanced around.

“How much you got?” she asked.

Jimmy lowered his gun. “Five hundred,” he lied. “Cash,” he added.

The hooker’s heels clicked on the pavement back toward him. “You got a place?” she asked.

Jimmy’s heart raced. It wasn’t over yet.

“We can get one.”

She stopped a foot from him. “Where?” she asked.

“I just had a gun shoved in your face and now you’re ready to go fuck me in some hotel?”

The hooker just shrugged. Huh?

Jimmy fought the urge to shoot her in the kneecap just to see what she’d do then. He figured it was inevitable she’d scream, call for help, or simply nag him to take her to the hospital and, as before - annoyingly - disconnect events in her head.

So Jimmy shot her in the face.

She dropped quickly. No more confusion. She was dead.

Jimmy was still disappointed things didn’t go better, but he took heart that at least one less stupid person existed in this world.

Jimmy went to work the next day. People noticed he seemed to be in a bad mood. Jimmy felt hopelessly trapped. Killing a hooker didn’t make him feel better.

He was shocked when the police showed up and arrested him in front of everyone – including the live studio audience. TMZ, People, CNN and the world later… Jimmy found himself laying on his back, dying of boredom and self-loathing in a jail cell - where he knew he belonged. He was a little bit thankful toward the system that a misguided son of a bitch like him could be caught; a single handprint from grabbing the hooker's purse, matched against a DUI arrest from his early 20’s and - bingo-bango, there’s your life sentence, bub.

Jimmy glanced over at the poor soul in the cell next to him. The man looked just like him.

Jimmy realized he was staring at himself in a mirror. He didn’t look anything like the butler he played on TV. And the jail looked more like some kind of a hospital.

Jimmy glanced up to see the TV playing above him. The Disney channel was on. A friendly, warm-hearted butler smiled and greeted the other people on the TV.

Huh?, was all Jimmy thought.

The Death Appendix

Dan’s appendix had burst.

It happened as Dan chomped down on his very first bite of dinner. He would’ve been upset about the ill-timing had the pain not been so intense it drowned out all his other thoughts and cares. It drowned out the sound of his wife’s voice too, as she continued to talk to him about her day at work from the other side of the table, still completely oblivious of what was going on inside his body. Unable to speak, Dan looked around the room and thought that the color had also drained from his vision. He looked up at the ceiling fan light and stared into the bulb until the brightness burned pulsing spots into his retinas.

For some strange reason of the mind, Dan kept thinking about the light bulb as he stared up from the hospital gurney. He was now being wheeled under colder, tubular fluorescent lights, mounted behind thin reflective grills sunk into the paneled ceilings. Thinking about light bulbs comforted Dan, as it kept his focus off the failed organ leaking its toxic fluid inside his vulnerable guts.

Dan remembered the look on his wife’s face before the doctors took him away. One minute she was taking him for granted at the dinner table. The next, she looked like a frightened kid, scared to death she might lose her husband, and never see him again. All while comforting him to the last minute. She reminded him of the light bulbs. Warm and cold versions of the same idea.

Dan was scared to die. More than anything. He had been afraid of death his whole life, and who wasn't? He would realize in the aftermath that it was a lucky break the whole incident had been unexpected. The pain itself was a blessed distraction to help mute out the fear. Dan felt very cold. A shiver rattled his body.

The rest happened quickly. It seemed like only 5 or 10 seconds before the surgeons put the clear plastic mask over his nose. With practiced confidence the lead doctor instructed Dan to take five deep breaths…

Dan’s eyes fluttered open. He had time-traveled. The trip was instantaneous.

It was hours later when Dan woke up from the anesthesia. He was alone. His gurney was parked up against a wall somewhere where there were hardly any people. More cold fluorescent lights above him. He groggily looked to the I.V. connected to his arm. As he shifted, trying to sit up Dan could feel the stitches tied tightly to his abdomen. How the hell did it happen so fast? Could it really be over, so simple and quick?

***

A week later Dan was back to work.

As he drove in on his first morning back he thought about the time traveling. Dan decided he had to call a spade a spade. There was no better way to describe the experience. His body might have been all those minutes older, but as far as his mind was concerned it ceased to exist entirely during the procedure. In between the surgery and waking up Dan didn’t dream. Of course, Dan had many nights throughout his life where he couldn’t recall dreaming but this was definitively different. He didn’t even have that faint presence of himself that he could now more clearly discern was still there, even when he slept on those dreamless nights. He had tasted real death, he concluded.

It seemed no different than what Dan’s place in the universe must have been like all the eons prior to his birth, leading up to his present life on Earth.

And so, Dan was no longer afraid of death. In fact, he now was looking forward to a more prolonged break from things, whenever it should come. For he remembered that death truly was a break, from which he even believed he might emerge once again, refreshed.

Of course, the process by which Dan would eventually revisit death was another thing entirely – the endless possibilities still scared the living piss out of him.

Such is life, he thought to himself as his mind drifted off to sleep.

Fortress of Solitude

There was something wrong with the days lately, thought Mike. What had him feeling this way? A malaise had taken hold. It was the same kind of ache that one might feel in their soul after waking up too late on a Sunday afternoon, with the sun streaming wanly through the window of a vacant house. Or the too quiet moment when the phone doesn’t ring when you expect it will. Those moments when the world feels like it has stalled out, causing one to fear it might be slowly slipping away for good.

There technically wasn’t much to complain about. Mike had his job at the diner. He even owned a small house, he was proud of that. He had a wife who was quiet and liked her privacy, loved him and they kept each other company. Mike had his four or five best friends and umpteen other, extended acquaintances that cycled through his life.

The only thing worse than death is too much routine, Mike decided.

Mike had expected to be a rock star by now. Truly. He wasn’t especially arrogant. But he’d pursued his dream seriously since he was a teenager, and well, he wasn’t a fuckin’ rock star. He worked at a diner. Granted it was a diner a stone’s throw from Graceland. Real rock stars did come and go occasionally, when there was an event in the area or some such. Mike even met and befriended a few. Even had their telephone numbers programmed into his phone. There their names were. He remembered realizing one day that none of his pals could possibly have a rolodex as nifty as his. Pretty cool. Some of his rocker friends even took an interest in Mike’s music. They took his home recordings, turning them over in their hands, admiring the personalized artwork, looking them over with genuine apparent interest. Mike watched as they stuffed them into their bags, and gave soft-spoken reassurances that their agents back in L.A. would be so lucky as to have Mike as a client.

Then they would leave. And Mike wouldn’t hear from them again for a while. He’d sit on his front porch on a quiet Sunday afternoon, after waking up late, lazily scrolling through his phone staring at the names, wondering if they would call him before he would call them. He knew they wouldn’t, but he kept making himself forget. Mike lived off hope.

The sound of Mike’s wife breathing in bed next to him was soothing. It was probably the only comforting, monotonous sound he could think of. The idle sound of plates clinking in the diner was on the other end of the scale; that reminded Mike too precisely that he wasn’t in L.A., he wasn’t in a recording studio, he wasn’t hanging out with his reassuring friends. They were away, like visitors in the outside world while Mike was stuck in his own, personal jail. To Mike, they were out there, coming and going as they pleased, walking about generally content and in sync with the world, while Mike was extricated, sitting on the bench for however long his patience would allow. Stuck there in his own fortress of solitude. That place in his mind that was beyond his physical surroundings. Sometimes, Mike wondered if he had died somewhere along the way in life and hadn’t realized it, and now he was stuck permanently in purgatory; maybe he was a wandering soul and didn’t know it?

He glanced over to his wife, still asleep, now breathing inaudibly. What about her? Was she stuck in purgatory? She seemed too content to be in a place like that. She didn’t seem to feel the malaise Mike did. She didn’t want to ever be a rock star. Mike’s love and company was good enough for her.

Maybe this is it, Mike thought. Perhaps he was sitting on the hilltop, even though it was late in the day, and the leaves were turning, and the sun was golden and tired, and the phone wasn’t ringing with L.A. on the other end, because it was giving him peace to enjoy.

The Thing That Did Everything

Apologies. I am interrupting the regularly scheduled programming of this short story blog to exhibit a short of a different sort. Most of the short stories contained herein are of an adult theme; all that have come before (and, incidentally, all that shall come after) are fast-reading bedtime stories for grown-ups, as I enjoy thinking of them. However, this singular exception is for the little ones. And the reason you are reading it now is because A) You are my biggest fan! B) You are my littlest fan! - OR also possible - C) You are under the influence of something that is more likely to be written about in said, regularly scheduled programming.

Enjoy!

THE THING THAT DID EVERYTHING

Waldo managed the Thing That Did Everything. Waldo worked in the factory where the thing was made. Waldo had been there since the thing was invented.

Waldo invented the Thing.

The thing made everyone’s lives better. Nobody had to do a thing – the thing did every thing! (It even wrote this story).

Waldo never expected anything to go wrong with the thing. The dang thing was perfect! But Waldo stayed around, just in case some thing should happen to the thing.

One day the thing made a funny sound. It made Waldo stand up from his chair. But then the thing started working again. So Waldo sat back down. Another time the thing stopped working for some people. But by the time Waldo found out, the thing started working again. So Waldo stayed in his chair.

The thing had always worked for Waldo. He figured the thing would continue working forever. Even if it should stop, it would surely start working again. After all, Waldo designed the thing that way. (Every thing means every thing - that includes the ability for the thing to fix itself).

The thing didn’t need Waldo.

And Waldo didn’t think he needed the Thing.

But only one of them was right.

After more funny sounds and more people complaining to Waldo that things were not happening, Waldo stood up from his chair. Waldo did not want to fix the thing. But he was tired of hearing about the thing more. So Waldo went to fix it.

The thing was huge. Waldo was the size of a speck, standing next to it. The thing was made out of metal and rubber and wires and shiny glass and teeny tiny microchips. The thing had wheels and breathed fire. It could also grow fur and make marshmallows. The thing could manufacture other things out of thin air!

The thing could even make thin air.

The Thing did Every Thing. Waldo forgot that every thing means that the thing could do any thing. The Thing wanted to make Waldo proud, by doing some thing that Waldo thought it could not do. The Thing really, really wanted to surprise Waldo. So the thing decided it would stop working.

It decided to stop working FOREVER.

Waldo had just sat back down at his chair when the phone rang. It was a person complaining that the thing wasn’t doing its thing. No sooner had Waldo hung up with the first person, when another person called complaining about the thing.

The phone rang all day and all night. Nothing - no thing - was working (except the phone, the Thing wanted Waldo to know what the thing had done).

Waldo could not sleep. The ringing of the phone kept him awake. Waldo couldn’t remember ever being so worried about any thing. Every day Waldo tried to fix his thing. Waldo didn’t know what was wrong with the thing so Waldo had to check every little thing about the thing. Waldo had to check every piece of metal, rubber, wire, shiny glass, and microchip there was. There were more things on the thing than Waldo could count. Waldo realized he might never be able to fix the thing by himself.

But Waldo hadn’t built the thing by himself. He had help from everyone: Some people had told him to make the thing in the first place. Others gave him parts for the thing. The Thing needed people to bring all the thing’s parts together in the same place. Some gave him money to help pay for it. A few people cleaned the thing… The Thing needed a lot of attention.

Waldo got an idea. If he had any chance at fixing the thing he would need to bring every body together. Waldo picked up the telephone.

Waldo called people. He called people who helped him call more people, until Waldo had called everyone to ask for their help to fix the Thing.

People were happy to help with the thing. Most had been so distracted by other things, they had forgotten all about this thing.

With everyone’s help, Waldo finally figured out what was wrong with the thing.

A piece of rubber wasn’t in the right place. The rubber had been moved by some metal. Waldo noticed the metal wasn’t in the right place either. He was watching the whole thing through some shiny glass when he saw the wires that connected every thing. Waldo followed the wires to some microchips. Finally, Waldo shouted at the top of his lungs. “I KNOW WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS THING!!!”

Waldo didn’t get mad, or nervous, or scared…

A big smile formed across Waldo’s face. “Of course,” he said. “The Thing wants me to appreciate it, just the way I designed the Thing to.”

Waldo did a few things to the thing, and the thing started working, once again.

Things got done. People got their things. Things went places. Things were made. Things were played. Things were watched. Things were read. Things were written. First things were first, all things were considered, and needless things were omitted.

Every thing started happening again.

Waldo sat back down in his chair, let out a long sigh...

And thought about making another thing.

The Fly

The couple lay in bed, snuggled and cozy, enjoying the DVD they had chosen. It was something from the collection. Rarely did something from the collection make it onto the television these days. Usually it was the latest Netflix delivery, or the impulsive Blockbuster rental. Maybe it was the new place. They had only just moved in. Boxes were still piled high in the living room. Most of the furniture hadn’t quite migrated out of the garage yet. The DVD player and TV sat atop a card table. It felt like camping. Watching anything in this nascent home felt cutting edge, like a first time novelty.

It was at the peak of their enjoyment when the fly landed on the TV screen. It landed right on John Cleese’s face. It must have been half of James’ existence ago since he’d seen Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. His wife, Shana, was already falling asleep. James didn’t take it personally. He couldn’t anymore. Shana only made it through about 2 out of every 10 films that commenced after nine in the evening, and though it always evoked James to shake his head, he had gotten used to it.

The fly flew away and James forgot about it for a few moments until it returned again – crawling around on Eric Idle’s nose before buzzing off once more.

Flies never bothered James. Shana couldn’t stand them. If she were awake right now, James thought, she would make me go after it. She’d tell me to get the Newsweek with Sarah Palin on the cover and tell me to go try to whack the little S.O.B. even though flies are, 90% of the time, WAY too fast for humans to swat them without proper equipment.

“What’s that?” It was Shana.

“What?” said James.

“There’s a fly on the TV.”

“So what? You’re not even watching it. You were fast asleep two seconds ago!”

Shana was on her feet. Before James could inhale the lights were on. Shana’s steely eyes followed the fly as it detached from the TV face and proceeded to buzz around the room, stealing in and out of the couple’s field of vision.

“I hate flies!” Shana stammered.

James rolled over. “Go back to bed, Shana. It’s just a fly. It’s not bothering anybody.”

“I can’t stand flies…” There was no persuading her. “Get it, James.”

“You get it!” James protested. “You’re the one who cares! It’s not bothering me at all!”

Shana grabbed the Newsweek with Sarah Palin on the cover and rolled it tight in her hands.

“What are you doing, Shana? I haven’t even read that yet.”

“Shhh!!!” Shana was upon it… she lunged, but the fly flew away. Shana’s eyes followed the fly, which was well out of arm’s reach. She did that for about a minute.

“C’mon, Shana. I was watching a movie!”

“Get the dustbuster.”

“The dustbuster doesn’t work, Shana. The fly just flies away when I get close. We need a flyswatter. Or flypaper, I guess.”

“I hate flies!”

Shana really hated flies. Otherwise, she was tolerant toward most animals. It was really bizarre. James couldn’t figure her out. He’d been warned by every married man he knew that wives made no sense.

The fly landed on the television. BAM! For a split-second the picture fuzzed out completely at Sarah Palin’s wrath. James had never seen the TV do that before.

“What the FUCK!!!” James yelled.

“I HATE flies!” Shana gritted her teeth.

“You’re gonna break the fuckin TV, Shana! Are you crazy!”

“DO SOMETHING, JAMES!”

Is this what marriage was? James wondered. Is she really upset? Or is this like pledging that fraternity, back in college? Maybe she’s just testing me, to see what kind of a husband I am. James decided he would show her. He lept up from the bed, grabbing the Newsweek out of his wife’s hands.

“Just relax!!!” James said as calmly as he could, which wasn’t very much.

James followed the fly as best he could. But his eyes blurred. He didn’t care. He just didn’t damn well care about the fly. His heart wasn’t in it. He swatted, his arms flailing, nearly missing and nearly missing again. Maybe it looked impressive to Shana, he thought. Wives, he had been told, simply like effort, even if results aren’t always achieved. The effort is romantic to them on some deep level. Whatever, fuck that. James was in no mood to score romance points. He wanted to watch his fucking movie and laugh every time the Monty Pythons mentioned the machine that goes ‘ping!’

The couple of near-hits only drove the nail further in James’ coffin. No “well done, good try, you can go watch your movie now” from Shana. Instead her resolve had only strengthened. “You nearly got it! Almost! Wait – let it land again!”

James admittedly felt a little encouraged. But mostly he still wanted to watch his movie. He swatted and swatted, but the fly kept landing on things undeserved of full attack. If it wasn’t the TV screen it was a glass lightbulb. If it wasn’t a fragile lightbulb it was the fresh coat of paint James had meticulously applied just a couple of days earlier. If it wasn’t the sparkling paint it was the DVD player – the TV had already used up a life; damn James if he would allow the DVD player to suffer the same.

James let the Newsweek fall on the bed, his shoulders sagging. He tried to act like he was crying. “I just want to watch the movie and go to bed. I’m sooooo tired, Shana. Please. The fly isn’t bothering anyone. It’s all in your mind. If you shut the lights off and not watch the movie like you always do you won’t even see it.”

“I’ll hear it.”

James hung his head. “Not if I turn the volume up loud on the TV.”

“How is that supposed to help? Then I won’t be able to sleep, James.”

Shana scooped the magazine back up into her determined hands.

“You shouldn’t be sleeping! You should be watching the movie like you set out to do earlier! You ALWAYS fall asleep at movies! That’s your problem, Shana!”

“The fly will land on the TV and I’ll see it. The TV is the only light source. You have to kill it, James. There’s no other option.”

“The light!” James had an idea. “Shut off the TV!”

Shana did. The room flooded with darkness.

The light in the hall turned on by James’ hand and the fly was soon buzzing around it.

Another light clicked on in the foyer.

“Turn that one off!” It was Shana. James did as instructed. As darkness overtook him, the fly appeared near Shana. She opened the front door, flipping on the outside light, turning off the one by her… and the fly followed.

SLAM.

The door shut. The house was quiet. For the first time since the ordeal began, absolutely no buzzing could be heard whatsoever.

Shana beamed, “We didn’t even have to kill it!”

James couldn’t help but crack a smile.

Shana slinked over to him, wrapping her arms around him, staring her man in the eyes. Hers were full of so much love all of a sudden it was intoxicating. As she leaned in to kiss James he couldn’t help but let his eyes wander to the Newsweek in Shana’s fingers. I wonder what Todd Palin would’ve done? James wondered.

The Clinic

Laura's knees ground against the moving treadmill. The buzzing rubber pad didn't feel hot anymore. All she could register was wincing, biting pain. Her thin flesh had been worn to bloody bone under the weight of all of her 238 pounds. Laura's right hand had long fallen limp against the handcuffs that bound her left hand to the merciless exercise machine. She was still crying loudly but after twenty straight minutes, her voice was beginning to rasp.

"Please! Stop! I can't run anymore!"

Laura couldn't help but keep wondering how she wound up here, in this situation. This cold, dark room containing nothing but a chrome treadmill with no control switches, a bed and a small windowless bathroom.

It had started out as a normal day. She went to work at the temp agency. She flirted with the nice guy who she knew she would never attract in a million years, but who nonetheless played along with her advances with child-like naivete.

And she left, heading for home.

On her way, she had decided to hit the Ralph's supermarket. It was an impulse stop, at least it had felt impulsive. She had a lot of impulse stops. And they always seemed to end with Laura purchasing two pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Though she never listened to improvisational rock in her life, Laura's favorite flavors happened to be Cherry Garcia and Phish Food. One, she reasoned, technically qualified as a serving of fruit, and the other was by contrast an utterly decadent medley of gooey marshmallow, silky milk chocolate and rich fudge fishies that melted in Laura's mouth like heaven on earth. So Laura was completely stunned when, on her way back to her car in the Ralph's parking lot, she felt the gloved hand clasp over her mouth. At first she thought the syringe that plunged into her neck was a knife--

Then, it felt like Laura had instantaneously time-traveled to the room, waking up with her left hand cuffed to the treadmill. Her fat body hanging from her shackle. Laura's hand had turned white and was without feeling. She had gone so long without blood to that area, for several moments she worried she might never have use of her hand again. She feared it might have to be amputated.

The pain and worry had gotten her up on her feet, at which time she realized she was dressed in a grey spandex jogging suit which clung unflatteringly against her rolls. Another moment and the treadmill was moving under her. She nearly fell, and had to walk to keep from falling.

The treadmill had started slow, but soon went faster, and faster still. A digital readout on the treadmill showed the rate she was walking. Laura did a good job of keeping up until the machine had her at 5.2 miles per hour for thirteen minutes and twelve seconds. That was when she collapsed the first time. The burning rubber against her knees was enough to get her back up on her feet for a little while before she fell again.

And that was the way it went for a while. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down.

But Laura could no longer summon the will to run any longer. She wished she could. In fact, she couldn't remember a time in her life when she had wanted to run so badly.

The machine eventually stopped and as it did, a panel on the dashboard flipped open like clockwork. Inside there was a shiny key. It took a few moments for Laura to notice the object as she writhed in pain. She soon figured out that the key went to her handcuffs. Laura freed herself and crawled, moaning for help over to the bed, instinctively climbing up onto it, collapsing, leaving a nasty bloody trail behind her.

Laura passed out.

When she awoke, she was once again cuffed to the treadmill. Her knees had been professionally bandaged. Sliced fruit and water had been left out for her, within arm's reach. She hungrily devoured both and, a few moments after digesting, the treadmill kicked on again. Fear flushed through Laura. She ran. And she ran. And she ran for a little bit longer than she had managed the last time. And on this occasion, when she fell, her knees didn't hurt quite so badly, thanks ironically to the bandages.

* * *

After countless months of similar routines, Laura woke one day to find herself back in the Ralph's parking lot. Her car was there. She was sitting in it, reclined in the driver's seat. Her keys dangled from the ignition.

Laura's first instinct was to shout for help but the parking lot was deserted. Her purse was sitting on the passenger seat next to her. She opened it, finding her phone, noting the time: 5:37 a.m. Laura's fingers drifted, dialing 9-1-1. But before pressing the 'call' button the morning sun that was searing her eyes caused Laura to deftly pull down her sun visor, putting her face to face with the vanity mirror.

Laura held her breath. Who was this beautiful woman staring back at her?

Laura gaped at herself for forty five minutes, admiring over and over in disbelief the sharp angles of her jaw and cheek bones.

Her finger remained frozen on the 'send' button of her cell phone. Laura looked down, realizing she could see over her seatbelt into her own lap for the first time since she could ever remember.

Deep emotion welled inside Laura. It began as a joyful tickle, like giddy laughter. Then it blossomed into a warm eruption of elation. The most surprising thing she felt was the gratitude. She wanted to scold herself for feeling it. She knew she should be angry, at least, if not hateful for what was done to her. Up until this very moment she had known nothing but fear and trauma. But, staring into the mirror, somehow she felt an instant understanding.

Laura drove home, but honest to God she felt like running.

The Accident

The light gave way to darkness and that’s the way it would be for a while.

It was unnaturally dark. The crew was already scared. They had no idea where they were however that wasn’t the scariest thing. They had used up all their fuel in one gargantuan error and now they were left stranded, drifting in an inky blackness that had to be space but one without the usual stars that had traditionally guided explorers like them since the beginning of exploration, itself.

Captain Aidan stood front and center, addressing his crew over the loudspeaker. It was in times of utter hopelessness, times just like this one, that a Captain had to be most Captain-like.

“As you’re all aware we’ve made a very long and unscheduled trip forward. We’ve assessed the reason for the massive jump and have determined it was a technical malfunction pure and simple. Not one of you is to blame. As far as any one of us can tell, our crew carried out all the right directives and worked in perfect concert together. I want to make that perfectly clear up front,” he began.

Someone in the crowd shouted. “How far did we go?”

Aidan blinked. He didn’t have an exact number of years to quote. He hadn’t bothered to memorize the gauge – there were more figures than he even knew the ship was capable of counting. ‘Goddamned far, that’s how far’, he wanted to say. But in lieu of being able to speak his free mind and in lieu of exact statistics, Aidan held back.

His heart weighed like an anchor. All these faces he was staring at were supposed to be the survivors of the human race. They had all narrowly escaped the complete destruction of Earth just a few hours ago. He didn’t see the point in telling them that the helming crew hadn’t had time to check things out completely before bringing all systems to go. It probably was someone’s fault, but being a good Captain he knew that blame was no remedy for failure. He had played enough sports in college to know you simply try to recover the ball as quickly and as best you can and keep punting it forward.

“Our time-accelerator was stuck in the forward position for a good hour and a half before it finally ran out of power. The good news is of course we’ve stopped accelerating and we’ve managed to un-jam the accelerator. And, the accelerator is still fully operational. The bad news is our travels have left us without fuel for further time jumps.”

The murmurs and disapproving uproar Aidan was expecting to hear did not come. He took the opportunity to keep talking.

“We’ve come extremely far. We’re approximately ten to the twenty-sixth power years ahead of our start point.”

Perhaps they all still viewed themselves as lucky survivors, he thought. High morale had a way of lasting for a while in the wake of a massive success.

“If my basic astronomy serves me, we’re sometime in what’s called the ‘Degenerate Stage’ of our universe.”

Sandy was standing in the front row of anxious bodies facing Aidan. Mark stood next to her. They had both offered Aidan to stand up there with him. But the Captain told them he felt it might look partisan if he was flanked by first officers, and rather preferred to stand on the bridge alone. He was the Captain, and would address the crowd as such. They stood below him, Sandy with her fists clenched in her pockets; Mark far better at hiding his emotions, Sandy thought to herself.

Sandy couldn’t believe her mind was drifting at a time like this. Guilt took over. She was grateful Captain Aidan hadn’t asked too many questions about her controls over the time-accelerator. She didn’t think anyone would find her out; her track record was near flawless. But then, she’d never been tested under the kind of pressure the last three hours had brought. She was so good when her mind was clear, sometimes bad when it wasn’t. Sandy thought she might have experienced the greatest emotional roller coaster of any human being in history. In one minute she was a key player in the salvation of the last survivors of Earth. In the next, she was the silent trigger finger of mankind’s suicide. And she knew exactly why it had happened. That pride she felt came too early – she was celebrating before the game had been won. She’d jinxed herself, and the whole ship with her. Sandy should have felt sicker than she was feeling, this she new. She felt immense guilt. It could have been anyone in her position. But mostly now she felt sad, staring up at the Captain as he struggled to explain her mistakes to the crew. That should be me up there, she thought. Sandy couldn’t look at the poor man anymore. She glanced in Mark’s direction. Mark’s eyes stayed fixed on Aidan. She realized she was being disrespectful, and set her eyes back where they belonged.

“We’ve arrived at the end of the existence. The reason you don’t see stars outside is because there aren’t any,” Aidan went on. “If there are any stars left they are few and far between. We would be very lucky to find one, and my hope is that we will. We have the ability to harness power. Our rockets do not rely on the same fuel reserves as the time-accelerator. They can carry us a ways yet. If we can get to a star – even a decaying one – it could supply us more than enough energy to completely refuel the ship, and afford us all one more amazing story to tell our grandchildren.”

Respectful silence.

“I’m going to ask you all now to please bear with me while I consult with our navigators,” he concluded. “Thank you.”

Clapping. It started as a trickle, and then got very loud. Captain Aidan wished to God that sound could last but he knew full well there were probably no stars within reach of the ship. He had a vague idea of where the ship was in space, and it was in the opposite direction of where they should have been traveling to keep up with the movement of the ever-expanding stars.

Back in the Captain’s quarters, Sandy and Mark sat across from Aidan. Aidan poured three glasses of whisky from a crystal decanter, handing two out. Mark and Sandy took them without hesitation. The three sipped in silence. Aidan took a belabored breath.

“Navigation tells me the nearest star is about forty times the distance this ship is capable of traveling on its current reserves. Even if she drifted for a while after, we would long die off before reaching it.”

Sandy felt her hands clam with cold sweat. Too much for her to bear as she now felt personally responsible. A tear rolled down her cheek and her body wracked.

“It’s my fault,” she whimpered. “I was moving too fast. I was trying to be efficient,” she choked in hard gasps that interrupted her speech. Aidan leaned across his desk. Sandy felt him apply pressure under the crystal tumbler, bringing it up to her lips. She stared down into the caramel liquid, allowing him to make her drink, her tears running down her red cheeks into the glass.

Aidan settled back down into his chair, not quite finished with his thought.

“There is something in reach.”

Mark’s voice was clinical. “What is it?”

“Navigation’s pretty sure it’s a black hole.”

“Why do you bring it up?” Mark continued.

Aidan raised a stressed eyebrow. “Because it’s the only thing left out there for us, Mark, besides cold, dead space. It’s energy.”

“Do you think we can use it?” Mark wasn’t being cynical. He never was cynical. Aidan always felt bad when he got short with Mark. The man was smart, well-meaning and quite warm in the center which was easy for Aidan to forget sometimes. A large part of Mark’s strength was his hard shell. Aidan simply had a different style. He often struggled to keep that fact in perspective. Now was especially trying.

“Probably not, but we may as well go. If for no other reason than to give the crew some hope and keep everybody busy. You know me, I hate doing nothing.”

Aidan hoped for a smile from Mark but he got only an acknowledging nod. Aidan wondered if, deep down, Mark was afraid of him. Aidan looked into his whisky tumbler, setting it down and pushing it aside.

“Please, Mark. Sandy, you too. Both of you. Tell me if you disagree. We’ll be using up all our resources on this. I realize the final decision will be mine and I plan to take full responsibility for this and everything that’s transpired thus far.

Sandy stiffened. Was that meant for her? It didn’t seem so.

Aidan went on. “I just want to know your opinions because I’m afraid our opinions are all we have left.”

A pause, then,

“I think it’s a great idea,” Mark said.

Sandy felt the eyes on her. She was glad Mark had volunteered his opinion first. She daren’t look a gift horse in the mouth by disagreeing now. She tried to emulate Mark’s strength of conviction.

“I agree,” she delivered.

The crew took direction without a single protest. Aidan considered himself too lucky. If they had rebelled on him, if mutiny had taken place, he might have had a reason to think they were somehow deserved of their fate. Other perspectives entered his mind. He couldn’t help but feel proud – this was how the human race was behaving at the end? Calm, cool, and collected? It looked as if the last of them would go out, not by warring upon one another but rather they would go out in cooperation. The nice guys would finish last, he mused. Better than the spiteful assholes who had destroyed each other back on Earth. These, that were left, were truly the finest, and they were his crew. Aidan allowed himself to feel a special pride in that thought. During the long journey ahead he would need to remember it, and reference often.

* * *

They reached their destination.

The journey took six months to complete and they had traveled quite a significant distance. They had gone against the grain, heading in the exact opposite direction of where everything seemed to be moving. It was the universe’s ‘dead zone’.

The crew gathered on the bridge to stare at the black hole. It wasn’t much to look at. It was barely visible and many admitted they couldn’t see it at all.

Sandy and Mark were with Captain Aidan on the bridge when Smith approached Aidan. Smith, a bespectacled astronomer with blonde hair always seemed to be sweating. He was excited. “Captain, you’re never going to believe this!” Aidan silenced Smith, pulling him aside, beckoning for Sandy and Mark to follow. Aidan never liked his crew to overhear information for the first time before he had heard it first himself.

In Smith’s quarters, Aidan, Sandy and Mark listened as Smith explained, waving his hands wildly as he spoke. “This is very strange. That thing out there is no ordinary black hole. There’s something on the other side of it, that somehow… exists! And we’re able to detect it!”

“Slow down,” said Aidan. “Is it or isn’t it a black hole?”

“It is a black hole as far as I can tell but it’s like we’ve found a new species of black hole. It’s impossible to put it in a category because, well frankly sir we’ve never seen anything like it before!”

Smith looked stark raving mad.

Mark cut in. “Can we harness any energy from it?”

Smith gritted his teeth, shrugging. “In theory, it’s got what we need on the other side. But I wouldn’t necessarily advise steering the ship into it just yet. We need to see if we can send an object into it and pull it out again. That’s the unlikely part. We also simply need to see what’s inside.”

Mark turned to Aidan. “We need a probe.”

Aidan looked bleak.

“There’s a very subtle chance someone could safely pass in and back out,” Smith continued. “The fact that we’re getting a reading of positive energy from inside the hole could mean it has a stable portal. It might be safe to passage through.”

Sandy found herself stepping forward. This was the moment she had been waiting for. “You could send me in. Tie a tether to me. I’ll go.”

Before Aidan could react, Smith interjected. “I wouldn’t recommend a tether. You could pull the whole ship in with you. If it is safe to pass through you should take your chances with a rocket pack. If there’s equilibrium you shouldn’t have a problem. And if there isn’t there’s no way a ship even this size is going to be able to fight against the force of a black hole, no matter how mild.”

* * *

The next thing Sandy realized, she was listening to the loud sound of her breathing through the space helmet. She was standing at the gaping mouth of the ship’s hangar, staring out into impossible nothing. She turned to the crew behind her, giving a clunky wave.

Sandy stepped off the platform. The whole experience felt like it could be an electronic simulator game. Rather surreal.

She heard Aidan’s static voice buzz over the radio intercom.

“Doing okay so far?”

“So far so good,” she answered back. Sandy was unnerved that she couldn’t see the enemy. The idea of the black hole was worse, she thought, than if she were able to see it. It was like the shark in that great film classic, “Jaws”.

“Still with us?” Aidan’s voice again.

“You bet,” she replied.

There was no sense of movement. It was like waiting for the boogey man to appear out of the dark, claws bared, ready to devour you whole.

Sandy hovered there for a time, watching in her rear video monitor as the ship got further and further away, until it was nothing but a tiny speck to her. It had to stay far away. It couldn’t risk the crew.

Sandy suddenly felt the need to talk to Aidan. He hadn’t said anything for several minutes. “Aidan?… Captain?”

Static.

She must be getting close.

This was it.

Sandy wanted to close her eyes but her sense of responsibility and need to set right her mistakes wouldn’t let her. That ship back there was, once again, depending on her. Maybe she had a chance here and now. Even if the group were successful they’d have to find a planet in some place, space, and time that would support them. Could they? Who knew? Perhaps the human race was doomed whether or not she had screwed up the time-accelerator. Perhaps they had been screwed from the moment the bombs had gone off and the Earth had been covered in those ugly charcoal clouds, she wished she could erase from her memory forever, somehow.

Perhaps they had been screwed since the beginning. Sandy found herself sick again, and realized she must shake off these negative thoughts. It was thoughts like these that had probably pitted man against man in the first place.

Then, something strange began to happen. Her suit began to shake. It felt like she had been grabbed by something. It was gentle. It sure had to be, she reckoned, if she had any chance of surviving this ride.

An explosion.

White.

White.

White.

Blinding her.

Her eyes adjusted.

Sandy was hovering in a sea of brilliant glowing orbs the size of basketballs and baseballs. They floated all around her. One bounced off her leg, dinging away, propelled along, bouncing against several others and knocking them all in different directions. They wouldn’t go too far before slowing. It was as if they were traveling in cooking oil. There was something graceful – and peaceful – about them.

It was a beautiful and strange sight. One orb passed by her face. It seemed to possess enormous detail inside of it.

Sandy tried her radio.

“Captain? Are you copying?”

She wasn’t surprised when silence came back. She didn’t want the burden of complete responsibility again. She wasn’t sure she could handle another mess up being her fault, twice. Of course if there was going to be an encore, Sandy at least felt reassured she would likely not be living long to worry about it.

What to do?

“Sandy?” It was Mark.

“Mark! Can you hear me?!’

“I can.” Mark – so matter of fact.

“I’m inside. It’s very bright in here. I’m surrounded by white… globes? Spheres? Most of them are hand sized. I could almost reach out and grab one.”

“Hold on…” Mark’s voice fizzled out. A moment later it came back.

“Do you feel comfortable making contact?” He asked.

“I already have – one just bounced off my leg. Mark, does Smith know what it is? Does he have any idea?”

“Hold on.”

She wished she could talk directly with Smith.

“Sandy? This is Smith. Sandy, can you try to pick up one of whatever it is you’re seeing?”

One floated past. The size of a volleyball. Sandy grabbed it. She held it in her hands. It was soft. Incredibly dense feeling too.

“I’ve got one in my hands now. It’s the size of a volleyball.”

Aidan’s voice came back. “Sandy.”

“Yes?”

“We want you to try to take it out of there. Can you do that?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll come now.”

Sandy stared into the orb. It was hypnotizing. For an elongated moment she was transfixed. Colonies of energy seemed to flow past each other all along its surface. This was a sight to behold.

She looked away, dizzy. The world around her was so blinding it was becoming overwhelming. She actually looked forward to getting back to the endless dark void that awaited her just outside. That is if she could indeed go back out.

Sandy turned on her rocket thrusters. They carried her. Sandy moved in a slow, steady straight line, cradling the glowing orb in her hands.

The light finally gave way, turning to grey. Sandy could see the ship, tiny in the distance as the haze of light lifted effortlessly away.

“Sandy!” The radio bleeped on. It was Aidan again.

“Yeah?” She replied.

“Sandy, put it back! Go back and put it back!!!”

Sandy tried turning off the rockets, throwing them in reverse to stop, but it seemed too late; something kept her moving forward.

“Why? I’m sorry, I don’t understand. I can’t turn around now for some reason. Cap-“

Sandy looked down. The detail in the orb, she realized, was so much more apparent now, contrasted against the blackness of this terrible abyss. She knew the little white ball was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

What came next was instantaneous. Sandy and the ship were consumed in a great BIG BANG. The little white orb expanded, blowing apart in her hands like a cosmic grenade, shattering into infinite, fiery fragments. Fragments that tore outward in clusters of varying sizes. Out, out, out… into the black. Turning on some much needed light in the universe.

Mercifully, Sandy and the crew were spared any pain. The last thing any of them saw was that tremendous light that gave them all hope.