ShortFiction

He didn't understand. How had he ended up here in this dank, dark crackerbox of an apartment that reeked of the old pizza, empty beer and tequila bottles? His head groaned volumes and his feathered tongue tasted like vomit. Yet another of seemingly countless MTV commercials blasted for attention through the bluish glow of the tube. His T-shirt and underwear were sticky with sweat.

   The couch was hard and hot against his back and buttocks. He held his head in his hands and looked down at the many cigarette burns that stippled the carpet. Boy, that was going to cost him an arm and a leg when he moved out. Worry about that next year. Yeah, later.

   Every thing was tomorrow, manana, domani. He hadn't shaved for two days, since Friday. Hadn't taken a bath in three days. He had combed his hair this morning, slapped some water on his face, rubbed on another coating of clammy stick deodorant. But the same Metallica T-shirt since Friday afternoon, same scrubby blue jeans. Three months worth of bill receipts and unopened junk mail piled precariously on the small glass-topped kitchen table. Various items of clothing hung limply from the kitchen chairs. Little lumps in assorted shades of gray and black lay scattered across the rug and joined the husks of dead roaches on the kitchen floor. Got to vacuum some day, mop that damned kitchen floor. Worry about that later. Always later. Can't afford to worry. He worried too much about everything. All the small things clamored for attention. Have another drink, no worries. Get the shakes and sweats if you worry. Not now.

   Dorian was bored, bored, bored. But he didn't want to actually do anything and he didn't know why. Nothing seemed to be worth any effort No going out where there were people. He couldn't bear to be seen. He shook out another smoke and lit it without thinking. He couldn't escape anymore in his dreams because he didn't dream. No sleep, no dreams. He used to dream. Dreams were one of his few pleasant experiences. He could do anything he wanted to in his dreams. Nothing was illegal, or immoral, or bad. No police in his dreams. He was instantly forgiven for his dreams when he woke. No explanations, no recriminations. Dreams were worlds to explore and exploit with no controls. Nobody to tell you what was right and what was wrong. He could be a leader or a follower. Dreams were the purest freedom. He could fly or create without any boundaries. He wished he could be there, in a dream.

   He couldn't sleep, hadn't slept in a week. He was smoking too goddamn much. But, yes sir, good old "alckeehol" was there to help him along. So much juice and it was pass out time. That was welcome relief.   Problem was, the genie in the booze bottle slapped him over the head, but good, before it bestowed blessed unconsciousness. A lot of guilty pain in those noggin wrackers. Every mistake in his life came to bear down on him with the gory details. Failure with a capital "F" that doesn't rhyme with the other "F" word, but amounted to the same thing. Drugs on the job. He'd gone through four jobs as a civilian, getting let go for suspicion of doing drugs, making bad decisions, or just plain weird behavior. He could see it coming every time, but had to take a few tokes, drop a few pills just to stay level. Drugs weren't bad, he was. He just couldn't handle the real world, or people for that matter. Drugs let him see through a bright filter that made everything funny or, at least, acceptable.

   The one right move he had made was to join the Navy, and now he was screwing that up. No drugs in the Navy. He stayed clean and liked his job. Liked the people he worked with. Nine years went by and he was happy. Then, things changed, so gradually, it took him two years to notice a difference. By then, he didn't want to work anymore. First, he couldn't wait until work was over and he could go to his apartment and hide from everyone. The drinking started. Then he wanted to stay home. He still liked his work and the people involved, but no work, no pressure. He hated the pressure of thinking he had to do something. The pressure of actually doing something. The pressure of having to talk intelligently with others. He hated himself when he felt the pressure. Hated himself for wanting to hide. Hated himself for hiding. Hated himself for drinking. He was just no good. No good to himself, no good to the Navy, no good for the world.

   He was bright buddies with the drink. He'd quaffed his first brew at the tender age of twelve and a relationship blossomed. He had drinking problems before he joined the Navy. Drinking went with drugs and he'd had a six-month affair with gin, straight gin--no mixed drinks for him, ever. What was the point of mixing good whiskey with soda? That just delayed the buzz. And the buzz was why you drank, right? Then he'd quit the gin cold. No problem, except for a couple days of wanting it. He was having major trouble classifying his present drinking as a problem, though. Tequila was more like a solution to his little worries. A few shots and everything became unimportant. Beer wasn't just some rationalization, it was a real answer to feeling good, for a little while, at least. Combine the two, and the ultimate escape came with oblivion. The dynamic booze duo let him hide out from a recently strange world. He could duck a few hours of his racing thoughts.

   The closed venetian blinds at every window in his small one bedroom apartment blocked out the too bright days and too curious people that passed by. No way he wanted to socialize, to go out and talk to those people. They kept whispering to themselves about him. He felt like he had lost things, but he didn't know what or why. He was living in a tin can of his making and he couldn't climb up the side to get out. Something was very wrong. He rubbed his beard stubble. Thank God for this weekend. Now it was Sunday and his safeness was crumbling away. Tomorrow he shipped out on a six-month Westpac. First stop Australia, then to the Persian Gulf for some very hot cruising.

   He was excited and afraid about that. Six months of actually doing the job, with no more escaping, no more hiding out. Oh, he had some plans for getting back on track. There would be a known quantity of work and the same people every day. Maybe the ship would be safe. No more shore bullshit, having to deal with civilian contractors and shore people who didn't have a clue. He'd work out every day and drop 30 or so pounds. He'd start a journal of his travels and experiences. He'd make the most of his liberty and really see some of the foreign ports the ship would visit. But, he was afraid of doing these new things. What if something went wrong? Could he do what it took to make things work for him? He didn't know.

   He did know people were trying to look at him through his apartment windows like he was in some zoo. Oh yeah, unbelievable but true. He felt these men and women, even the children, wanted something from him that he wasn't willing to find, much less give.

   What the hell, they were walking around and around him, talking quietly with each other, sneaking glances at him. What were they planning for him? What plans did they have for themselves? He felt that he understood the situation, but he didn't think that he did. This was some strange. Feel one thing, think another. The dark in his apartment was a soft, safe place to be for him. He could feel it curl its edges around him like a wall with him safely in the center. The dark helped him to not concentrate, not focus on all the new sensations that were starting to run through him in a torrent.

   He got up and walked over the gritty carpet to the kitchen. He ignored the clacky pile of dirty dishes in the sink, the overflowing kitchen garbage and opened the refrigerator. Beer, frozen pizza, some bread and luncheon meats. It was the short list of a survivor. He popped open another beer. He tasted the smooth malt, the coldness of the water. He caressed the bubbles with his tongue and knew without thinking the beer was old, transported one year ago to a warehouse and was unquestionably produced in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. So much information in one damned swallow! Did he know this already from common sense or was it real information from that swallow? He walked back into the living room and slumped on the couch. His couch was like the greatest all-time thinking and receiving control center. Wow, what a concept! A tide of revelations swept through his head.
Revelation number 1009. He was receiving other people's thoughts. Science fiction fantasy time! He could smell their desires and taste their wants, not with his nose or tongue but inside his head. He felt a new awareness in his mind. It wasn't like something added but something that had always been there and was just surfacing now. Desire smelled like hot metal. Musky, tangy and with a hint of the earth. Wants were like stirring sweet and sour sauce with your tongue. Sticky and one time sour, one time sweet, but you never knew when you'd get one or the other. He felt warmth pouring behind his eyes to fill his head. He felt good for the first time in months.

   He flexed his hand and watched the rounded flanks of muscle working in concert beneath a crosswork of ribboned veins. He felt the pulse of the blood flowing in them and sensed paths of communication opening with the rushing corpuscles and blood cells. He also sensed something deep inside, maybe in his nerve endings. Like cold rushing water. People outside his little apartment were anxious and unsure of what to do. A stream of their emotions bolted though him with electric shock. Surprise, fear, nervousness and finally wonder. Things were becoming clearer. His eyes felt heavy and thick with too much information. Every little detail of his surroundings was being effortlessly transmitted to his brain for permanent recording. So much information, again! Every time he began to think the dust was settling, something new surfaced.

   God, the colors. Even in the dark, blues, reds, greens, yellows bloomed into his eyes with neon intensity. Shadows loomed with razor-sharp edges. Browns and grays sat on the senses like rock. He turned on the end table lamp. The flooding of colors and details into him made him nauseous. Hold on, boy, hold on! Don't panic now! Off with the lamp, but quick! Too late. Now, everywhere he looked came though brilliantly lit like he had a searchlight on his forehead. And, oh my, what have we here? He could taste the couch, the end table, the lamp with his hands. He could sense strength or frailty with the tips of his fingers. Information city, man!

   They knew about him. Who were they? They, them, people. He could sense their presence around him, outside on the streets. They had always known about him. They had always watched him. Now they were excited about him, but were being very, very careful. He was safe from them. He was growing, opening like a bud to flower. He was different, now. He was alien to them. He knew these things to be true. The thoughts just appeared in his brain like dreams came in sleep. But, he was awake and the reality of what was happening was stupefying. How could this happen to him? Were his parents his real parents, or was he an alien come to contact the earthlings? He bolted across the room and shut off the television. He'd just realized the damned thing was aiming all its messages at him. What an undertaking, to produce commercials and shows all directed to him! This was too huge, man! He must be going loony.

   Dorian sat back on the couch and gripped the cushions tightly in his fists. What was real here? Alcohol couldn't do this to him and he couldn't do drugs in the Navy. Was this some allergic reaction? He didn't think so. Everything felt very real. His body felt funny, like a river was coursing through it. This had better be over soon. He had to go to work tomorrow. He had to sleep, but he didn't need to sleep. He lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply. Things seemed to slow down. He thought about the damage he was doing to his lungs. His lungs felt warm and he thought about the individual cells. The cells answered back that they were healing themselves. Answered back. This was like the Twilight Zone revisited. He stood up and stretched widely. His muscles lengthened with a smooth happy response. Now his muscles were talking to him, telling him what a good thing he was doing. He sat and focused on the palm of his hand. All the wrinkles and lines meant something. He felt the significance, but couldn't sort out the information in them. Not yet. It was a unfamiliar map. It would come, he felt.

   He had to do something. No more beer, no more tequila. He went in the kitchen a filled the teakettle from the tap. He put it on to boil and ground some coffee beans for the French press. Hot coffee appealed to him. He lit another smoke and sat at the kitchen table to begin sorting out the mound of paperwork. Bill receipts to the left, miscellaneous information to the right, bullshit on the floor. It suddenly occurred to him he would be gone for six months and the place was filthy. He got up and searched out the vacuum, crammed into his bedroom closet under a pile of dirty clothes. He grabbed the mop from the cobwebbed side of the refrigerator and put it into the sink. While the sink was filling, he decanted his coffee. Then it was on to the vacuuming, one swath here, next swath parallel to it, perfectly, all swaths joined for a whole. The carpet was clean for the first time in a month.
He mopped the tiled floors in the kitchen and bathroom. Several swipes against each wall molding, then inner swirls to efficiently cover the inner floor. Again, a perfect cleaning. A half-hour's work, performed to exacting standards, each movement with its own time and place. He was cataloging his performance in steps, automatically, without really thinking about it. Then on to filing the paperwork and packing his uniforms and sundries into green canvas sea bags. Fold here, fold there, everything just so. Another hour slipped by. It's not enough, it's not enough. What next? A big fat nothing, that's what.

   Dorian returned to the kitchen and grabbed his untouched cup of coffee. He suddenly bent almost double. He was starting to hear inside his mind, something, like voices. "Should we let him go on this cruise? Will he be safe? Will we be safe?" He shouted "Quiet!" in his thoughts. "Please, be quiet!" He drank a sip of cold coffee. He felt emergency crews in two ambulances circling in the streets. "Is he going to lose it? What the hell will we do if he does?" He felt deep sadness settling over him. It was six o'clock at night, and these new things, these new sensations just weren't ending. They wouldn't go away. The old him was becoming indistinct on the horizon, evaporating in this maelstrom of extra senses and other people's thoughts.   What was happening to him? Was he dangerous to other people? Is this why this complicated net of monitors was around him? He didn't want to hurt anybody. Could he hurt someone accidentally, with his thoughts? He didn't know.

   Some one was coming to the door. A loud knocking. He pulled his fingers half-heartedly though his tangled hair and cracked open the door. "Hey, how are you," said a slight middle-aged man with long, dark hair and a beard. "I came to fix your plumbing problem." He held up a flat red and rusting tool box. Dorian screwed up his concentration and said, " You've got the wrong place."   Dorian watched the slight trembling of the man's hands. "Well, if you're sure everything's all right," the man said. He looked straight into Dorian's eyes with a sad quizzical expression. "Everything's O.K. here," Dorian managed to squeak out. Drops of perspiration dotted his forehead and chin. "Well, all right. Sorry 'bout that and good night," the man gave a half wave and walked off in the evening dusk. Dorian closed the door and leaned against it. What was that about? He squeezed his eyes tightly shut. At just the minute he felt like he was going crazy, this guy shows up and asks him if he's all right. Then the man walks out of the apartment complex without checking with the other apartments to see who called for a plumber. Dorian sighed deeply. So maybe he wasn't going quietly mad, he wasn't just imagining all these things he sensed. Maybe it was real. He felt a warming up with the notion someone was watching over his well-being. He also felt a stifling sense of being caged in by watchers.

   He sat down at the kitchen table and put his elbows on his knees. Sharp pains lanced through him. His elbows were swollen and hurt to bend. Was this part of what was happening to him? His elbows had bothered him for over three months. He knew he should go to a doctor about his aching joints, but was afraid the doctor would find out about him and his hiding, his drinking. Then they would want to put him away and he couldn't stand the thought of being locked up. He had to be free to see the sky, and the stars, to feel the wind on his face. Almost poetic, for a crazy man. Maybe he could heal himself. He concentrated on feeling his elbows, feeling deep inside them. They began to tingle with warmth. He could feel the nerves quieting and a lukewarm sensation of flooding inside the joints. The pain gently receded. He flexed his right elbow experimentally. No pain. It was probably just his imagination.

   The voices came, again. It was his whisper but not his thoughts. It was other people's thoughts, a lot of them. Inside his head. He looked at the clock. Seven o'clock. Seven o'clock and all's gone to hell in a hand basket!   The voices crowded in. "How's he doing? How's everyone doing? Is everyone all right? Has he forced anyone to act?" Had he forced anyone? God, could he do that? "Is he reading us?" "It's possible, but hard to tell. He's forted up tight in that apartment." "Does he know we're here?" "I think so. I think he caught the plumber act." The voices made him tired, but he wasn't sleepy. He didn't see the need for sleep, now. Too many interesting things were going on inside him.
Strictly for the purposes of experimentation, don't you see, he relaxed his mind and cast around for the voices. Immediately, the voices resolved with real locations. There was some kind of radio truck two blocks away that seemed to be in control of the two ambulances and several other vehicles circling his apartment. The "plumber" was in a red pickup with a partner. There were also two-man teams in a Chevy blazer, A Ford Ranger and a Pontiac Seville. Man was a convenient term since there was a woman in the Chevy and the Seville. All the teams seemed to have emergency medical equipment and a large supply of anesthetizing drugs.

   Dorian wondered at the detail of what he was perceiving. He felt they wouldn't take any action except in an emergency. An emergency to him. Well, he wasn't going to become an emergency. The drugs bothered him. No one was going to put him down. He didn't trust what might happen next, if that happened. Would they confine him? Operate on him to see what made him different?

   He took a few deep breaths. He was getting way ahead of himself. Calm down, boy. Nothing was happening to him now. These people were just circling him in a wide pattern. He felt they wanted something to happen, something new, something unexpected. He was riding a new adventure and they wanted in on it. Excitement filled his belly with a tingling sensation.
He got up and stood on the coffee table to reach the overhead light on the ceiling. He carefully removed the lamp globe and stared at a small cable-like tube with a glass eye and tiny microphone lashed to it. "Hello," he shouted. "Having fun?" He pulled the cable further out, cut it loose with his pocketknife and threw it on the floor.   He jumped down and looked around the living room.   There must be more of these devices, maybe even one in the bathroom. He just didn't care and in some weird way it made him feel safe. Let them watch, but God help any of them trying to grab him. He was certain he could do something about that. Where had that thought come from?

   He felt a sense of power and it was exhilarating. He could sense other people, even their thoughts. He could hear the ticking of the alarm clock in his bedroom, the running water in the pipes, the light buzz of electronics in his stereo. He could taste the rain coming tonight, the ozone in the thunderclouds, the delicate scent of the flowers and trees budding in the apartment courtyard. He could see the delicate shading of light from the living room lamp, the intricate pattern of carpet fibers, the patterns of dust mantling the cream-colored stucco on the walls. He could smell electricity streaming along wires, the flame of the water heater, the night spreading outside.

   He no longer questioned why this was happening to him. Rather, the question was "What next?" It was like he was riding a roller coaster blindfolded. The turns were dizzying and the drops made his stomach bang his rib cage. He lay down on the couch and closed his eyes. He felt the presence of others like a subtle reminder. "What is he doing, now? Does anybody know?" He chuckled gently. "He must be in the living room where the video/sound went out, so we can't see him."   Dorian raised his arms and thought, "I may not sleep, but I will have company to keep me occupied." A dead silence surrounded his thought. Then a cacophony of voices spilled out. "Did you all feel that? All units, report." "It felt like a peaceful feeling." "I felt a sense of quiet." "Boss, it felt like someone hit me with a joy stick." "How did he do that?" Dorian concentrated on nothing.

   It was early morning now. A satisfied sense of purpose filled him. Maintaining his mental silence, he took a long, hot shower. Soap here, soap there, rinse. A system of actions formulated for their ease and efficiency guided him without effort. Dry here, dry there, finished. Slip into underwear, socks on next, followed by uniform pants, shirt and belt. Ready to depart for his ship. He double-checked his packing in an exaggerated, orderly fashion, then made another pot of coffee.

   He probed outward very gently with his mind. The monitoring people were still there. Let them. His feelings of paranoia were gradually changing. He was beginning to feel safe with their presence. They might be spying on him, but it could be looked at as something for his entertainment.

   He needed to rest. He would play with them tomorrow. They wouldn't be ready for that. He lifted the couch in the air with a command. No, they wouldn't be ready.
And he would take his giant's step and say hello.

� 1999 David P. McClellan