A Short Story Central

Pending

2011-11-14T22:25:00.004+02:00

Three of the four air filter modules were now out of order. James filed a new request in the supply and repair system and watched the result message blink in orange on the screen. "Pending."

Last time he needed help he had to wait a whole week to get it. Then the main transport tunnel in his area got damaged too. The worst was, he had not received his vaccine update yet. He looked up to the flash news display over the entrance. "Population: decrease 2%."

Five years ago he started donating his share to the gene and health fund. Two of his children had survived, he was informed, and resided in baby care cells. "Not that different from me", he thought, "Isolated."

A century and a half now, since the quarantine regime has been into force. Millions had died while building the infrastructure and tuning the system that sustained the life of this world. "No", he shook his head, "Our life in this world."

It must have started a long time before that but no one saw it coming until it was too late. They have tried to tame this planet, breed the species that would feed them, and kill the ones that got into the way. Then evolution filled in the gaps that were left out open. Organisms that survived adapted to the new situation, humans and their livestock were now the main, or even only, hosts for parasites and parasitoids. The greatest effort of his society was targeted at biology and medicine research and development. "And I sit here and wait, for someone to pack and send a fucking twenty by ten by eighty centimeter module over the robot wire line, before the fourth one is down and I choke to death. Someone. Somewhere. So that I can live to help someone else live. Somewhere else. To help build a future for our children that will be born one day. Sometime. And now is just an abstract thought of an abstract notion of an eternal world that stretches outside of my twenty square meters of life. Why do I care so much, when a couple of million years from now it will not matter at all."

Impassive-agressive

2011-10-19T23:19:00.004+03:00

I wonder if it is a sign of being old
that I am not enthusiastic about people liking me or
approving what I do and say.
Criticism is a one-lane road
and I am driving backwards with my rear mirror
reflecting all those that get into my way.

And I don't really mind hurting others
so that I can prove myself right
about things I don't quite care about or care considering.
My friends love my sarcasm and sense of irony but rather
they do not understand it when I fight
to get through to issues I don't get even close to understanding.

Into the junk

2011-08-27T20:14:00.002+03:00

I can trace my fear back to hundreds of occasions when I got not quite what I wanted. Like eating tons of junk food when all I wanted was fresh home made dinner. It meant I did not do the right thing but what is worse, I did a bad thing instead.

My mom got me a small poodle when I was ten. I remember I wanted a German Shepherd and tortured her with my whining for months before she came up with this so-called "compromise". I did not even give him a name. I spent what felt like a decade walking the ridiculous ball of fur around the block, trying to hide so none of my friends could see my humiliation. I never really took care of him and one day he was gone. My mom had tears in her eyes when she told me he had found a better home.

The education I got was not quite what I wanted, I did not get the grades. The jobs I could apply for after that were nothing like my dreams. I wanted to be someone that faded away each time I looked in the mirror. "You are not quite what I want either!" were the words my last girlfriend shouted at me before she stepped out of the door and left me for good.

I have a fear of wanting. I only dare think of what I "do not want" but still keep on bumping into it anyway.

Sand castles

2011-05-23T00:46:00.006+03:00

That day I didn't build a sand castle. I went to the beach, walked around, watching my foot prints fill with water. Then I went back to a bench and sat down. I could see the low tide sparkle in the distance.

"You know why people stop building sand castles when they grow up?" I turned around as I realized a man was talking to me. "They stop because they cannot make them different anymore."

That's how I met Stan. He said he had been watching me for weeks.

"I have this theory", I told him, "that most of us do things only once. That people stick to what they have achieved, scared they might never be able to walk the same path again. And they never do. Fools, holding onto thin air, feeding on memories. My sand castles are my revolt. I let each one die in high waters, so that I could build another on the next day."

"No", Stan said, "You've been doing exactly what you tried to avoid. You stuck to what you knew. It was the same castle that you built each day, it was this one habit you were scared to release. Each movement was the same, each tower looked like all the previous ones. You felt it, that's why you stopped. Memories are hard to fight. Once you've learned how to do something, you cannot do it differently. Think of hand writing. Your personal unique style - it sticks forever. Sounds fine until you realize that your every reaction is predetermined by the memory of similar situations in the past. That's why adults are not as joyful as children - they have way too many memories that block any new experience. The feel of wet sand between your palms - it triggers the same automotive impulses, bringing back the memories of you building your sand castles rather than causing you to build a new one. You got bored, didn't you?"

Stan told me he was a researcher. He was testing a prototype for affecting memory through EEG-like techniques to detect brain activity and direct artificial electric impulses in the corresponding area in a highly precise way. "I can make you forget how sand castles are built."

The first thing I let him delete from my memories was the taste of chocolate ice-cream. He attached the wires and then asked questions and made me talk, think of, and imagine my favorite dessert while he was observing his monitors. Then he pushed a button. Later that day, I bought a box of chocolate ice-cream and laughed and cried like a baby as I ate it at home. I could not fall asleep that night, thinking about all those possibilities I saw appear again in my life. I could have a second helping of life itself.

Lisa. Why did I break up with her? I still loved her. Why? If I could only forget all those small things that made me leave her. She still loved me too. What if we could start anew, build up our relationship again from scratch. Maybe it could work this time. If only...

Some days later I told Stan all about Lisa. I had those wires on my head and I was crying. Every now and then he pressed a button and I felt something change.

I ran home that day and rushed up to my bedroom. The photo albums were not hard to find. A woman smiled at me from between the pages, and no, I was not mad at her. Neither was I sad. There was nothing there that could make me feel bad. I stared at her, all in white and green, holding out a birthday cake. Then it struck me. There was no happiness fluttering in my heart either. I did not feel anything for Lisa. I looked at that face and searched frantically within me. No, nothing. I tried to feel love, but I did not know her. I tried to cry but I couldn't.

"Yes, I have them, I have your memories on tape. How much are you willing to pay to get your Lisa back?"

I must have seen the tape hundreds of times now, thousands, maybe. A man, sitting on a chair, wires attached to his head. He talks slowly. When he laughs, he looks at the camera with his face lit up. At times one can hear anger in his voice, his skin gets pale. Whenever silence breaks in, tears roll down his cheeks. Later a smile brightens up his eyes again. At the end he seems distracted. I fast-forward. Then rewind. Play it back. Then rewind and stop. A man looks at me from the monitor. He has tears in his eyes, but he is smiling. I can see it there. He is in love. Love that I cannot feel. He smiles at me. Yes, I have lost her. And I have lost you too, pal.

Things

2011-03-28T19:57:00.001+03:00

A second pair of jeans, some t-shirts, some socks and underwear, two pullovers and the jacket. One more pair of sneakers, toothbrush, toothpaste and his laptop.

"I stayed too long this time", he thought, staring at all the other stuff around. He did not bother locking the door. The plane was leaving in two hours. Once again, like too many times before, he was homeless.

Years ago, when he was ten, a three room apartment would have felt like a king's palace. His family lived together then, sharing their small possessions, cherishing every little thing they owned. Everything in its place. Everything and its place. All he knew as a kid was life in an economic crisis. Then he was fourteen and the situation started getting better - there were more things his family could buy. And they did. The apartment was the same, just fuller. And fuller. Filled up with new possessions. Sometimes stuff would fall off when he opened a wardrobe. There was a point when there was no place for the people inside. Somehow that was also the time when his family started to get smaller.

A second pair of jeans, some t-shirts, some socks and underwear, two pullovers and the jacket. One more pair of sneakers, toothbrush, toothpaste and his laptop. Just a backpack and his pockets full of documents and cards. He felt the small key hanging on his chest. Some day. Sometime, maybe, he would go back there, unlock a door well shut and try to look at all those things without fear. Sort them out. Filter out the memories he could not dare take back then.

The garden

2011-02-20T21:14:00.003+02:00

We started this project together. The land was wild, stones and bushes everywhere. We didn't quite know what we wanted it to become, never really expected anything. Most of the time in the beginning we wandered around. The damp forest air tingled my nostrils at the edge of the woody territories where I planned a clearing for the autumn flowers maze garden I had on my mind.

It turned out harder than I thought. The stones would not let go so easily, the roots went in deep and would not give up, the soil was not good. Some hills we tried to build turned into desert dunes, the pond never really hold any water. The wilderness fought back.

"Do you still want to do it that way? It is not as much fun as we hoped it to be. We could try something different, go some place else."

He looked tired, didn't talk too much any more. Dinner would last just a couple of minutes and then he would go to his room, playing some computer or something. I had no clue what he did, he wasn't talking about it.

Me, I wanted this so badly, couldn't give it up. The vague ideas in the beginning had their roots in my heart now, growing and growing. The things that didn't work, I changed them on the fly. No questions or discussions were necessary any more, I was on my own now. He was not around most of the time, and when he was, he would mainly drag heavy things around and help me with the hard work. He would do anything I asked him but I couldn't make him smile.

We had a pizza delivered tonight. None of us was up for cooking - I was tired, he was not in the mood for it. I looked at him as he was leaning over the table, holding one piece he just bit on in one hand and putting another piece on a plate to take away in his room.

"If I didn't ask you to, would you still stay here with me?"

Nightmare in Boston

2010-11-18T23:28:00.005+02:00

I was staying at a hotel in Boston, long business trip, stressful meetings. I woke up one night and went into the bathroom.

There was something wrong and I knew it the second the light was on. Everything was on the wrong side. The sink was on the left and it was not supposed to be there. I turned on the water, my thoughts racing. Splashed a handful on my face, hoping it will make me come back to my senses. I reached for the towel. It was not there. A short look to the other side made me whisper to myself... oh, shit.

There were things all over the floor and I stumbled when I rushed back to my bedroom, heading to the TV. Wrong direction again. I needed some human speech in this dreadful silence, something, any sane noise to take me out of my nightmare. Music, weird and frightening, came out of the speakers, so I changed the channel, turned up the volume, started talking out loud, just to hear myself speak.

"I think you should go to your room now", the woman mumbled in her bed.

A six word story

2010-11-12T21:49:00.001+02:00

In my dreams he always dies.

The overall of now and then

2010-10-16T23:54:00.002+03:00

"Promise me you'll leave when the days of pain become more than the days of happiness."

He didn't know how hard it will be to keep such a promise. How do you know? Good days followed the bad, bad followed the good. When do you stop counting and draw the line?

The marks follow each other on a roll of paper and it unrolls one day at a time.

No hitchhikers

2010-08-15T18:41:00.002+03:00

I met her in a small restaurant by the road. The cheese toasty I got was burned and I was swearing. That's how we got talking. I wasn't mad but complaining seemed reasonable. She didn't care but being polite was in her nature.

"It's the first time I will be hitchhiking", she said. More scared than enthusiastic. I decided to help out.

"Where are you heading, I could give you a lift."

"I don't know", she looked at me, hope lighting up her eyes.

"Well then, I know a place you might want to see."

That's how it started. I was bored, she was clueless, so we traveled around to places I always wanted to see.

"Where do you want to go?"

"I don't know, where will you take me?"

And one day it was mid-September, I was running out of gas.

We were sitting in a small restaurant by the road. I got a burned cheese toasty and looked at her.

"Where do you want to go now", I asked.

"I don't know", she shrugged, "where will you take me?"

I stayed there, eating my toasty.

"This is the place I drop you off. Our paths are separating."

"But I have never been hitchhiking, you know."

"I know."

Ten minutes later I was pulling off, looking in the rear-mirror at her as she headed to the bus station nearby.

I felt empty, trying to remember where I was before I met her.

We are good people

2010-04-17T17:53:00.002+03:00

Ricky is running. His small feet are stepping away from the holes in the shadowy street. He has learned by now - he should not stumble.

'Mom!', he screams, hoping his squeaky voice will be heard but he is still too far from home.

A figure appears at the corner, stops and then runs towards him. There she is. She has learned by now too.

***

Lili married John when she was twenty. Every one was smiling at her wedding, telling her how lucky she was to have this good man beside her. Good, hard working, kind and humble. They moved to the big city. That was ten years ago.

***

Ricky eats his dinner with the fork in his left hand. He tries not to move the right one too much, it rests on his lap, under the table. He looks directly down at his plate. The bruises are hidden in the shadow his hair casts on his face.

'They hit me, John. Now they hit me too.', Lili is staring at her husband. 'You have to help us! We have to go away!'

John is chewing on his meal. His moves are slow - thoughtful - one would say, if one sees him for the first time.

'We have had this conversation way too many times. You know we can't go. I have a good job here. The gangs only beat up the ones that mess with them. Stay low, be humble, and they will leave you alone. Why would anyone want to do you harm if you have not made them angry somehow. We stay here. We are good people. You are good, Ricky, aren't you!'

***

It is a sunny day, a holiday. School is off, Lili is cleaning at home, her heart at ease. She knows Ricky is playing somewhere in the streets around here.

The phone rings. 'Mrs. Smith, I am calling from the hospital', the voice is saying, 'We have your son in the emergency.'

***

Detective Lewis is talking to Lili Smith, a small woman, her weary eyes staring at the floor in front of her, as in shock. Well, she is in shock, her husband has been found shot at home yesterday evening.

'We are after some gang members, Mrs. Smith. Such things are not unheard of around here, unfortunately, but we are after them. Is there anything you know that could help us?'

'I hate this place,' she mumbles.

***

A minute after Lili Smith went out of the room, a man knocks at the door.

'Excuse me, officer, Lili left a small suitcase around here.'

'Is she going somewhere?'

'Yes, she is leaving, together with her son. Poor woman, she wants to leave this goddamn place for years now. I am giving her a ride to her parents' village. I already took some of her luggage there yesterday in the morning.'

The man goes out. A minute later detective Lewis drops his pen on the table. It falls down and rolls on the floor.

'Yesterday? Yesterday in the morning!'

The good things that stop us

2010-04-11T12:53:00.000+03:00

My tribe is old. My tribe is good. My tribe has followed a path of values and virtues. We just made a wrong step somewhere on the way and now those same virtues make us bump into a dead end.

My tribe is confused but they will rather push against this wall forever than turn around and go against everything they value.

The time has come for the traitor and the martyr to kick history out of this local minimum. He'll die to take away my tribe's sins and guilty conscience and then go to heaven. I'll make the bad choice for them and just go to hell.

I hope the wave is high enough.

Links of power

2010-03-22T18:50:00.000+02:00

You always came to me when you were weak,
Your weakness made me mighty.
You're mighty now, no shelter do you seek
And suddenly I need thee.

I try to grow in your heart
But it is big and full now.
I'm small and want a brand new start,
I want to push you back and put you down.

The piano

2009-10-25T23:35:00.001+02:00

"I've been thinking about it but there is no place to put a piano. Maybe you would like to learn to play the violin instead?"

It's strange how kids can feel some things and reason based on feelings.

"No, daddy, it's OK, I don't really want to play the piano."

It was not the child that cried this night for a toy she couldn't have.

Mad man's tricks

2009-09-22T09:23:00.001+03:00

A mad man once told me: "God tricked us by putting heaven and hell in one and the same place. Then placed us there and left us on our own to learn to sense them. Some thought they can physically move from one to the other and fought each other for the right spot. Some could only see one of the two but could not feel it. Some could feel them but could not see them. And me, I never learned to care."

Read only memory

2009-08-16T12:25:00.001+03:00

There were times when I was not sure as to how to interpret my father's words. It was either the exhaustion or the tumour that interfered with his brain and thoughts and destroyed his ever before sane and clear logic. I would try to show him the pitfalls and I would see this look in his eyes. An absent look, a look that stared inside. I wasn't sure if it was fear I noticed in it because he saw the broken lines inside, or sadness that I didn't believe him anymore.

I remember some comments he made the last days and weeks. Words that suggested there were some files meant for my mother and us he saved on the computer's hard drive. He asked once for his mobile, he said he had to put some instructions in and program it. The same old handy I gave him some years before that he made jokes about, said people talked too much these days and he probably didn't need that, but he accepted it and I know enjoyed a lot - a fun new gadget for a computer fan guy. I handed it to him that day he asked for it, mentioned something about the phone not having the kind of functionality my father seemed to hope for. He took it, pushed some buttons, then I saw that look slowly creeping in his eyes. He put the phone away and laid down on his pillow, staring straight in front. Then he realized I was looking at him for too long and forced his eyes shut.

I checked his directories one evening. I knew he couldn't use the computer for a long time now but I had to put this childish hope to rest. We paid my dad's mobile operator fee for a year or so after he passed away, always kept the phone switched on. That would have lasted more if we didn't lose the note with the PIN in the mess the burglars left behind one day. I don't regret anything, though. I don't long for things untold, thoughts unshared. No file, no list of instructions could contain more than the bits and pieces that he had planted in me for almost twenty-six years.

The shelter

2009-08-11T13:56:00.003+03:00

The wise old man once told me "If you find a shelter from a storm and stay there and stay there and stay there and the storm does not go away and the water turns the soil under your feet into mud and the wind carries the rain droplets in to smash them in your face and fill your eyes and your hair is soaking wet and little streams go down your shoulders, then it's time to go out in the storm and go on your track, as the shelter is no more there, not there but in your head, and the storm is not an enemy no more, as it was in there with you and now you are in it."

A safe flight

2009-04-06T19:36:00.001+03:00

Ivan is a pilot. His extensive training ended with one firm decision. He would be in public transportation, a part of this big system that makes our world a better place. He would help people reach their goals, find new emotions and return safe home. He was waiting for the day he would fly that plane full of passengers that rely on him to get them through.

I met him some time after his first commercial flight. He was sitting on a bench in the park, staring at the people that ran or skated by. It didn’t take too many words for him to break down.

“I was trying to taste the responsibility. I wanted to feel the burden of it all, to realize the joy of landing them all safely down. I couldn’t. It didn’t matter that somewhere there behind me, the plane was full of people. It wouldn’t have made any difference if I were alone. I’m scared now. I think I have been lying to myself and I cannot fool myself into believing in the lie again.”

Paper

2009-04-05T18:37:00.001+03:00

Jim and John used to read the same local newspaper. They both started submitting articles for a discussion column. Gradually, issue after issue, they got involved in a fierce word fight. Sometimes they could hardly wait for the delivery boy to give them the paper in the morning. Thinking of great arguments and reading the answers became the greatest amusement and goal of their days.

One evening Jim and John walked into the same bar. Soon they spotted each other and their hearts almost stopped beating. They were standing there, staring into each other’s face, trying to make their tongues move. They couldn’t. Not a word got through. Not a word was there to. None of them could think of anything to say. After what felt like ages, Jim turned back and stormed out in the street, running to the newspaper’s building. He dropped a note into the mailbox at the door with just one sentence in it: “I hate you, John.”

Unfortunately for Jim, John never read this. He stayed that night till late in the bar and got seriously drunk. When the bartender told him that they are closing and he should leave, John said to him:

“Dude, I love you. You are so real. You are who I think you are and I don’t have to think about who you are for you to be that man. Now please, call for a taxi.”

Lucky Tom

2009-03-21T15:28:00.000+02:00

Tom doesn’t have a real home. He works here and there, carrying stocks, selling papers, having all kinds of one-day jobs. All he earns he spends on his basic needs. He sleeps in shelters and different places where good people let him stay overnight.

The only things he owns are his clothes and some coins worth a lottery ticket that he keeps in a small wallet hanging on a thread on his chest.

“I know that if I ever buy this ticket, I will win the jackpot.”

He passes by the lottery cabin every day, stops for a second, and then walks away.

“I was never really hungry and I usually find a place to sleep. I need no luck to mess with my life. If I win out of nothing I will not know whom I owe it. Now I’m thankful to myself for what I have and feel good about it.”

I asked him once, “Why don’t you spend those coins then?”

He answered, “Then I will have no choice to make.”

Oceans and seas

2008-05-28T13:45:00.001+03:00

In days of summer all kids in my grandparents’ village used to play in the river – jumping from rocks, swimming up and downstream. A fascinating view. I was too horrified to be a part of it, though.

“Don’t be afraid of the water!” everyone said. “You have to learn to swim, it’s too much fun!” And I nodded every time. Of course they were right.

Summers were long, back then. Too long, maybe. Long enough for me to get tired of being reminded of obvious facts.

I was trying to overcome my fears. I spent so much time doing this that the shame of not being successful at something everyone managed to do and that I wanted really badly became an issue. I started avoiding those familiar conversations in any way possible.

One day a kid that had just come to our village approached me at the riverbank.

“Are you afraid of the water?” he asked.

Here it goes, I thought, and mumbled something, looking around for an escape opportunity.

“You really should learn to swim!”

I was already getting up, “You know, I have to go” ready at my lips.

“Come, I’ll teach you!” was something I’d never heard before that made me stop in confusion.

It wasn’t easy. It didn’t have to be. There were obstacles but I still recall what followed - the blue sky and the sunlight in my eyes while I lay in the water, the magic underwater sound and the hand beneath my head, ready to lift me up if I sunk down.

I’ve swum in rivers. I’ve swum in oceans and seas. I’ve dived in deep, deep waters and sailed over high, high waves. I guess I’ll always be thankful to those fingers that pointed out my flaws. But I know I’ll never forget the hands that helped me overcome them.

The lost son

2008-04-23T09:03:00.003+03:00

I knew a woman whose only son went at war at a very young age and left her alone in her house. The very next day she covered herself in black and started mourning.

“War takes them all,” she said, “he will never come back, I know.”

She put a picture of him on a small pedestal. Day by day she collected things and arranged them around it, trying to make up what he would have done with them if he hadn’t been dead. She started living by the rhythm of rituals, preoccupying herself in thoughts of her late son. She put two plates at the table at the right hours, lighted candles and soothed herself with memories of things that would never happen. Years went by and even though she wasn’t happy, she found a way to shut herself in a world of her own that made her feel comfortable. She never became aware of the letters that slowly piled up in her mailbox and remained unopened.

One day a knock at her door made her reluctantly interrupt one of her daily two-side monologues in front of the pedestal. A stranger stood outside and he had her son’s face. There’s one word that could describe what followed – confusion. This man, all flesh and blood, walked around her house, removing the very fundamentals of her life one by one, breaking down this place inside of her where she felt safe at home. She was horrified. Then she got angry.

“I look at you,” she said, “and I don’t know you. All I see is a murderer. You killed my son and you are killing me. Go away from here and never come back.”

All sons she had were imaginary. The only real one she did not let in.

Childish wounds

2008-02-28T11:33:00.000+02:00

“You are not hiding quite well. Seems you want someone to find you.”

He was startled at first then his face got angry and serious again. He looked back at the kids that were playing and laughing some hundred meters away and didn’t answer.

“Why don’t you go play with your friends?”

“They are not my friends anymore.”

“Then why do you stay here watching them every day?”

“I don’t know”, he murmured and got even grimmer. He knew, all right.

“Maybe you should talk to them about this.”

“Why? Would it make me feel better if they knew how much they’ve hurt me?”

Decoders

2008-02-22T22:59:00.002+02:00

“We had a mad man sweeping the floors of the building my office used to be in a long time ago. He said that life had a message for him and he had to decode it. He looked for pieces of this puzzle all around himself – quotes of movies, passages from books, titles in the papers, accidental words in ads or other people’s conversations. He said that he could see hidden clues in situations and sudden emotions that he had. I’ve seen him take a small notebook in a hurry out of his pocket, mumbling something as if afraid he might forget what just came into his mind.

One day I saw him there – sitting in the lobby, staring at something visible only to him. There it was – all the happiness of the world – all of it, cuddled in his eyes. He looked at me and said: I’ve found it. Some days later they took him to the madhouse.”

“What was it? Do you really think he found a message?”

“Does it matter what he found if it could actually make him that happy?”

All the same mistakes

2008-02-21T13:48:00.002+02:00

I’m born again. I sit at this beach and the wind throws grit and ocean drops in my face. Are you laughing at me, my dear breeze? I will laugh with you. As this is a curse I asked for.

The rhythm of the surf tries to mess up with my pulse and makes me dizzy. I have a strange feel of déjà vu. Every heartbeat brings a memory of long gone me's. I close my eyes and I see mountains, fields, snowy forests and crowded cities. I open them and the shore is in front of me again. No, I have never been here.

But I have been in this situation before, too many times, too many lives. It’s still the same. I am given a chance again – to make a change. Choose different!

Yes, I really have a lot to laugh about. I’ve been such a lousy student. Why did I need so much time and so many tries to learn such a simple lesson?

I know what I want to do. I will make the same mistake. But this time I will not regret it.