This was wonderful. He’d been practicing social-distancing for years. Now that everyone else was onboard, he could finally go outside and not be bothered.
The fresh air had never seemed as sweet.
The Edge
Smiling as he raised the blinds, he gazed up at the sunshine. “Alexa, what’s today’s weather?”
“Right now in Eugene, it’s fifty-eight degrees with mostly sunny skies. Expect more of the same throughout the day, with a high of sixty-eight, and a low of thirty-seven. Enjoy your day.”
A heartbeat of sadness passed. He’d been hoping that she would say his name, as she’d been doing once in a while the last few days. Like yesterday, she said, “Have a great Sunday, Richard.”
That little bit had meant so much, more than it probably should, but it was the little things that kept him back from the edge during these days of isolation, and the edge seemed just a little too close today.
“Alexa,” he said in a softer voice, “how’s our weather today?”
He waited, hopeful for the answer.
Long Sighs
Still holding her phone up, Mya stared at her mother. Her mother had such a pretty face. Everyone said so, but whenever it was just her and her mom, her mother delivered every set of thoughts with a long sigh, as if what she has just stated is a great burden. “Beverly’s birthday is tomorrow. I’ll need to send her a birthday card.” Long sigh.
“I have no energy. I’ll make a cup of coffee in a minute, after I do this puzzle.” Long sigh.
“What do we have in the freezer to have for dinner? I suppose I can take out some salmon.” Long sigh.
Listening, watching her mother, Mya wondered where the long sighs came from, and why she did it. Looking into her short tube of memories (she couldn’t help thinking like that, thank you, Uncle Pat), the eleven-year-old decided that she would not be like her mother, sighing as though burdened with everything that she does.
“We can have rice with it. Do we have rice? Let me go look.” Long sigh.
“I’ll look,” Mya said, jumping up. Then she caught herself sighing and wondered, was it already too late?
Backslide
They finally made it over the hump. Stay at home policies were being relaxed. Businesses were re-opening. “We’re striving to return to normalcy,” the governor, the mayor, and anyone else who was anyone said. Some were talking about parades and national holidays, “To stimulate the economy.”
“I’m looking forward to normal,” he told his wife.
“I want to go dancing,” she said.
Both wondered, is it safe? The government said it was. Maybe they’d wait, maybe…
Reading the news…Jesus…”It’s like the same thing everything day.” The weather made him feel foul. He felt cold. The sun felt weak. The day seemed shorter. What the fuck, he wondered, than attributed it to his dark moods. It’d pass in a few days.
The next day brought the awful news. He checked the numbers and saw an increase to cases. He groaned. “No. Christ, I hope it’s just a blip.”
His wife, reading something on her Mac, said nothing.
Sullenness settled on him. God, he was so looking forward to normal, to getting out of the house, to walking down the street, and then, on the whim of a smell – a burger, fried onions, whatever – to walk into a restaurant, any restaurant, damn it, and order whatever meal he wanted, and have someone bring it to him, and pay them money without worrying about their breathing and their distance and their health. Plus, yeah, he loved his wife, but five weeks of isolation with just her had seared his sanity.
The news continued. He’d heard it all before. “What the hell.” If his mind wasn’t going, then the news was exactly what they’d heard before, word for friggin’ word. “You hearing this?” he asked his wife.
Without looking up from her laptop, she said, “Hm mmm.”
Which, what did that mean? “What’s for dinner?” he asked, and then joked, “Want to go out?”
“I was thinking that we’d have pizza and a salad.”
“We just had that.”
His wife looked blank. “When?”
“Last night, remember? We joked about it being our victory pizza? I opened a bottle of wine?”
Her eyes widened as he spoke, and then she rolled them in that irritating, contemptuous, dismissive way. “Is this another one of your jokes?”
“You seriously don’t remember?”
“We didn’t have pizza last night.”
“Then what did we have?”
“We had black beans salad.”
“No, we didn’t, no, we didn’t. That was the day before.”
He stood. “I’ll prove it.” He stormed to the freezer. The pizza would be gone. There’d be no pizza in there because it was the last one they had on hand. They’d joked about that, too.
But there was the pizza, a Newman’s own.
“No fucking way,” he said, throwing the pizza back into the chest freezer. No fucking way. As a second verification, he went by the wine storage and confirmed, there was no open bottle. Like, it had not been opened. He checked the recycle bin for a bottle, just in case — he didn’t remember finishing the bottle but maybe she’d had some — but there wasn’t an empty wine bottle in the bin. Passing, he saw the cake.
He’d eaten the last piece as dessert, after the pizza. Victory pizza, victory wine, victory cake. Moving slowly, he slipped back down the hall. It hit him as he returned to the office and sat down at his computer. They were going backward in time. If he was right…he couldn’t be right.
But if he was right, they were going to relive it all again, in reverse.
“Did you find the pizza?” she asked, a smug tone to her voice.
Or, he corrected, he was going to relive it all again in reverse. She seemed completely oblivious.
“I was right, wasn’t I?” she said.
He covered his face with his palm. With a swallowed sigh, he wondered, how far back could he go?
Day Eight
Locked away, he had time to do things that he’d always intended to do. First would be to learn to communicate with the cat.
Yeah, he wasn’t crazy (so he told himself, trying to sound convinced). He thought he and the cat had a special connection. The little feline (it was little then, in the beginning, not so little now, relatively for a house cat – twenty-three pounds) marched up to him on the street and meowed like Whitney Houston singing “I will always love yooouuu,” bestowing the cat his name, Houston (because it was a male). It was like true fidelity from then on.
Houston was everywhere with him, monitoring his bathroom, trying to steal food (the lovable little thief) with his big white mitts, bolting across rooms and up walls (swear to God!). Now, aged three, Houston had settled into being a more dignified feline. Cagney (his name, distant relative to James, the actor) (he always used his last name, disliking his first name, the unobtrusive, forgettable “Jack”) thought that if Houston could talk, he would sound pretty close to James Earl Jones. From there (and the looks that the cat gave him), he’d decided that he and the cat could communicate, like, telepathically.
Engaging in an effort every day since he’d been self-isolated — this was day eight — he sat the cat in front of him and sat down. “Houston. Look at me. Look into my eyes.”
Although he appeared sleepy (it was time for his pre-nap nap), Houston did as told.
“I’m going to speak words to you. I want you to think them back to me. Do you understand?”
Cagney listened for a response. Yawning, Houston seemed to try to wake up to participate.
“I know you understand me. I know how smart you are.”
Thank you.
Cagney blinked. “What? Do you — ” Had he heard that? “Did you say, thank you.”
I did. You heard me.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” Cagney stood up and spun around. He’d only half thought of what would happen next. Like how was he going to prove it? How was he going to prove it?
He stared down at Houston. Houston watched him with interest. “So you hear me, right, Houston?”
Yes, I do, Cagney.
“Okay, okay, I need more than that. Nod your head, nod your head if you understand me.”
Houston nodded his head.
Cagney jumped up and down laughing. “Holy shit. Holy she-it. I did it! We did it. I got to — where’s my phone? Where’s my cell? I gotta video this. Where’s my cell? Where’s my cell?”
Blue eyes bulging, Cagney scanned the room and skittered off. “Must’ve left it in the bedroom. Don’t move, Houston, stay right there, I’m coming right back.” He was out of the room and accelerating, sliding on the floor, and shouting over his shoulder.
Ears forward, Houston watched Cagney disappeared. He’d done it. He’d managed to lower the human’s defenses. Next step would be to take control over Cagney’s mind.
With his defenses down, it’d be as easy as catching a bird.
April
gliding in with promises made for others
April taunts me on the outside of the window
safe from the thing that I and the ones like me
might do to her
Victory Is Coming
The birds were plentiful and noisy. Several noticed, “Hey, where are the humans?”
It seemed true, the birds agreed. They didn’t see as many humans as usual. Odd, up here in the northern latitudes, where winter was rolling over into spring. That’s when the humans usually became more active.
Word went from bird to bird, flock to flock, pecking for confirmation: were less humans out? Fewer cars, trucks, and motorcycles? Were all noticing this or was it a local anomaly?
“Yes.” Verification flew through the flocks. Except for a few pockets, less humans were present outdoors. The birds were winning the war.
Orders were issued. “Increase your efforts. Be vigilant. Keep shitting on them, shit on every human you see. Our strategy s working. Victory is coming.”
Patient 46
He cited Elon Musk. “Elon Musk thinks the threat from the coronavirus is overblown. He’s a smart guy, and I agree with him.” Nodding, his friends came in closer to hear him. “Musk said that you’re more likely to be killed in a car accident going home from work than from the corollavirus.”
He purposefully misspoke, mocking the term, making his friends snort and scoff. “Just like President Trump said, this is a hoax. Yeah, sure, there’s a disease out there, but it’s not that big a deal. It’s not even as bad as the swine flu. We survived it, and we’ll survive this, too.”
“Fuckin’ a,” “Damn straight,” and “Preach it brother,” friends replied as others nodded agreement and encouragement.
Patient 46 continued, “The media is exploiting the news and the gullible sheeple because they don’t like Trump. They want this virus to succeed. They want people to die. It’s just like Trish Regan said, it’s an impeachment scam. They couldn’t legally impeach Trump, so now they’re trying to do this. You know she was right, because they shut her up straightaway, took her right off the air. Why else would they do that, if she wasn’t right?”
The rest agreed. A newcomer arrived. Greetings were bellowed.
Patient 46 turned away. It felt hot as hell in the bar. Sweat peppered his forehead. He took another long swallow of cold Bud to drown his fever. Nausea swarmed him. He mopped his face with a sleeve and then wiped his palm across his face. “Damn, it’s hot in this place,” he said loudly, but the televisions and jukebox drowned his words.
A grinning friend leaned in close. “Hey, man, don’t you know that you’re not supposed to be touching your face?”
The two laughed and slapped their palms together in a high-five salute. Each then made a show of touching their faces. Then, shrieking with greater laughter, his friend said, “No one said that I can’t touch your face.”
“Right on, scratch my nose for me,” Patient 46 said. His friend obliged as the two snorted and giggled.
It was the last thing that Patient 46 remembered before he awoke alone in the hospital. Lit machines were beeping, sighing, and humming. Tubes snaked to and from his body.
Such bullshit, he thought, such bullshit, what an over-reaction. Closing his eyes, he fought to breathe. Someone poisoned him, he thought. Trying to shut him up and make an example out of him. Probably the CIA or FBI. They were arms of the shadow government that Obama and Killary were running. Everyone knew it.
He’d show them. He would survive this fucking assassination attempt, and then share his story as a precautionary tale about the measures the libtards would take to shut people like him up.
Patient 46 died a few days later. His story remained untold. His services were sparsely attended.
Everyone was too sick to attend, but all agreed, it was a damn shame that such a smart guy, a real man like him, should die in a hospital bed like that.
Yes, a damn shame.
Michael Seidel, writer 