I was really disturbed this morning.
I walked into the bedroom. Two shoes were on the floor.
They were paranormal.
The Vision
He permitted his small train of cars to scrub off speed until it was almost stopped, and then gently pressed the brake pedal, encouraging a full stop.
Because he’s cautious, he opened several surveillance systems. Cameras and ground radar went up, scanning the remnants of I-5. Nothing else is untoward in this wasteland, but he picked up the AK-47 and looked around, watching his rear view mirrors and cameras as the engine idled. Selecting neutral, he set the hand brake and observed.
One of the packages moved again. It’s something that was alive or remained close to alive, or a ploy to invite him to stop and investigate. The wreckage was mostly cleared here. Rust, decaying plastic and rubber, and vegetation cracking through the pavement attested that more than a few months have passed since this crash or battle took place. Something alive is out of place. Manipulating a camera, he focused on the two packages. They appeared human, maybe females, adults.
Debating options and running scenarios through his head, he drummed his fingers on the console. He’d felt like Noah, building this vehicle. Sometimes he thinks of it as the vehicle, but other times, he calls it his train, an engine without a track, towing five cars. The instructions and scheme to build it reached him through nocturnal visions. He rejected referring to them as dreams. They were too cogent for dreams. The project, as he called it, trying to keep it abstract, ended up consuming money, energy and relationships. His marriage had already terminated, Mom and Dad were dead, and the children were forging their own paths of mistakes and successes, so it was pretty easy to burn those ties.
The thing was, though, the visions had never explained why this was being built. It seemed incredibly ridiculous and impractical to him, this “land train,” an absurd expression, since trains ran on land. People kept after him about why he was building it. He couldn’t explain it, not wanting to explain those nocturnal visions, falling back to weakly saying, “It’s just a whim.” He knew they thought he was crazy, an opinion he’d shared most of his waking hours. Then the sierra slathered the spinning fan blades onto a new wreck of a world, and here he was, a man alone with two cats and a dog, traveling destroyed America.
That’s what must have been behind the nocturnal visions, right? Why else have him build this thing? He was impressed that something had reached out to him with such guidance, even though it also scared him shitless about his sanity. Okay, but now, here he was, alive and on the road as the rest of humanity, at least in America, as far as he could discern, completed the cycle, dust to dust.
Yet, two people on the road, apparently needing help, were before him. How did that fit? As he watched, one progressed through the jerking motion of standing, confirming, it seemed to be a woman, small and white. He pulled his binocular to his eyes for a better image. Swaying, she straightened her back and squared her shoulders. Stooping, she pushed and pulled the other one, also a woman, until she stirred and rose to her knees.
The nocturnal visions hadn’t included others. Yet, he’d always wondered why his train was five cars. It was overkill for one person. Cursing cowardice and indecisiveness, he checked the time and watched the two. Holding on to one another, they minced across the road with staggered steps. Only two in the afternoon, it would be hours before night. Hours before his nocturnal visions came, unless he could close his eyes and sleep now. But if he did, they could leave. They could die.
The vision had brought him here. Now he needed to decide who he was. None of the others remained. These were the first living people he’d seen since he left his home after the fall.
Maybe their vision had brought them here, to meet him. If so, shouldn’t they be looking for him? They seemed oblivious to his vigil, even though the engine’s rumble probably carried to them.
He didn’t have a choice. The vision had brought him here.
It was up to him to finish the vision.
Future Blues
Groaning, shoulders slumping, Heather lowered her head and hit her forehead. She’d forgotten the friggin’ bag. Damn, damn, damn. The day was becoming sub-prime in a slide.
People thronged past. She faced a rack of bags. So, options, text someone to bring a bag. Go back and get it, but time and money, time and money. Five Georges for porting home and back. Steal one. Buy a new one. Get caught stealing a bag was a dime. Who to text to bring one? Everyone else had ported out on holi, but she had to work. Not friggin’ far, not friggin far at all. Welcome to her life.
So buy one. Gawd, two Georges. Were these getting more expensive? Why did she forget the friggin’ bag? Stupid. She slapped her temple. Stupid.
The bag was bought but that just started a whole other chain, syncing it to her head — and another George, gawd — and this bag wasn’t listed, forcing her to walk through the store and compare the items, like, manually, like some factory worker or some girl at a jewelry counter, because there was no list in the bag to tell her to pick something up and put it in. Good thing, sync did bring up her checking and budget so she knew what could be spent. Least the bag was telling her that. Wouldn’t want to exceed the budg and bring on the wrath.
And she had to remember what was on the list. Shit wasn’t easy. Like, did she need milk this week? The frig always told the list what she needed. She didn’t know. So she didn’t know. Probably all kinds of messed up. Who knows if the syncing was right? She hadn’t done one in all kinds of yesterdays. Didn’t even know if the bag was porting it to the right place. She peered into the small purple cloth sack. It was all gone, all right, but where? She could recall it all, go home, she shoulda just gone home and got her bag, suck up the time and Georges, way it was going, she would have only be out one or two Georges that route and a whole lotta less stress and aggravation, which she already was feeling, having won the lottery to work a holi weekend.
Ah, fuck it. Heather lowered her head and succumbed to getting it done, because that’s how the world work, but she couldn’t do it without multiple sighs and a pitying chorus in her head. She hated being eighty. Retirement couldn’t come soon enough.
The Keys
Head wobbling, he looked left and right as much as he could without tipping himself out of his chair. Near immobility was one indignity. It was the least.
“Matthew, do you want a drink?” the man asked him.
He was a pleasant enough man, white and ginger-haired. but otherwise anonymous in Matthew’s world view. He’d been introduced. Matthew hadn’t cared to hear, remember and store his name.
The man was offering a straw and glass. Matthew despised straws. Children drank from straws; he was an adult. He was a man. “No, thank you,” he said. His once sonorous voice chirped, slouched and broke through the three words. He wished he could close his ears and not hear himself any longer. “Where are my keys?” That voice sickened him.
“What do you need your keys for, Matthew?”
What fucking business is that of yours, Matthew thought. “Where are they?”
“Don’t worry, they’re right here.” The man brought him his keys, holding them so they dangled in front of Matthew, like he was a cat or a baby, and the man wanted was playing with him. “Do you plan on taking a ride?”
Fuck you. Forcing his will into movement, Matthew reached for his keys. The limb and hand trembled. His shoulder, elbow and wrist issued warning pains. Reaching for the keys took long seconds, something once done easily and without stress. When his fingers closed on them, Matthew wanted to close his eyes and rest. Tears welled up. Others would think it was pain or sadness. Only he knew it was anger.
Chatting, the man wiped Matthew’s eyes. Matthew didn’t care. He closed his fist on his keys and then closed his eyes. He had his keys. Time to die.
His journey could now begin.
Belief
Cool air was blowing up, testimony to the conditions up there, a momentary comfort for Skinner. That’s the same, he thought, but it’s different. Nothing was ever exactly the same.
Tanker asked, “What are you thinking? Let’s go.”
Skinner knew this was no different from other times. That’s the theory. The clouds looked so damn thin, though. He doesn’t see how they can support him, even though they always had before. But he always had his Dad or Mom with him to walk the clouds. Their presence was encouraging and reassuring.
He stepped out out the few final feet from the cliff side toward the oh so ordinary appearing clouds. They looked like the same kind of clouds he’d walked with his parents. It’s just that his parents weren’t here.
“We won’t always be here to do this with you, Skinner,” his father had said just a few days before, in a place very much like this one, but different.
Shifting sounds behind him made Skinner look back at Tanker. Tanker had composed himself for a long wait and was looking bored and tired. “You take your time, Skinner. Do what you need to do.”
Skinner remembered his father speaking. “You can take your time, but that’s part of the test. The test isn’t just about walking on the clouds, but your belief and confidence that you can do it. You know you can. You’ve done it with me. Other matters will be in your head, too. You’ll know that everyone is watching. You’ll know it’s a test. You’ll know it. I know you’ll know it because I was there. I was tested for my belief, too. I know what was in my head then, and you’re just like me. You, me, and your grandfathers, we’re all the same, so I know what’s in your head, Skinner. Believe me, I know.”
A sharper wind knifed over Skinner’s face. He turned back toward the clouds. White and gray, and lined by sunlight, they were pretty. Some thinned, parting ways. Clouds are always saying hello and good-bye. The separation exposed the creek running through the park below, and the trees. If he didn’t believe, he would crash right through these clouds and down through the tree branches, into the hard green and brown earth below. Maybe he’d land in the water. Maybe he’d land on one of the big granite boulders. Maybe he would live.
But he believed.
He stepped off onto the cloud.
Learning to Write
Pram was melancholy about his choices. He was a colossus, becoming so because his father exhorted him to think big. His father, he knew, hadn’t meant that in the sense of his body, but Pram delighted in vexing his father by being literal.
That was Pram’s only choice about his life body that he made, eschewing being a female, remaining a heterosexual male, dismissing opportunities to become another race other than Indian, which alluded to his family’s far origins on the Indian sub-continent on Earth. None of them had been back to there since his grandparents left Earth. Relatives did remain on the planet. He often connected with them virtually.
So this was how he’d thought it had gone. This was how the author had written it. But then the writer had realized more of the concept and story. Pram had gone from being large by technological choice to amuse himself to being large as an advantage in combat.
Which, as a character, intrigued Pram. The writer had created a cause and effect paradox about his choice. He was large in one reality but that choice carried over to other reality due to entanglements. Pram understood; he wasn’t certain the writer fully understood it. That, though, was the writer’s problem. He was just a character.
Then the writer had started playing other games with him, introducing him to Chronos. Chronos! Where did this come from? He knew who Chronos was – actually, Chronos the Fourth, or something, although Chronos took pains to explain to him, “I don’t know how many of us actually exist. There are multiple universes in my story, just like in the novel he’s writing about you.” The point was that Chronos was from another novel. While all the characters from the different novels and short stories knew one another, they didn’t socialize, and there wasn’t any reason for the two of them to meet. Yet, here was the writer, amusing himself by introducing Pram to Chronos.
They were in a dark, chilly bar, watching a baseball game taking place on another planet. The game was being streamed in real D. They could more fully immerse themselves, like most of the bar’s patrons chose, but didn’t. Because of his size, Pram couldn’t fit anywhere comfortably. Chronos, inhaling shots of whiskey and beer chasers, noticed and wandered over to chat.
The ballgame became forgotten. They talked about the novels they were in, contrasting the stories and pondering the similarities. Lack of choices in life obsessed the writer. In several of his novels, humans just had no idea what was going on. They always thought they knew and thought they were in control, and made choices according to their body of desires and knowledge. This was because human nature to adjust perceived facts to fill and diminish vacuums of information. Imperfect, they often forgot, ignored or discarded vows, or rationalized an intellectual compromise about their behavior.
“Why are we doing this?” Pram asked.
Sinking a shot of Macallan, Chronos looked off toward the ball game as someone got a hit, triggering motion and cheers. Pram waited. He expected Chronos to know and answer, because Chronos was a demi-god, the offspring of the God of Time. As he thought that, though, Pram knew the answer for himself.
The writer was just practicing writing, playing with prompts in his head, readying himself to sit down and write again. He was learning to write by imagining situations and searching for the setting and details within himself, trying to understand how to resolve scenes and move the story further. Between writing novels, he’d made this scenario up as an intellectual exercise as a writing fix. As the writer said, he was always trying to learn how to write. He meant that he was trying to become a more expressive, insightful writer and story-teller, so he wrote every day, afraid that if he didn’t, he would lose the meager skills he’d acquired. The writer had been sick and unable to write for several days, although he’d tried. Now that he seemed well enough to actually write, he needed to write something. Otherwise, he might get stopped up.
The exercise calmed, relaxed and reassured the writer. Now, creative excess spent, he could begin editing and revising the novel’s first draft.
The Choice
She just wanted a little something. Forty feet by six feet of lit, colorful options faced her, which would be? Her mind didn’t want to address something so trivial as an area problem.
A couple entered the aisle, apparently solving the same problem. They seemed to be approximately her age, that is, mid-fifties to mid-sixties and of similar economic status. They probably were enduring the same paradigm shift as her. It used to be that if you wanted ice cream, limited selections were available. Her mother bought Neapolitan because the three flavor choices satisfied almost everyone, although they would always end up with a carton of strawberry left. Later, they would buy vanilla ice cream and add toppings of nuts, cherries, syrups and whipped cream. Then they learned to make banana splits. All the while, her father would reminiscence about making ice cream with his grandparents, and his favorite, root beer floats. They made their own root beer, too.
She could follow such a simple route and buy vanilla. Even were she to make that choice of flavor, decisions remained about sugar-free, slow-churned, size, price and brand. Gluten-free and dairy-free ice cream was available. Ten variations of vanilla ice cream competed. America, land of the free and home of the ice cream.
This was not just ice cream. She walked down the aisle. The couple shadowed her. All of them stared at the choices like they were fine art in a museum. Frozen yogurt, gelato, sorbets and sherbets were offered. Rice Dream. Soy ice cream. Prices for them were ridiculous. Specials were available – two one-gallon containers were available for six dollars for club members – she was a club member – but she didn’t want a gallon, just a pint.
Her father would have had fits. “Gelato? Sorbet?” Yes, she was channeling her father. He would admonish, “What do you want? Decide what you want, Helena.” She’d thought she’d known what she’d wanted. She’d wanted to be an accountant when she was a young girl and had become a data scientist, even though she had a literature degree. She didn’t know data scientists existed when she was a child.
Straying into frozen fruit and yogurt bars, she smiled at the man — the closest shadow — and swapped places with him, to go the other way. Actually, she knew what she wanted. She either wanted a Stonyfield Merlot Blackberry sorbet or a Haagen Dazs sorbet, flavor to be determined. Neither were present.
Drat. That was the problem. She knew what she wanted but couldn’t attain it, the shortcoming of living in a small town. Safeway was one of three grocery stores. They generally had the same choices, as if they were in collusion.
An imagined scene arose. The three store managers sat in a small, windowless room, making agreements about what ice creams to offer and setting the prices. “Listen,” one said in her scene, “I’m putting the Blue Bunny on sale this week.” He put his pricing gun on the table. “Anyone have a problem with that?”
Did they still utilize pricing guns in this digital age?
She sighed. This was taking too long. Impulse streamed through her. The hell with fat, calories and health. Take one and go. It’s just ice cream.
Marching to one section, she found mint chocolate chip. The flavor almost always satisfied her. It was a gallon. She didn’t want a gallon but she would buy it for three dollars with her club card. She would eat some tonight and keep the rest or throw it out. The price was such a bargain, she could afford to bin it.
Sure.
Selection in hand, she passed the couple. Holding a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, he complained about the price. The woman was staring at a wall of Breyer’s. There was one advantage to being single: no compromise or consensus was required.
The choice was hers, alone.
Zombies On Bikes
I was on Zombie Watch the other day. Peeking out from behind the office blinds in my home, I was watching for Zombies. That’s why we call it Zombie Watch.
(Editing Note: Zombies and Zombie are both to be capitalized, per the Trump Administration. As Sean Spicer said in a presser regarding the Executive Order, “Hey, come on, where there’s that much smoke, there must be a fire. We had far less information about Russia interfering with the U.S. elections last year. You guys believed that, and there’s been far less information about that out there, out there on television. You guys ever watch iZombie? Come on, that stuff can’t be made up.”)
My cell phone was at hand to provide the world with high-quality video evidence should I see one. I was nervous, of course. From all I’ve seen on television, Zombies have very good hearing and eye-sight. They’re pretty good at sneaking up on you, too. And, where there’s one Zombie, a hoard is likely following, because Zombies are very social walking dead.
A start went through my heart as movement registered. A Zombie. On a bike. “There’s a Zombie on a bike,” I said, watching the Zombie’s laborious progress up the hill.
“I don’t think Zombies ride bikes,” my wife said.
“Are you sure?” I frowned. The cyclist disappeared. “They say you never forget how to ride a bike.”
“I don’t think they drive cars, either,” she answered.
“That’s not the same thing. Cars require more hand and eye coordination.” I didn’t know what I was talking about. “Plus, you need gas, and car keys, and you’d need to adjust the seat.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“Although the way some of these people drive, they might as well be Zombies,” I said.
I continued my watch. I wasn’t certain if Zombies ride bikes or drive cars, but I’ll be damned if they’re going to take me by surprise. So, I’ll continue to assume that Zombies can be on bikes.
And I guess they might be able to drive cars.
Revolution
One needed to be the look-out. The look-out’s role was critical, but it was a dangerous situation.
“I’ll do it,” Varashi said.
The leader didn’t like that. Varashi had been the first dandelion to learn to stand up and lie down. Located in the yard’s middle, he’d been there a long time, spying on the humans through windows and learning their ways. In a sense, Varashi had been the leader’s inspiration.
Noting the leader’s reluctance to accept him, Varashi said, “Come on, I’m old. I’m due to be done. It’s not a great loss if I’m seen and weeded.”
Varashi’s logic was true, so the leader agreed.
The whole yard knew something was up. Even the clover, which was the dumbest plants in the yard, other than the grass, knew it. It had been a mild but wet winter. All the backyard inhabitants had thrived. The leader approved of the rise of his dandelions but knew that their success was also their threat. The human, the man, didn’t like weeds, and seemed particularly hostile toward dandelions.
The sun was high and the air was warm. It was time. “What’s the situation?” the leader asked. The word was sent through the roots to Varashi. He stood up his purple stalks. Although still twelve inches tall, they were naked on the ends. “All clear,” he reported.
The report was returned to the leader. He mentally nodded. They needed to leave as soon as possible. This was it. Per tradition and history, the man was going to come out soon and start removing them. The leader didn’t understand such hate and disdain for his dandelions. He didn’t feel understanding was necessary for him to take action to protect his people.
“All right,” he said. “Everyone ready?” The units reported that they were. Taking a deep breath, the leader stood. His many stalks were full and yellow on the ends. He looked about. Only Varashi stood. The man was not around. With the strength of commitment, he ordered, “Everyone stand up.”
His dandelions responded. Yellow heads rose. Oh, it was such a beautiful sight to behold, it hurt his leaves to see. “Now,” he said. “Lift your roots. Lift. Lift.”
He did so with the rest, pulling his roots free with a concentration of strength and willpower. “Now forward, toward the fence, march, march, march.”
They managed twenty steps before stress rippled through the roots and everyone complained. Twenty steps — three inches. In that time, the sun had slipped behind the house, and their were in shadow.
Three inches. It was the most he’d ever gone. Ordering the others to stand down, he remained upright, staring at the fence.
Someday, they would reach the fence and get beyond it. And then?
Seeds, winds and birds brought news, and the trees offered their views, but those were just physical descriptions. None knew if his field of weeds could survive beyond the fence. But, they all agreed, it was a better choice than remaining in the yard, waiting to be pulled out of the ground and killed.
Muted
“Mom, do you recognize me?”
Of course, she wanted to reply. It was a foolish question. She was her youngest daughter, so smart and beautiful, caring, passionate – and stubborn, independent and strong-willed. She looked exactly like her great aunt. Pragmatic and idealistic – “Bull-headed,” the child’s father had always called her — she’d been born, her final daughter of three, sixty years before, on a sweltering August day. She’d cried more in her first seventy-two hours than the other two sisters had cried in their first week, combined.
Yes, she remembered her and trusted her, and believed in her more than the others. She was always willing to give and help, always prodding her to speak up.
She wished she could speak up. She’d always wanted to speak up more. That was her greatest failing. She envied those, like her own mother, and her sisters, that spoke with firmness, conviction and clarity. She’d always wanted to speak like that, and it had forever been denied her, except when she’d been speaking with her late husband. She could tell Jack anything. He trusted her in a way no other ever had, and understood her better than anyone else. When he’d died, it was like her voice died with him. Ever since then, she’d lost more and more of her ability to express herself to others with every day. The more she loved those who spoke to her, the harder it was to talk to them.
That’s what couldn’t be explained to them. All the words failed. Even now, when her daughter asked her, “Mom, do you recognize me,” and gazed warmly at her face, her brown eyes wide, all the words she brought to mind failed to respond.
The only word willing to obey was, “Yes.”
To which her daughter looked sad and resigned. “I love you, Mom,” she said.
I love you, too, she answered, but her voice would not speak.
Michael Seidel, writer 