Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
He did another little DIY project, replacing the diverter on a bathtub spout. Not difficult, and yet it solved a minor problem, and that felt satisfying.
After that, he wandered around the house, searching for other things to fix. Finding nothing (although some caulking could be in order), he instead culled their financial files, taking out and shredding years of information. It, too, was satisfying, but in a different way.
What next, he wondered. What next?
When the shimmering began, he took no notice. Half an ear heard of it, a quarter of his brain gave it a few seconds of attention, but that was mostly because he was a dirty old man. He was a dirty old man, couldn’t help himself, though he tried to be woke or whatever the right expression was, so the three young women caught his attention.
They were right beside him, so young, healthy, and energetic, drinking some kind of holiday coffee drink loaded with whip cream and sipped up with straws. He could even smell whatever perfume of shampoo or lotion they wore. Their behavior kindled a universe of remembered thoughts about what being young meant. One, the brunette, a tall person with wide dark eyes, maybe endowed with some Korean heritage, gasped and said more loudly than anything said previously, “Marcus has the shimmering.”
Voices dropping, heads moving toward a center point, the conversation’s tone was a serious counterpart to their previous merriment. Such behavior just sucked him in.
“He does?” said one blonde. As she continued with rising concern, “When,” and “Who told you,” the other blonde said, “Oh my God, when did he get it?”
Their voices dropped lower. Coffee house adult contemporary rock and mild tinnitus kept him from hearing though he pushed his mind to deeper levels of concentration. Nothing came of it.
They left five minutes later, texting on phones, drinks in hand, moving in a line to the exit and out. The shimmering was such an unusual expression, hours later, at home while watching The Kominsky Method again and eating a piece of Marie Callender apple pie which he’d baked, he remembered it and asked his dog if she’d ever heard of it. Although the dog’s intelligent face perked up, she said nothing.
“Fine help you are,” he said, the expression the two shared often, especially when he thought he heard someone creeping around outside at night. The shimmering still gnawed at him like an earworm which wouldn’t let go, so he turned to his ancient laptop and brought up Google. He hated Google almost as much as Twitter and Facebook, but Google unfortunately delivered the best results.
The shimmering, he typed in, figuring that it was probably using a traditional spelling, chuckling to himself at his droll wit. The computer screen went black as soon as he pressed enter.
“What the — .” He stared at the screen. What now? Damn technology. Stupid computer. He pressed enter a few times, hoping that would stir the screen back to life, and the did alt-ctrl-delete. Ah, yes, the old three-fingered salute. Remember the BSOD, he told himself, and laughed.
Grimacing, he acknowledged, he probably needed to do a hard reboot and pray to the tech gods that the stupid machine worked. Well, it was old. He couldn’t remember when he’d bought it. Seemed like it’d been at least ten years. Could that be right?
The screen lit up as he reached for the power button. It was kind of lavender-ish and blue, but also white and almost bright as looking at the full sun on a clear day. Pulling back with a hard wince, he closed his eyes, said, “Damn,” loudly, and leaned back.
Shelby said beside him, “That is bright.”
Eyebrows jumping, he peered at the black and white dog. Did she speak or was he imagining that? “What?” he finally asked.
The dog turned her brown and amber eyes on him. “I said that it’s bright.”
He gawked at her.
“I mean the screen,” Shelby said. “At least it’s bright to me.” The dog pointed her nose at the screen. “Hey, there are words.”
“You can read?” he asked. “You can talk and you read?”
“Look,” the dog answered, backing away. “Your skin.”
“What?” He looked down in almost the same second. A gasp rode out of him. His hands were shimmering like white sequins under hot spotlights.
Then a voice from the computer said, “You have been given the shimmering.”
“What?” he replied, because his neurons had abandoned their posts and nothing made sense to him. He might even be having a stroke. He’d always feared having a stroke.
The computer said, “Initiation beginning.” The light flowed out of the screen and embraced him.
An unexpected life was about to begin.
He read that they were ‘de-aging’ Harrison Ford for a movie.
He wondered when someone was going to ‘de-age’ him.
His diet amounted to the foods he chose for his health, things his body craved, and then the comfort foods for when his body says, “Hey, it was bad day. How ‘bout some carbs?”
The husband and wife were complaining about cutbacks. The city had removed the drop boxes for utility bills from ‘their’ end of town, necessitating a two mile walk or drive to drop the bill off. “Hardly a drop off,” he huffed.
She said, “They keep cutting services back but we keep paying more.”
He began laughing. “We sound just like our parents.” Standing, he said in a raised voice, “I remember when they delivered the mail twice a day and stamps were three cents.”
It was funny, even if it was all true. Someday, Gen Z will complain and say that they sound just like the Boomers.
They used to tell him, “It’s the thought that counts.” But as everyone knows who thought they won an election, or bought a lottery ticket and didn’t win, believed they were going to win a football game, or thought they had Wordle in two moves, it’s not the thought that counts. It’s the results.
I thought we’d play a game today. I’m not going to tell you what day of the week it is. Instead, I’ll give you a clue: it’s between Monday and Tuesday. As a second clue, I’ll tell you that it’s November 15, 2022, but don’t cheat and look at a calendar or computer to see which day of the week it is, alright? Cool. This should be fun.
It’s a bigly windy and sunny day out there. Winds roaring about like a big, drunk, hairy guy, shaking leaves on trees and shouting incoherently about what’s going on. People try to avoid him but he’s every dang place. Temperature has settled at 48 degrees F under these conditions but the weather they say it’ll get up to 52 F. I’m optimistic because yesterday saw us peak at 59 F. It was lovely except a wind would rake you once in a while, like reminding you, winter is looking over your shoulder. The sun came on stage at 7:01 AM while they’ll take their final bows in the valley at 4:49 this evening. Should be sunny all day, though.
On the personal front, Mom has gone in and out of the hospital again. Concerns about her appendix took her in last Thursday. They saw fluid in her appendix on imaging, put her on meds, drew blood and urine for the lab, and sent her home. Yesterday, they called her back in because they’d found Yokenella regensburgei in the lab results. Mom, a retired nurse, had never heard of it, and no wonder, because from what my net reading tells me, it’s pretty rare. The family tree is shook by this news. After bringing Mom in yesterday for more tests, they gave her meds and sent her home. We don’t know what they’re planning, but I read some case studies so we have some idea of what to expect. Fingers crossed for the tough old broad once again. She says she feels fine although the news wearied her.
For music, I’m going with “I Ain’t Worried” by OneRepublic. The song was featured in the Top Gun fillum this year but I haven’t seen the movie. People seemed to like it but we weren’t enticed enough to go sit in a theater with a mask on for a few hours.
The Neurons pulled the song up after my wife said something to me, a trivial matter to which I responded, “I’m not worried about it right now.” If you’re familiar with the song, it features this whistling part. Soon as I uttered my words, The Neurons started that whistling part. Now it’s traveling the morning mental music stream like the moon going around the Earth.
Okay, on to other things. Stay positive, etc. The coffee has already been tested and deemed useful for delivering a refreshing taste and giving me enough energy to breathe and think, though maybe not at the same time. More coffee will be needed for that. Here’s the song. Enjoy the whistling.
Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 