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Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Friday, September 12, 2008
Printable version… Dialogue PDF

“God, I love Sunday mornings. …Richard?”

“What?”

“Could you at least not read the paper until we get there? You can’t walk and unfold the paper at the same time. You’re just smooshing it all up. You know I like it crisp, the way it was when we bought it.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll wait.”

“Com’on. What’s not to enjoy? …Watch it, that guy’s turning. Let’s wait for the light.”

“I’m waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“For the light. You just asked me to wait for the light, didn’t you?”

“Could you get back on the curb?”

“But I like the idea of being married to a taller woman. ..Com’on. We have 24 seconds to cross the street.”

“It’s perfect. We sleep late, slop on some clothes, pick up the paper, and take as much time as we want reading it cover to cover over some fresh coffee and a toasted bagel with extra-saturated fat, mmmm, mmm declicious walnut cream cheese. …Life is good.”

“Hm.”

“Richard, you promised.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll put it away, but you’re getting breakfast.”

“Deal. Now hold my hand and pretend like we actually enjoy hanging out together. It’s the one day we both have off. …There, isn’t that better?”

“You just want to remind your friends that we’re the only marriage they know that isn’t on the rocks, and that’s just because, in four years, we’ve only spent one day a week together. What’s that, 108 days, roughly three months? No wonder we’re still happy.”

“208 days. Four times 52 is 208. Seven months.”

“Whatever. Technically, we’re still newlyweds. At this rate our marriage could last forever.”

“But we have great sex, don’t we?”

“Confirming my theory that it’s best if only one of us is awake at a time. …I need to write a paper on that.”

“Hey, any time you want to move to the suburbs, we can both stop working 12 hour days.”

“What, and not eat out every meal?”

“We could save some money. That would be… Brenda!”

“Jesus, stop waiving. She’ll want to join us.”

“Try smiling. She’s got a morning session with her trainer, and please don’t say anything. I already know what you’re thinking.”

“I am trying to smile. This is the best I can do.”

“Alright, kill the smile. You’re beginning to scare people.”

“There, the table on the end. The one by the ficus with the squirrel pooping in the pot.”

“How do you know it’s a ficus?”

“I don’t. It’s the only potted tree name I know. Besides, I like the way it sounds. ‘Ficus.’ If we ever have children, I want to name it ‘Ficus.’”

“It? …Would you mind if we took this chair? …Thanks.”

“Boy. Girl. Who cares? Ficus is one of those names, like ‘Dana,” that works either way. .Have you got money?”

“I do. It’s in my sock. …Don’t ask.”

“I won’t.”

“I’m too young for a fanny pack.”

“Did you notice, I didn’t ask. Just make sure my croissant is perfect. And make sure, actually tell him not to slice it. I like tearing my croissants apart.”

“I’m going.”

“I mean it! Don’t take it if he.. slices it. She can’t hear me. I’m just talking to myself.”

“Hey, Richard.”

“Oh, hey, Brenda. You don’t mind if I don’t get up, do you? Lisa insisted that we walk, and I’m exhausted.”

“Richard, you only live 8 minutes from here.”

“Well, it seemed like 10. Besides, if I stop reading, I’ll forget where I was and have to start over again.”

“Aren’t those the comics?”

“This one has more words than usual.”

“Your chair’s wobbling.”

“True, but it’s wobbling less than the other chairs. …Lisa’s inside getting food.”

“No, I’m right here. There was no one in line. Serge actually seemed glad to see me. Hi, honey.”

“I thought I was ‘honey’.”

“No, you’re ‘sweet cheeks’. I’ll make you name tag when I get back. Brenda and I need to chat for a second. I’ll be right back.”

“You really think my cheeks are sweet?”

“ Read the paper.”

“I thought we were going to read the.. paper together. Apparently not.”

“You were right.”

“That was quick. Right about what?”

“About Jeffrey. Hand me the ‘Arts & Leisure’ section.”

“Who’s ‘Jeffrey’? Here.”

“Her trainer. I think he’s 12, but Brenda says he has the maturity of a 15 year old. …Oh my God! I can’t believe you dog eared one of the pages. Have you learned nothing living with me??”

“Just read the review of Bob’s play. You can thank me later.”

“Richard, there’s a pigeon on the table.”

“None of my friends are pigeons. It must be one of yours.”

“Do I have poppy seeds in my teeth?’

“No.”

“Richard, put the paper down and tell me if I have poppy seeds in my teeth.”

“No, but your teeth seem unusually large today.”

“By the way, I meant to tell you…”

“Tell me what?”

“Hey, will you try not to dip the corner of the paper in my cream cheese the next time you turn the page. It has the perfect number of walnuts.”

“That’s what you wanted to tell me?”

“No. …I’m expecting.”

“Hm.”

“I said, ‘I’m expecting…”

“Expecting what?”

“…a ficus.”

“We’ll put it on the balcony. It’ll be fine. …Did you take the financial section?”

“Richard?”

“Hm.”

“Richard?!!”

“What?!”

“We don’t have a balcony.”

-wf

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Copyright as of the title date or earlier, by me.
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Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Printable version… Precocious PDF

“My name is John Stansfield. I’m an agricultural microbiologist for a consulting firm. The name of the company isn’t important. They had nothing to do with what I’m about to describe. Besides, by now whatever personal records I kept at the office have removed or altered to fool any investigation. These people don’t erase any evidence of your existence. That’s way too hard, too suspicious. Better to leave you out there, stripped of your credibility. By now, my life has been tweaked, altered with finesse just enough to make anything I say here seem plausibly unbelievable, at most the ramblings of an over-active imagination. They have taken from me the fraction of my life that made me special. It was hardly anything, but everything that made me unique. It is the proverbial telltale partial fingerprint proving their involvement, that I have become extraordinarily ordinary, of no particular interest to anyone. The records I have, but they don’t know about, are quite probably the last surviving evidence that what I am about to tell you is true. I fear for my life. Even more, I fear that what I have done, however innocent and well meaning, will be left to prove in horrible retrospect that my story was authentic, and the danger all too real.”

“It’s late. If you care, I’m working in the dark, except for the glow of my screen, in the upstairs bedroom of one the kids of an acquaintance who’s on vacation. I overheard him leaving his house key with his secretary to take care of his plants, and made a copy while she went out for lunch. He doesn’t know I’m here, and I borrowed a friend’s car in case they were tracking mine. No one followed me. I should be okay for the next few hours – time enough to write this, get some sleep, and be up and out of here early, before any of the neighbors notice. I’m afraid to use my cell phone, and these people don’t have a land line. It sounds corny, I know, but I’ll give you instructions later for how you can reach me by running a personals add on-line. …I’m talking too much. I’m so tired, but I’ve got to get this out.”

“My particular specialty is protecting agricultural products from exposure to environmental and biological elements which, when those agricultural products are consumed, would cause harm to the public.”

“I’m not much of a writer, but I’ll do my best to explain what’s happened, and then I’m going to go. This will be an e-mail addressed to the Editors-in-Chief of the major television news networks and most prominent newspapers. Hopefully, one of you will take me seriously, investigate on the odd chance that I’m not a crackpot, and do something about it. I can’t, and don’t think I’ll live long enough even if I could. At best, you’ll staff it out, if it even makes it to your desk. At most, you might do your duty and forward it to the local office of the FBI who will give it casual study until it’s too late. At worst, these notes will be one more inconspicuous item for the nice Hispanic lady who empties your trash after you’ve gone home for the day. With luck, you’ll never realize how many lives you could have saved had you only paid attention.”

“Some months ago, I was approached by someone who identified herself – verbally and with written credentials which I verified with her agency – as Rebecca Kloonz, a senior analyst with Homeland Security, an almost too attractive blonde, as stunning as she was friendly, the consummate professional you couldn’t get out of your head no matter how hard you tried. What I did, to be honest, I did for my country, but pleasing her was certainly part of it.”

“When I first met her, she was accompanied by a suit claiming to be a lawyer with the same agency. I’ll attach copies of the business cards they gave me. Although I now know they are imposters, both of them checked out when we first met. I called Homeland Security, and there used to be a handful of citations on Google, and a My Space page, but they’re gone now. Kloontz, the analyst, was to be my contact. The lawyer – the suit that came with her after I agreed to cooperate – was supposedly there to explain a handful of forms and agreements I had to sign related to federal secrecy statutes.”

“The gist of what they wanted was to hire me, outside of our company, to participate in what amounted to a game in the war against terrorism. My job was to devise and precisely document three to five means by which terrorists could infect the food supply so as to produce the most widespread, most frightening harm to our people, with devastating effects on the economy. One simple example that she gave me, far less sophisticated and effective than what she knew I could propose, was to introduce Mad Cow’s Disease in multiple herds around the country, destroying the American beef industry and all the various related companies whose products derive from that core ingredient. But MCD was too obvious. What they wanted from me were techniques that would kill as many people as possible, quickly, before the root cause could be determined, and for which there would be no obvious or convenient solution.”

“Other experts, as unknown to me as I would be to them, would then be tasked to devise means of protecting against these threats that I had devised, and recovering from such an attack. In later games, our roles would be reversed. It was the patriotic thing for me to do. It’s unbelievable, but I even met with Ms. Kloonz at her offices in the Homeland Security building in Washington. Why wouldn’t I believe her? While I was there, some senior gentlemen stopped by to thank me for agreeing to work with them on behalf of the American people would never appreciate the value of my efforts and that of other scientists like me. Who knows what he thought I was there to do? Was he in on it, or not? God forgive me, but who wouldn’t have thought this was real?”

“Attached to this e-mail are copies of the three suggestions I made, including detailed formulas, instructions for manufacturing, and plans for distribution. Their insidious effectiveness never disgusted me. Their cleverness made me proud of what I could do for my country, but then they counted on that, didn’t they, that I would be so highly motivated to do the right thing.”

Of the three proposals I made to Kloonz, the one in which she seemed to be most interested wa… Hold on. I think there’s a car pulling up in the driveway. Jesus, it’s after 1 AM and Jack isn’t due home until next week. Hold on… It’s just one man. F**k, he’s working the front door. He’s coming in. I’m going to e-mail this now and send you the attachments later, as soon as I…”

“Hi, honey.” His mother gave her smiling husband a quick kiss on the lips, and turned to shout upstairs to her favorite (and only) son. “Nelson! Com’on. Daddy’s home. I’ve got dinner ready to go. Get your sister and come on down. We’ve still go to pack so we can get an early start tomorrow morning.”

“Nuts,” Nelson thought to himself, interrupting his typing to press on the center of his frames, pushing his glasses up this nose which, sadly, would eventually be large enough to no longer need his assistance.

“He’s not packed yet?” his father asked, putting down his briefcase on top of their cat he hadn’t noticed was sitting in his favorite family room chair.” You’d have thought Jack, the cat, would have screamed, but then he was used to it, and looked forward to their leaving him home for a week of peace and quiet. “What’s he been doing all day?”

“Writing. I don’t know. I haven’t packed either.” And then she laughed, not wanting to make fun of their son, but unable to help herself. “He’s been grumbling that he has less than three weeks to come up with a really cool nickname.”

“It’s summertime. Why isn’t he busy with his dorky friends inventing something?”

“Hey, they’re not that dorky,” his older sister, Samantha, always protective of her younger brother, had just come around the corner into the kitchen. “He’s just a kid – a really, really smart kid with an overly active imagination. He’ll be okay as soon as he starts Middle School after we get back.”

“Nelson!!!” His mother couldn’t stand not serving dinner when it was ready.

The cringe was a reflex he couldn’t suppress. Still upstairs, standing up from his desk, Nelson moved the arrow “Send/Receive” and pressed the left key below his synapse pad. “Maybe it’ll make the news,” he said out loud. “That would be cool.”

“NELSON.” This time it was his father calling him. “Sam, please go get your brother.”

“Nelson Metcalf Rogerson. Jesus, what were they thinking?” he muttered under his breath, closing the lid of his laptop on his way to the door. “I’m never going to get a girl to go out with me. Never, ever.”

-wf

What to read more? Just click here and pick a title you like.

Copyright as of the title date or earlier, by me.
(I write the WordFeeder blog.)  All rights reserved.
Email WordFeeder@verizon.net for additional information.