THE END
SHOE IN by George Strasburg
"Do you really want to go through with this?" My husband asks for the millionth time. On the bed is our daughter Bethany. I still feel like we should be whispering, like we will wake her, but the procedure has already begun.
"I want her to know that I know what she's going through." I was on the verge of tears. The tension in the house could still be felt, even in our teenage daughter’s peaceful slumber.
"I just think maybe there are things we're better off not knowing."
"Then you shouldn't have suggested it, John. You spent your bonus on the kit, it is supposed to work. It's the least I can do as a parent."
"I know. You just asked me to talk you out of it."
When Bethany was just a baby we had talked about the X-Peer and Shoe-In apps that allowed you to sync minds with another person and experience a brief period of time. It had been a popular gift item for whack jobs and cross dressers three years ago, but now was relegated to the same shameful isle in most drug stores as the weight loss pills.
I thought then I wanted my child to live her life, to never interfere. But I never knew then that I would be so crushed that she couldn't talk to me. I couldn't take the slammed doors, the ignored texts, the cursing and lies.
I had two more years until she turned 18 and legally she could be on her own just as she wanted. She could get her driver's license and never look back. And I can only imagine the people she will meet the day her internet license comes through. I needed to know she was still a good girl, that she was still wanting to make all the right choices, that she was just dealing with hormones that the doctors hadn't mastered a pill to balance yet.
I remember how mean I had been to my parents. But I still wanted to be good. I still wanted to never take drugs or get drunk at a party or bounce from bed to bed. I was sad and lonely and confused why boys didn't swoon over me, why I had to wake up everyday and go to school where they taught me nothing.
I remember those feelings. I can look back and analyze them and understand where they came from and how silly in actuality they were, but at the time they meant the world to me. They made the word a very dark place.
If I know Bethany is just going through the same thing, I won't even try and tell her that I can relate, that I know exactly what she is going through. I'll know and it'll be easier for me not to be offended.
I kissed my husband. I was sure I wanted to do this. He didn't ask again.
No one I knew had tried either product, X-Peer or Shoe-In, Shoe in had had the better reviews but I still didn't know what to expect. The list of side effects was long and the only one that scared me was the one saying not to use in case of a history of depression in your family. Doesn't every family have a history?
The primer pill tasted like sand. When I swallowed it felt as if it tunneled a hole down my throat. That tunnel now felt empty.
"They say it takes over pretty quick," my husband said as he helped me into a chair next to my daughter's bed. He adjusted the cords linking the two of us, a strange umbilical. My eyes felt dry. I had to shut them. Then my nose got warm and suddenly a smell I wasn't used to came on very strong. They said this was when you knew you were in the other person. You smelled their nose.
Next was sleep. The body can't handle the initial transfer. It enters a coma state while all the brain processes rewire themselves. I'd already called the school and informed them Bethany would arrive late. My controls over her body would be off, like a night of heavy dosing cold medicine. I wondered if any parent ever attempted to use Shoe In to help their children pass tests.
Bethany's grades had not faltered. Just her attitude. And it seemed to me it was just her attitude towards me. She had never been Daddy's little girl, but she certainly didn't show him any ounce of disrespect.
It was the last thought I felt was entirely my own. And then I felt like I was cursing the sunlight that crept through the blinds. I felt like Jell-O inside the body, loose and barely formed. She moved and I felt myself within her forced to move. She was thinking about schoolwork and trying to remember if she had dreamed. She saw the time on her clock and went into panic mode. I was a pinball within her as she ripped through her things trying to get her tablet to fit in her coat pocket. She burst out of the door but my husband stopped her.
He looked so different through her eyes. It was like the colors were off, like he was a slightly different shade, just a hair off. He looked taller and older, not like the man I’d been aging alongside of; I knew this was my daughter’s mind.
“I figured I’d let you sleep in this morning. I already called the school.” He was a better liar than I knew. There was no doubt in her mind. “Have some breakfast and I’ll drive you in.”
There it was, don’t be nicer to her, how am I supposed to compete with the nice father who lets her sleep in and have breakfast. Of course she wasn’t going to eat any breakfast. She wanted to be skinnier and she wasn’t ever hungry when she woke up. She hated the taste in her mouth and I hated it as well. It was dry and stale and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth trying to keep her taste buds sealed off.
I didn’t want her to know I was within her so I didn’t force my hand I just let her pop a stick of bubblegum as she went on through the door. Her thoughts were of dread. She’d rather have stayed in bed like any other teenager.
For the first time in my life I knew I was really listening. I had no other choice. Her thoughts danced alongside mine. I could probably understand them more than Bethany could.
We made it to lunch before she did something I almost scolded her for— she didn’t eat. She chatted with her friends and simply arranged the apple, sandwich, and soda can perfectly on the cafeteria table but did not once think of actually eating them. Was it all just for show? So that her friends didn’t know she was starving herself.
Then in her next class, Earth Sciences, she was ready to pass out. That might explain some of the attitude if she wasn’t eating right she would be more irritable. They say you can take an additive that will allow you to communicate with the other person, but then they would also have to know you were within them, so perhaps to Bethany’s luck, she couldn’t hear me chanting ‘I told you so.’
I tried to keep her awake. Every time she nodded off I would exert all my force over her to jerk her head back awake. But she didn’t last long. I wanted to force her hand and make her go get the soda she’d put back in her locker. But her head kept falling to the desk and each time she went into a more vivid dream.
A shared dream.
I had not taken the additive that allows me more control other than the basic, which provided emergency functions such as jumping out of the way of oncoming traffic. I didn’t want to control my daughter. I just wanted to experience her. And now I was trapped experiencing one of her dreams.
“What are you doing here?”
I turned in the bright daylight the glare of the sun came from Bethany, not from the sky. We were separated in her dream.
“Mom, are you in my mind?”
“No, no.” I lied, “Would you like me here?”
“You better go, if you’re not here to help,” she said and slowly she looked around at a pace that could only be called dreamlike. Her head simply drifted along her shoulders searching the dreamscape. I followed her scan at a quicker pace, parts of the place in her dream were so bright I could not look long before it seemed like I was staring into blackness.
“Mom, don’t go that way, you’ll have to hide. What am I saying you’re not here, you’re just a dream. I’m dreaming. But if you’re here you’re in danger. No, you’re not here.” Bethany rambled on. Each sentence made less and less sense until I could only understand the word “fire.”
I had not read any warning about dreams. The Shoe In box had said all the sleep required for the day would happen in the connection process, after that there were just six hours before our minds would separate and the experience would end.
&n
bsp; Maybe Bethany should’ve had a Red Bull for breakfast.
I wondered if I could hide and she would forget that I was here. I wondered if I could say things to her that might make her think when she wakes back up.
“I love you, Bethany,” I said. I turned to face her, but she was gone.
A bell rung and suddenly Bethany was standing up. She put away her things and then we began to walk. I was so dazed that I hadn’t realized initially that I could no longer hear her thoughts. I was alone on a roller coaster ride, jerking around curves and racing down stairwells. Why couldn’t I hear her thoughts?
Every turn she made was sharper and I rammed up inside of her, feeling her bones as if they were within, stabbing me. Her muscles tightened around them until it felt like she was squeezing me to death.
“Stop!” I begged hoping she could hear me. “Stop!”
I didn’t know if it were possible for a person to block you out, if Bethany knew and she was now trying to stop me from invading her things. At home it would only get worse. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. Your mind has no tears and I couldn’t get Bethany to weep for me.
Then I realized what she was doing. Bethany had returned to her locker and I could smell the gasoline, I could even feel her hand tightening around a lighter like she had my mind. I couldn’t tell if she was actually going to do it, but there was no other reason than to have these things in her locker.
She took us into the girls’ locker room and doused the room, and then herself. Oh, God, I couldn’t believe what she was doing. She walked pass the mirrors and stopped, something in it had caught her attention and she froze and peered into her own eyes and I swear she saw me.
A terrible smile cracked her face. Bethany watched herself in the mirror as she poured the gasoline over herself. She flexed her eyebrows like she was wondering if I were impressed.
“Two souls for the price of one, isn’t modern technology beautiful.”
She said as she lit the room on fire.
The blaze roared around and started up her legs so fast her hair was already a blaze in the mirror before I felt it. I couldn’t scream, just feel the scream, Bethany’s scream.
I woke up in my house. I was drowning in sweat, praying it was all just a nightmare. Absolutely terrified that the phone would ring. My body felt warm, feverish, perhaps I was sick, the product had made me sick and induced a nightmare, I thought, I hoped, I prayed. I got up and my legs felt like jelly as I walked through the house. My husband would still be at work I was alone.
I walked out into the hallway and stared down at Bethany’s room. My tears caught up with me and I balled up on the floor crying. I felt my body again, I felt total control again but I’d never felt more out of control, more useless.
Bethany’s door squeaked.
She should’ve still been at school.
But for some reason there was a strange hope, that it all was a dream and the Shoe In didn’t work and she was still passed out in bed. I ran for the door and pushed it the rest of the way open.
It was empty of course.
She was at school, just like the Shoe In had been used and sitting next to my bed when I came to. But maybe it doesn’t work? Maybe it simply induces dreams using your own imagination.
How many testimonials had there been on the box? How many lucky transsexuals got to feel like a real woman?
I could call the school. I could check the news.
I was too scared to do anything. I sat on her bed. The room felt darker than it should be, my brain tried to make me feel like it wasn’t eerie, it told me there was probably a cloud in the way of the sun at this moment.
I realized I was dialing the school.
The phone just rang and rang and I found myself laughing. But I didn’t want to be laughing. I wanted to hang up the phone, but I held it and listened to each ring intercut with another laugh.
I suddenly felt that feeling again as I stood up, I was like Jell-O sliding around inside my body. It was my body, wasn’t it? I felt thrust forward and every step I took it felt like I was being dragged along.
I wasn’t in control.
I whipped out of Bethany’s room and down the hallways, then down the stairs, then into the kitchen. I watched as my hands danced along the knives. It was searching for the right one.
Outside the blaze of sirens roared passed our house, towards the school.
There was a voice in my head now, it was not my own. It said: “What will I have you do now?”
THE END
THREE MORE DAYS by Anthony Vann
Dr. Alyssa Sylva had heard some smug speaker at a medical conference say doctors obsess over making the right choice. But all that's needed in life is to make a good choice. Believe in it, do it, and accept the consequence. That speaker was wrong.
"Ally, open up!" The bedroom door rattled so violently the entire wall shook. "I just wanna help."
Alyssa pulled her shaking hands from the keyboard, clenched them so hard she grimaced, and tried again. This time 146 million results popped up.
"Open the door."
As she scanned the screen, her fingers found the scar beside her navel. If she opened that door he might succeed in killing her this time.
Or, to defend herself, she might have to...
Alyssa shook the thought away. Best to concentrate on better times like a week ago when he was just her Freddy teddy. How could she do anything else?
-~-
Dr. Frederick Sylva fidgeted in a tuxedo that matched his horn-rimmed glasses. He was the scrawny black kid everyone sat next to in Algebra class when they forgot to study the night before. And now he was winning awards and accepting million dollar grants.
"I forgot how well you clean up," Alyssa said.
"If the boys in the hood could only see me now. I’m just glad this is over with so I can take this thing off."
"Don’t worry," Alyssa leaned forward to stare into the hazel eyes she fell in love with, "I think you’ll have some help with that tonight." She placed her hand on top of his. Cool whip on chocolate ice cream.
"Don’t make promises you can’t keep."
Alyssa used her best southern belle voice, "Well, I do declare, Mr. Beauregard."
It was a joke between the two of them since they’d moved across the country from LA to Majestic, Virginia. Even though she was scared of what a couple like them might face in the South, they’d found new jobs, a new beginning for their marriage, and a chance to lead a team in the most exciting research two biochemists could imagine.
This research, the first step in saving hundreds of thousands of lives, was the reason Frederick donned his tuxedo and Alyssa was decked out in a scarlet sequined dress that matched her hair. The Innovation in Biotechnology Award.
Hadley Labs was attempting to create viable organs from unusable ones. The breakthrough was the ability to successfully use a rodent liver as a ‘scaffold’ stripping the nonviable rat organ of everything except for collagen and blood vessel structure. From there they used synthetic stem cells to rebuild the liver and, once rebuilt, implanted it in a different rat.
It worked.
Temporarily.
Seventy five percent of the time.
The problem was they couldn’t ‘turn off’ the synthetic cells. They continued to replicate and invade other parts of the body until they reached the brain where they caused dementia, madness, numbness in the limbs, and, finally, death. The whole process took three days.
"Maybe I should drive once the valet pulls it around. You didn’t sleep last night," Frederick said as the headlights of their Accord swung around the corner.
"My eyes wouldn’t close. I am so close. And when I get there we’ll be able to extend life a lot longer than three days."
"Be that as it may-"
"I think you just wanna drive my car. And the answer is no," Alyssa said.
"Ally, I just-"
"Love you too," she tipped the valet ten bucks, took her keys, and slipped into the familiar g
ray and plastic interior. "The faster you get in, the faster we get home, the faster I can show you how much."
-~-
"Ally!"
The wall shook again and snapped Alyssa back to the present. Why hadn't she listened? She would give anything to feel that way with her Freddy teddy again. She would give anything to go back into the past and fix what she did wrong. She would give anything…
But real life doesn't work like that.
She would never get a chance to right those wrongs. Not after that night.
-~-
The faintly pleasant smell of gasoline burned Alyssa’s nose. She licked her lips and tasted ash and metal. The world made a strange sound. Not silence, but a tone that drew out to infinity like when her granddaddy fired his shotgun and she forgot to cover her ears.
Where was Frederick?
She looked around but her eyelids were so heavy all she saw were disjointed images. Flashes of pavement. Bloody cloth. Neon green antifreeze.
Words from strange voices dripped into her ear like water trickling into a clogged drain.
"Accident-"
"Avenue-"
"Injuries-"
"Riverview Hospital-"
She saw him. Through the wreckage of plastic and steel.
"Frederick." She tried to move to him but couldn't.
A small piece of metal jutted out from his abdomen. Blood pooled on the pavement beneath.
-~-
A thunderbolt ripped through the room as the door cracked. "Let me in."
Alyssa scanned the webpages. "Calm down, sweetheart." What could she use to barricade the door? "You’re not well. But don’t worry. I’m going to fix you, Freddy teddy. I’ve almost figured it out."
"Ally, you don’t understand what’s going on. You need to let me in right now." He pounded on the door again and another crack echoed through the room as it splintered.
The walnut sleigh bed was too heavy for her to move by herself. The two bedside tables didn’t weigh more than a couple pounds each. The 60 inch Vizio wouldn’t make much of a difference either.
9 Tales Told in the Dark 8 Page 4