by Неизвестный
By this time Grandpa had moved to Idaho. The kids were grown and scattered.
“February 28, 1971. I wish Samantha would come home to stay with us.”
Samantha was my mother. On the facing page was an article that made my heart stop. “Local man killed in Vietnam: Wife returns to be with family.” A faded picture in the newspaper showed my mother, my brother and I standing in front of an airplane. My grandpa had always tried to take my father’s role in my life, but had always reminded me that he was not my dad.
“Your dad gave it all in that cursed war,” he declared often. “Don’t ever forget it.”
I wanted to stop. I wanted to run to the nursing home and grab him up. I wanted to hug him and tell him all of these things were coincidences. That he could not have caused them all. That he could not blame himself. It just wasn’t right.
Then I thought of the dog. The dog on the lawn. I flipped ahead.
“June 4, 1976: wish we had some dam water around here.”
“The Teton Dam Breaks” declared the facing article.
“Learn to Spell!” he had written underneath.
“Library Receives Huge Shipment” a small article taped underneath read. The local library had received a huge shipment of dictionaries they were giving away.
I slammed the book shut. I was wondering who was crazier. Him or me. He had believed he was doing all of these things, and had recorded them. After a few hours reading, and one incident with a dog, I believed him too.
Reluctantly I opened the last notebook. The front was filled but it was clear by looking that the articles stopped about halfway through.
“I must experiment, but carefully,” the opening inscription read. The air in the house suddenly seemed to drop twenty degrees. I shuddered at the word “experiment.”
The first page had a scrap of paper taped to it. The paper was a list titled “Grocery Wish List.” It was simple. In big letters were written:
Coffee
Bread
Tea
Bacon
Eggs
Under these in my Grandmother’s handwriting were two more items:
Oatmeal
Potatoes
The facing article was astounding: “Man Wins Grocery Raffle.” I didn’t need to read all of it because items in the article had been highlighted. “The bag he won contained Coffee, Bread, Tea, Bacon, and Eggs. ‘I guess I have only two things to get,’ his wife Elna Ingram declared. ‘This is just what I wished for,’ Eddie declared.”
I didn’t want to believe. It was such a small thing. A small coincidence but it was the small things that made no sense. A misspelling leading to a broken dam and a huge flood might be chocked up to accident or precognizant tendencies. A grocery raffle? With the exact items he wished for? Too much.
There was no article for the consequence of this experiment. Perhaps the little wishes had fewer consequences.
“This is crazy!” I said out loud. “It’s not real!”
As I flipped the pages it became clearer that it was real. A wish for a new TV: an old friend passed away and left him his almost brand new set. “FOOL” was scratched on this page too. A wish for ice cream: a big rig crashed on main street spilling its load. Citizens were told to “take as much as they wished. It would never last to market now.” The driver of the rig was critically injured, and died en-route to the hospital. A wish for a new church building: the old one burnt to the ground on a Sunday, injuring dozens.
“At least no one died,” he had written under that one. I flipped to the last entry.
“April 8, 1990: I am afraid,” the post read, “but I wish we had a new van. This one is falling apart.”
There was no newspaper but I did not need one. My grandmother had died that day. A fiery crash on the highway on the way to the store. I looked out in the driveway at the five year old van with my pickup parked behind it. Five years ago it was a new van. I closed the books and started to weep, glad I was alone. When I got myself back under control I put the notebooks back where I had found them.
All the pages after that were blank. There was no more writing. No more wishes. It was no wonder Grandpa had never written anything down outside of these books. If he wrote it, it happened. He was probably terrified of what he might cause.
I thought then of the dog and Grandpa alone at the nursing home with an injured hand and a bloody pen. I was suddenly afraid of what he might write next.
I ran for the door.
***
Grandpa sat facing the window. The dog was gone: it was evening and suddenly I was hungry. I remembered I had not eaten all day. He heard me come in and smiled at me. On his tray was a notebook. Gripped clumsily in his left hand was the stub of a pencil.
“Did you find them?” he wrote awkwardly.
I nodded. I fought to keep the tears from my eyes, but seeing him they suddenly started to come.
He flipped back a page. “I wish Eddie would have dinner with me,” he had written. He smiled at me.
“All you had to do was ask,” I said, and wheeled him to the dining room.
We ate. The dinner consisted of overcooked meatloaf and canned green beans with instant mashed potatoes, something I usually could not stand. Tonight I ate them anyway. Grandpa ate with gusto as well.
“You should eat with him more often,” the nurse said. “We can hardly get him to eat a thing.”
I smiled. “Maybe I will.”
If only I had known. If only I had flipped back to the page before, and seen what he had written there. I swear I would have stayed. It was written in pencil. Maybe I could have erased it. Maybe if I erased what he wrote, or even burned the page it wouldn’t have happened.
But I wheeled him back to his room not knowing. I helped the nurses’ aides put him to bed. I tucked him in and kissed his forehead like he had mine when I was a child. I put the notebook carefully in his night stand with his pencil. I turned out the light and walked away.
I can tell you I never forgot the way he looked as I walked out that night. He looked at peace. He looked like he had been carrying a burden and had finally set it down. Which I suppose in a way he had.
When they found him the next morning they told me he had just passed in his sleep. There was no reason for it. He hadn’t suffered.
I was the first to arrive. I lived the closest. I found the notebook and opened it to the first page.
“I wish to see my Elna again.” Underneath was written:
“I wish Eddie to have my gift. The one that is both a blessing and a curse. I wish for him to be more careful than I was about what he wishes for.”
I put the notebook in my car long before anyone else got there. There was no need for anyone else to see it. I so wish I could undo that last wish of his!
It is the only thing I cannot wish for and have come true. If I write it, it happens. There are always consequences. I have experimented as he did, but even more thoroughly. If I get groceries, someone goes without. If I gain, someone loses. There is a balance in the world. Wishes simply prove it. Nothing is free.
I don’t write anything down any more. Especially not lists of what I want or even what I need. I too have learned to do math in my head. I never want to discover the consequences of writing some things down.
I try not to wish at all. Sometimes I just can’t help myself. I wish I could stop wishing. That too is a wish that will never be granted. So I carry on just as my grandfather did.
The pen is mightier than the sword. I’ll never know why he trusted a dullard like me with a weapon like that.
Troy Lambert works as a freelance writer and researcher by night, and the Museum Operations Specialist at the Wallace District Mining museum by day. He released the first novel in the Samuel Elijah Johnson series titled Redemption in April. The sequel titled Temptation is coming in December.
Visit Troy at his Website
or at his Amazon Author Page
THE PREDATOR’S PREROGATIVE
Ira Nayman
Salah enjoys it when they run.
The blood that flows from a torn throat is warm enough, he supposes, but it is warmer when it has been coursing through an adrenaline filled body. And, it is sweeter. Perhaps the adrenaline has something to do with it. Perhaps the fear in their eyes.
“How do I look?” Salah asks Maria, his mortal consort.
She reaches over to adjust his tie. “Exquisite,” she tells him.
He will feed on the ones who just stand there, paralyzed with fear, of course. A meal is a meal is a meal. But…perhaps it’s just the predator’s prerogative: the more your prey clings to life, the greater the pleasure you get from taking it from them. Salah does so enjoy it when they run.
“No need to wait up,” Salah says. “I could be home quite late.”
This is a game the two of them have played since Maria agreed to be his companion two years ago. “I shall keep that in mind,” she says, even as they both know that she will be there when he returns, whenever that may be.
Salah has had many human consorts over the years; they have, he reflects with a slight, humorless smile, 1001 uses. He sometimes wonders why they agree to work for him so willingly. He isn’t especially charming, and, although perhaps exotic to look at, he doesn’t consider himself particularly attractive. Perhaps they believe that if they serve him faithfully, he will make them immortal. The joke is on them, then: he wouldn’t know how. Truth be told, he barely remembers how he became immortal, it happened so long ago, and nobody ever explained to him how to replicate the feat. When she has outlived her usefulness, Salah will feast on her, as he has on the consorts before her. And, like them, the last look she gives him in this life will likely be one of gratitude.
Salah gives Maria a chaste peck on the cheek. “Good hunting!” she ferociously whispers as he steps out the door of his apartment.
Salah walks out into a city of four million souls. He feels the hunger, sharp and wonderful, starting in his belly but spreading throughout his body; he hears the song of the blood calling to him. There is so much blood on the streets of the city tonight he feels light-headed with anticipation. Lurking in the shadows and feasting on human blood has been his way for as long as he can remember, and he revels in it.
Salah scouts Spadina Avenue from a nearby rooftop for a potential meal. A large Asian man walking down the street is quickly ruled out; from bitter experience he has learned that the cholesterol in the man’s blood wouldn’t sit well with Salah’s system. The skinny young girl in the pink dress and perfect blond curls? Salah shakes his head. Girls like that might make good victims in the movies, but Salah knows that if he had her for a meal, he would be hungry an hour later.
Salah’s attention falls on a couple in their early thirties: a runty looking man walking arm in arm with a busty redhead. Yes, he thinks, you will be the appetizer and you will be the main course. The man hardly seems worth the effort, but he is wearing a garish blue shirt under a neon pink jacket; it’s like he’s making himself stand out from the environment specifically to get the attention of predators!
Salah follows them, silently moving from rooftop to rooftop as they walk past Chinatown Centre, past the fur stores, past Green Instead. Oh, no, he thinks to himself, they’re not going to…McDonald’s, are they? Seething with disgust, Salah decides that, if that turns out to be the case, he will eat them on general principle. But, no: before they reach the abandoned Blockbuster Video store, they cut across a parking lot. Yes, Salah thinks to himself, I like where this is going. Crossing Cameron Street, they walk into an alley.
Winning!
Salah gracefully glides from the roof of a pizza joint into the alley in front of the couple. The man looks at him with interest. The woman has a neutral expression on her face.
“I am here to feast on your blood,” Salah begins his well-practiced speech. “I am your death. Run if you like - it gets the blood coursing through your veins and -”
“Really?” the man responds, a note of contempt in his voice.
“…will make it taste all the more -” Salah catches himself up short. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“A vampire,” the man says. “Really? You expect me to believe that vampires still exist almost a decade and a half after the Singularity?”
“I am a -”
“Don’t get him started,” the woman interrupts.
“I will open your throat,” Salah growls, “and take pleasure in watching the blood drain from your body!”
“Pfah!” the man pfahs. “You’re an anachronism! A vampire - really! What a squalid lack of imagination you must have! We live in a post-Singularity world! Do you understand what the means? All matter is computational - you could programme your body to be anything you want to be - and what do you want to be? A ‘lurker in the shadows who feasts on human blood!’”
It was the scare quotes in the man’s voice that really hurt Salah.
“I did warn you,” the woman drily comments. “He does go on about these things.”
“Allow me to introduce myself,” the man says. “My name is -”
“Oh, for godless’ sakes!” Salah, confused and, for the first time in a long time, worried, shouts. “I don’t want to meet you - I want to EAT you!”
“Ah. The Alice dilemma,” the woman placidly responds. When the two men look at her with uncomprehending gazes, she continues: “Alice is ravishingly hungry, but, when she is introduced to food, it is immediately taken away from her because in Wonderland you aren’t allowed to eat things you know the name of. It would be tacky. Now, was that in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland or Through the - yikes!”
Salah, not much caring for the literary interlude, grabs the woman and pulls her towards him.
“You don’t really want to be doing this,” the woman advises him.
“No?” Salah responds, radiating malice. “Why not?”
The woman gestures towards the man, who has closed his eyes. “Does your friend have narcolepsy?” Salah wonders. He prefers to dine on the flesh of the able-bodied; the lame and the sick pose no challenge. The woman is enough, he calculates, to satisfy the night’s hunger.
“My friend,” the woman informs him, “may be the world’s foremost expert on computational matter. He can talk to atoms, you know.”
“What does that matter to me?” Salah asks, pulling the woman tight with one hand while pushing back her head to expose her throat with the other. He sees that she is not afraid. Why is she not afraid? No matter - Salah will give her a slow death to punish her for her -
“If you make atoms your friend,” the man answers, momentarily taking Salah’s attention away from the woman, “they will do favours for you.” His eyes are wide open now.
“Favours?” Salah sneers.
“You may as well let my friend go,” the man tells him. “She’ll be of no use to you now.”
Salah thinks about this for a moment. To his surprise, he finds that he can longer hear the blood song. He is still hungry, yes, but he no longer craves human blood. Stunned, he lets the woman go; she deliberately walks over to the man’s side. Salah runs his tongue over his teeth and finds that they are no longer razor sharp.
“What…happened to my incisors?” Salah asks.
“Weeelll,” the man replies, “it wouldn’t do to have you running around town with such formidable weapons. Somebody might get hurt.”
“What,” Salah gasps, beginning to grasp the severity of his situation, “what have you done to me?”
“I had a talk with the atoms in your body,” the man explains. “They’ve been vampire atoms for a very long time. I told them that they could look forward to much more of the same if you remained a vampire. This did not please them, because atoms are always up for new experiences. I suggested that if they wanted to do new things in new objects, it might be fun for them to revert back to being normal human atoms. They agreed.”
“What does that mean?” Salah moans.
“It means you’re mortal ag
ain,” the woman, slightly bored, tells him. She rummages around in her purse for a couple of seconds, then brings out a compact. She opens it and turns the mirror towards Salah who, for the first time in over a millennium, sees a reflection of his own young face.
“This can’t be!” Salah insists. “I…I look exactly the same as I did when I was a youth - my appearance hasn’t changed!”
“Why would it?” the man asks.
“My life has been sustained by unnatural means for over 1,200 years!” Salah states. “I can’t stop being a vampire without some consequences!”
”Oh, that,” the man responds. “Well, I’m sorry, but I find the whole crumbling into dust image so cliché!”
The woman squeezes the man’s arm affectionately. “Good,” she says, “to see some of my aesthetic brilliance is rubbing off on you!”
“Turn me back!” Salah angrily shouts.
The man appraises him for a moment, then answers: “No.”
Livid, Salah demands, “Turn! Me! Back!”
“Or, what?” the man replies. “You’ll gum me to death?”
“I can still bite, you know,” Salah points out.
The man shakes his head in sad disbelief. “Have you ever tasted human blood?” he asks. “As a human, I mean? Diiiiiis-gusting!”
The woman next to him frowns. “How do you know that?” she wonders.
Without taking his eyes off Salah, the man answers, “Not now, dear.”
“At least, make me immortal again,” Salah insists, a note of self-pity creeping into his voice.
The man and woman look at each other.
“What,” the woman demands of Salah, “have you done with your…unlife?”
“I beg your pardon?” Salah, caught by surprise by the question, responds.
“Well,” the woman asks, “Have you ever…written a novel?”
“Umm, no,” Salah answers.
“A novelette?”
“No.”
“A novella?”