by Richard Cox
But when I turn away from the window, the room spins reluctantly, like there is a time lag. I happen to look into the dining room and see something I’ve never noticed before. The chairs at the end of the table are straight and high-backed, whereas the side chairs are shorter and have slightly curved legs. I know this sounds crazy, but you could assign genders to the chairs if you wanted. Based on their shapes, I mean.
I wander into the dining room. One of the female chairs is turned slightly toward me, and I realize she is flirting with me. Normally I wouldn’t respond so quickly, but you can’t just ignore it when a girl throws herself at you.
I touch her on the arm. She’s bony, but her skin is smooth, and—
And someone turns on the lights.
“Baby, what are you doing?”
I turn around, and the room spins all wrong again. What is my wife doing here?
“Thomas?” Gloria asks again.
Her expression is a mixture of concern and disgust. Shit.
“I was, uh…it looked like there was something wrong with this chair. Like the arm was loose or something.”
“And you were working on it in the dark?”
Under normal circumstances I’m pretty quick with the retorts, but right now everything is all mixed up.
“Well, I was in the kitchen and I—”
“Yeah,” she says. “I saw your drink.”
“Right. So I was, um, in the dining room and—”
“You said you were in the kitchen.”
“Will you let me finish?”
“Baby, I’m trying to help you. How many drinks did you have? Are you drunk again?”
“I just had one. Or two, maybe.”
“Are you sure? You sound like you’ve had a lot more than one or two.”
At this point I vaguely remember taking an Ambien. Could that explain the weird thoughts I’ve been having? I mean, letters that shimmer? Female chairs?
“I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep,” I finally explain, “so I took one of your sleeping pills.”
“You took an Ambien? A whole one?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s been hours since we ate, babe. That stuff will mess with your mind on an empty stomach.”
The pitter patter of little consonant feet, all right.
Gloria sighs. “Let’s go to bed, okay? It’s almost four in the morning. You can try the guest bedroom if you want. If you think it’ll help you sleep better.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Maybe I should do that.”
But first I go into the study to save the Ant Farm game. I don’t want the ants to die if my computer happens to crash. I look at the cockpit chart as the hard drive spins, but I can’t make sense of anything. The numbers could be in Greek, they could be base-six, I have no idea, I am way too fucked up to know anything.
Behind me I hear, “Babe, don’t you think you should go to bed?”
I turn around and see Gloria standing in the doorway.
“Yeah. I’m going.”
“Baby, I’m not trying to nag. I’m just really worried about you. You’re not acting like yourself at all.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
She walks into the room and kisses me quickly on the cheek.
“Good night,” she says.
“’Night.”
A minute later I crawl into the guest bed and collapse.
Everything goes dark.
SIXTEEN
I open my eyes and light is everywhere.
A moment or two passes before I realize I’m in the spare bedroom, which faces east, which is why the light is so bright in here. I don’t know what time it is, though I would guess it’s at least nine o’clock.
Images of the previous night come to me: the game, the simulation argument, Gloria finding me in the dining room.
The chairs.
Ah, Christ. The chairs.
Is Gloria still home, I wonder? Or has she already left for work?
I would be at work right now myself if I hadn’t been fired. Which makes me wonder why Gloria didn’t wake me up, since I didn’t tell her about my job and she must know I couldn’t have heard the alarm clock in here.
Footsteps approach from the hallway and stop.
“I thought I heard you moving around,” Gloria says. “How are you feeling?”
She’s wearing a blue blouse and white slacks, and her short hair is office-ready.
“Not very well. Feels like my head is full of glue.”
“I’m sure it does. You can’t drink a bottle of liquor and chase it with Ambien and expect to wake up refreshed the next day.”
“You can’t?”
Gloria laughs. “I was going to make some breakfast. You want anything?”
“Maybe just some coffee right now. Don’t you have to get to work?”
“Don’t you?”
Gloria’s eyes are clear and locked with mine. I realize I have to talk to her. I have to come clean about everything: my job, the hallucinations, how I might be losing my mind. Yes, there is a risk she might not understand, that I might only drive her further away, but if we can’t be honest with each other, what do we have?
“I’m not going in today,” I finally say.
“I didn’t think so.”
Our eyes remain locked for another second or two before I finally look away.
“Come to the kitchen when you feel up to it,” she adds. “I’ll make some coffee.”
I lie there for a moment wondering what will happen. For the first time in my life I can’t imagine a future, can’t even see six hours from now, let alone tomorrow. I don’t have anywhere to go. I don’t have anything to do. My heart thuds loudly in my chest. My skin is humid, hot, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to throw up. I don’t really feel like getting out of bed, now or ever.
But I do anyway. I pull on the pair of cargo shorts I was wearing last night and stumble toward the kitchen, listing so hard to the right that I’m forced to actively correct myself. Gloria is leaning against the countertop, near the coffeemaker, sending a text on her iPhone.
“That was fast,” she says, not taking her eyes off the display, her thumbs expertly working the virtual keyboard. “Feeling better?”
“No, but the coffee smells good.”
“I thought it might.”
I grab a mug from the cabinet and pour coffee into it. For a moment my back faces Gloria and I wonder what she must be thinking. What is she going to say when I tell her about my job? How do I even begin?
Finally I turn around and she looks up at me.
“Junior, I was fired yesterday.”
“I know.”
“You what?”
“William called and told me yesterday evening.”
I would be less surprised if Gloria revealed she had just come back from the Moon.
“William called you? About me?”
“He was worried about you.”
“Since when do you talk to William? How does he even have your number?”
“Well, of course I met him at your Christmas party last year. But then I ran into him at a job fair a few months ago. I told you that.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
“How often do you talk to him?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Once a week or so.”
“Once a week? You certainly have not told me you talk to William on the phone every week.”
“Well, sometimes it’s email or IM or text.”
I’m clenching my teeth so hard they hurt. The room seems to be turning red.
“What the hell do you talk about?”
“About whatever. Resource issues. Strategy. Why are you so angry?”
“You’re talking to my boss behind my back and you wonder why I’m angry? Don’t you think it’s a little strange? It’s not like I call Jack and talk to him about you.”
“William and I don’t talk about you. I mean, yeah, he’s asked before about your motivation level, an
d I’ve explained to him about the screenwriting. He understands you don’t see your job as a career. He’s been very open-minded, to be honest.”
Gloria may as well have stabbed me in the spine with a broad sword. She told him about my screenwriting?
“Oh,” she adds. “And here’s a funny coincidence—Jack and William know each other from high school. I guess they graduated together or something.”
I just look at her. Nothing comes out of my mouth. They…they’re…this can’t be a coincidence. They’re all in it together. All of them. They’re all out to get me.
“Listen,” Gloria says. “Maybe I can get your job back. I spoke to William this morning. I told him you’re probably just frustrated and a bit burned out. I can’t promise anything, but it might work.”
“You—?”
“He said he’s willing to meet with you. I think if you apologize, he’ll give you another chance. I’m sure he’s going to want some promises. He’s going to expect some rededication and—”
“No.”
She stops mid-sentence and looks as surprised as I feel.
“What do you mean, ‘no’? You need that job.”
“I know I do.”
“Then what’s the problem? You can’t just give up. You’ve built up a lot of seniority there, babe.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to be told what to do by anyone. Not by William. Not by Jack. Not by you.”
“Thomas Phillips!”
“How do you think it makes me feel to know you have a relationship with my jackass boss? That you talk to him about me? I am not your child! You people don’t decide things for me. I decide!”
“I think you need to lower your voice.”
“I think you and William and Jack need to find someone else to gang up on.”
“Gang up on? What on earth are you talking about?”
“Something happened to me the other day, Junior. When I had the migraine in church. I had a vision, some kind of extrasensory experience, and since then everything is different. Someone or something has tried to contact me, and I thought maybe it was a higher power…but now I wonder…”
The look in her eyes has changed, has softened and perhaps become more curious. Part of me realizes I’m screwing up, that I’m falling apart in front of her, which is exactly what I didn’t want to do. But the words fly out of my mouth like someone else is speaking them.
“…now I wonder if you didn’t have something to do with it. I mean, it’s pretty interesting you didn’t notice anything when we had sex the other night.”
“Notice anything?”
“So you don’t know what I’m talking about? Of course you don’t.”
“Baby,” Gloria says. “You’re scaring me.”
“Scaring you?”
“I don’t know what you mean by any of this. What was I supposed to notice while we where having sex? Do you have something? An STD? Have you been cheating on me?”
“Right. Play dumb. Since I don’t feel like a big enough ass as it is.”
“Thomas! Please stop this!”
Tears trace little rivers down both of her cheeks. Is she really upset? Is she faking it? Why the hell can’t I figure out what’s real anymore?
“What happened to you in church? What kind of vision?”
“I saw something. An orb of blue light. It approached me. It entered my head.”
She’s crying harder now. Part of me wants to hug her, but another, growing part of me is thinking about what the old man said. How I am a prisoner. That everything I know is a lie. Everything I know includes Gloria, does it not?
“Baby,” she says. “What didn’t I notice? When we were having sex?”
I’m not sure I can bring myself to say it.
“Please,” she says. “Please tell me.”
“It’s bigger. Markedly bigger.”
“What is bigger?”
“My…penis.”
“What do you mean it’s bigger?”
“I mean after I walked out of the church I went into the bathroom, when I opened my pants to pee, it was twice its normal size.”
“But don’t you think it could—”
“Then this guy walked into the bathroom. He stood next to me at the urinals and said everything in my life is a lie. That I’m a prisoner.”
“Babe,” Gloria says, still crying. “You…in the church, I remember how you complained about a migraine, and then you said it went away. We both know that’s not how your migraines usually work. Don’t you think it’s possible something unusual happened that could have caused you to, you know, hallucinate these things? I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but they sound kind of farfetched, don’t you think?”
“What’s farfetched is the idea of living the rest of my life in this self-imposed prison.”
“Baby, what prison?”
“For starters, try that cubicle I spend eight hours of my day in. A prison of my own making.”
“Fine!” she says. “If it means that much to you, don’t go back.”
“It’s not just that. It’s doing the same things every single day. Going to work. Coming home and having dinner and watching the same TV shows again and again. How many nights can Big Brother possibly come on? If the power went out, what would we do? Nothing! Everyone just sits around watching bad TV day after day after day and for what? We don’t even have kids.”
“Thomas, don’t you dare! We don’t have kids because of you, and you know it! I would have loved to have a child. I would have loved to be a mother, but instead I’m a communications director. I make a lot of money and help us be able to have nice things, and all you ever do is complain about Jack! It’s not my fault he works at the same company as me. I didn’t plan it that way. And now, after I have agreed to do things your way, after I sat back and watched you spend all your free time working on screenplays, you have the gall to tell me you are bored with it? That you hate your life? You chose this life!”
I’ve gone too far. I’m fucking this up. I’ve got to stop.
“Junior. Look, I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right. You know I love you to death.”
“Are you sure?”
“No two people on the Earth are closer than us.”
“I don’t know, Thomas. I really don’t. Most of the time we ignore each other, and then when we do talk it’s like we just argue all the time.”
“That’s not true. It’s just these past few days I haven’t felt like myself. I’m—”
“It’s not just the past few days! This has been going on forever. I couldn’t even say when it started. It’s all I can remember anymore.”
“Not forever, Junior. Remember—”
“I can’t remember anything! Anything but this! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Thomas. But I…I can’t do this anymore. I’m so sorry.”
And with that she turns and walks out of the kitchen.
My first instinct is to follow her, of course, chase after her and apologize and make everything okay again. But I don’t want to seem desperate and weak. That will only push her farther away. So I stop myself, force myself to stand there. Surely she will come back.
A minute or two later Gloria reappears in the kitchen. She’s put on a jacket and is carrying her purse. Her mascara is a mess.
“You’re not even going to try and talk me out of it?”
“I…I was giving you some space.”
“Jesus, Thomas. I didn’t want space. How can you not know me any better than that?”
“Gloria—”
“You know, you’re right. All we do is sit around and watch TV. That’s not a life.”
“But we could change, Junior. We weren’t always this way.”
“When were we not? Tell me.”
“When we first met. When we stayed up all night talking because we didn’t want to stop.”
“Everyone is like that when they first meet. It was so long ago that it doesn’t s
eem real anymore. If it ever was.”
“Junior, don’t say that.”
“Look,” Gloria says, “I’ve been thinking about this for a while. It’s not anything new. I don’t want to abandon you when you’re going through a rough patch. But I’ve been going through a rough patch, too. A long one. And I’m sorry, Thomas, but I’m going to file for divorce.”
“Junior, no. Not now. I need you.”
“What do you need me for?”
“I’ve been contacted. I don’t know exactly why, yet, but—”
“Thomas—”
“—but I can’t go through this alone.”
“Thomas, please. Listen to yourself. You need help.”
“Then help me.”
“I mean professional help. I can’t do it anymore. I’m so sorry.”
Her eyes sparkle darkly with tears.
“I have to go.”
But she doesn’t walk away. She stands there for a moment, as if waiting for me to say something.
“Don’t go.”
“Thomas,” she says. “You don’t need me. I don’t know what it is you need, but I’m not it. We didn’t get to this place overnight. You didn’t get to this place overnight. It’s going to take some time for you to figure it out. But get help, okay? I’ll be there for you if I can. But as far as us, I’ve thought about this a long time. It wasn’t an easy decision. But now that I’ve made it, I can’t go back, okay? It was too hard to make the words come out of my mouth.”
I just look at her.
“I’ll stay with Juliana until I find a place to live,” she says. “I’m not going to make you leave. This evening I’ll come back to pick up some things, and I think it would be better if you weren’t here. Probably around six, okay?”
Gloria walks backwards, away from me, and is about to round a corner into the main hallway.
“I do love you,” she says, crying so hard her words are difficult to understand. “I always have. And I know you think you love me back. But you love yourself more, Thomas. I may be leaving you now, but you should know you left me a long time ago.”
I open my mouth to say something, but Gloria disappears around the corner and a moment later I hear the back door open and shut. A few more seconds and the garage door opener begins to rumble. Her Lexus roars into life. The garage door motors back down into place.