“I just thought of something,” Sparrow said. She stood.
“What is it?” Tom asked.
“Wait here. I’ll be right back.” She walked out of Bagel Place, ignoring Dave-O’s greeting of “Hey, babe” again, and walked across the street and to the corner. Tom could see her from where he sat, and watched her as she walked to a pay phone on that corner.
Sparrow picked up the phone and dialed the number to her parents’ house. When the recording asked for her calling card number, which she had memorized, she put that in. It worked, and the phone on the other end of the line rang. It always rang three times before her father answered. One. She imagined him sitting in his easy chair, reading the sports pages of the newspaper. Two. Now he’d look up from the paper at the phone, which was situated on the end table within easy reach. Three. He folded the paper up, slid it between the armrest and the cushion of his chair, and answered the phone.
“Hello.” It was him.
“Daddy, it’s me, Sparrow.”
“I’m sorry, Sparrow, but I think you dialed the wrong number. I don’t have any kids.”
“No, you do,” Sparrow said quickly, feeling panic rise up within her. “I’m your daughter. My name is Susan. You named me after your mother.”
A long pause. “Look, I don’t know who you are or what your game is, but I do not have a daughter named Susan or Sparrow or anything.”
“But your mother’s name was Susan, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call back. Goodbye.”
“Please don’t hang up!” He didn’t hang up. “This isn’t a game,” Sparrow continued. “Something’s happened… I can’t explain it, but something has happened to cause you to forget about me. I just want you to know that… that in another reality you do have a daughter, and…” She couldn’t continue without breaking down. It was all she could just to breath and wait for him to say something.
“I’m sorry, young lady,” he said at last. “You sound like you believe what you’re telling me. It just isn’t so. I’m telling you this for your own good. Now, I’m going to hang up and I do not want you calling here again.”
“Please, wait… let me ask you one question. Please…”
He sighed, and relented. “Okay.”
“If what I’m saying is true, if you had a daughter… what would you tell her to do in my situation?”
Another long pause. Then, he said, “I’d tell her to get her head together and try to live her life, no matter what else has happened.”
“Okay,” Sparrow said. “Thanks.”
“Goodbye,” he said. “And good luck, Sparrow.”
She hung up the phone and went back to Bagel Place, rejoining Tom and Sparrow. “I called my parents,” she told them. “They don’t remember me. It isn’t just Gainesville, then. It happened everywhere. It’s like we never existed in this world.”
“You created this world,” Hanna pointed out.
“So I guess my parents won’t know who I am, either,” Tom said.
“Hey, you guys,” Lena said. They hadn’t noticed her walk up to the table. She glanced at Tom and Sparrow, then looked directly at Hanna. “There’s a small party tonight, if you’re interested…”
“I’m interested,” Hanna said, smiling at her.
“Cool.” Lena smiled back. “I’ll write down the address for you.” She went back to work as more customers came in.
Sparrow and Tom looked at Hanna.
“I’ve decided not to be the cliché I was created to be,” Hanna told them, “if that makes any sense. Besides, she’s beautiful, don’t you think?”
Tom and Sparrow both nodded.
“Are you going to come to the party?” Hanna asked.
Now Tom and Sparrow looked at one another. “Do you want to go?” Tom asked Sparrow.
“I don’t know. I have this feeling that if we go, we’ll just be taking the first step back to the way things were.”
“No,” Tom said. “Not quite. We’re different people.”
At that moment, the door to Bagel Place opened and in walked Emily. “Em!” Lena shouted from the counter. The others at their table all called out greetings to Em. She looked at Tom, Sparrow and Hanna, smiling.
“Hi,” Em said. “Haven’t seen you guys here before. Are you new in town?”
“Sort of,” Tom said. “We were here once, a long time ago. But all our friends are… gone.”
“That’s so sad,” Emily said. “Well, consider me your friend. Have you heard about the party tonight?”
“Lena told us,” Hanna said.
Emily look Hanna over. “I bet she told you first,” she said, laughing. Hanna blushed ever so slightly. “Well, I’m getting a bagel. Nice to meet you.” With that, Emily walked up to the counter where Lena came around and gave her a big hug.
Tom looked at Sparrow, who had tears streaming down her face suddenly. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“This is breaking my heart,” Sparrow told him. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Let’s stay,” Tom said. “Together. That’ll be different. We have each other. Before, we were friends, and I always wanted you as more than that… but it seemed impossible. Now, we can be together at the beginning. That’ll make things different.”
“Yeah,” Sparrow said, drying her eyes. “Yeah, I guess it will.”
“I think that’s what this is all about,” he said. “We were meant to be together before, but it didn’t happen and it was wrong. Now… it’s right. Right?”
Sparrow nodded. “Right.”
Hanna smiled. She lifted her half-empty coffee mug. “Here’s to new realities.”
Sparrow and Tom both lifted theirs. “Here’s to our reality,” Tom said. He saw Hanna look past him, and turned to see Lena watching them, watching Hanna. Emily, standing at the counter, was also watching them. He looked at the other table to see Chuck Speedy and the others watching them, too. Then he looked back at Sparrow. She winked at him, and smiled.
“Here’s to our reality,” she said. “And here’s to us.”
Hanna
To be…
Existing, a continuation of Self, attempting forever.
More than the reflection of the universe, the conscious world shaped and molded, bent and chiseled into a wrinkle in space, a niche in time.
A sigh, a whisper, a scream, and a voice forming words from air, ideas from chemistry, a proclamation: “I am here!”
A declaration: “I am still here!”
A promise: “I am never going away.”
Youth descends into age, years become centuries, millennia, eons. The cosmos unfurls, a flag waving in a quantum breeze. Stars fade, galaxies devour themselves, the universe grows cold, eternal, infinite, and unconscious.
No one cares.
No one knows.
…or not to be.
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About the Author
Stephen sold his first short story in 1990 and has sold over 50 stories since then, mostly science fiction, fantasy and horror. Some of his stories were collected into a book called DAYDREAMS UNDERTAKEN, published by Marietta Publishing, 2004. His novel, GOD DRUG, was originally published by Marietta Publishing in 2004.
Anthologies that he has had stories in include: ADVENTURES IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE edited by Carol Serling, SUPERHEROES edited by John Varley & Ricia Mainhardt, A CONFEDERACY OF THE DEAD, CHILLED TO THE BONE, GAHAN WILSON'S ULTIMATE HAUNTED HOUSE, 100 WICKED LITTLE WITCH STORIES and MONDO ZOMBIE.
He co-wrote the short film NO WITNESS featuring Shawn Mullins, and co-wrote the feature film based on it, also called NO WITNESS, starring Corey Feldman, Jeff Fahey and Marisa Petroro. He also wrote the script for the feature film SEX & CONSEQUENCES starring Corbin Bernsen & Joan Severance.
Connect with Stephen at:
http://stephenlantczak.blogspot.com/
Copyright
God Drug
Written by Stephen L. Antczak
ISBN: 978-1-988863-15-3 (ebook)
This story is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in the story are either the product of the author’s imagination, fictitious, or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons or aliens, living or dead, would be coincidental and quite remarkable.
God Drug - Copyright © 2017 by Digital Fiction Publishing Corp. and Stephen L. Antczak. This story and all characters, settings, and other unique features or content are copyright Stephen L. Antczak. Published under license by Digital Fiction Publishing Corp. Cover Image Copyright © 2017 the artist. This version first published in print and electronically: June 2017 by Digital Fiction Publishing Corp., LaSalle, Ontario, Canada. Digital Science Fiction and its logo, and Digital Fiction Publishing Corp and its logo, are Trademarks of Digital Fiction Publishing Corp.
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