She harrumphed and raised the crumpled paper once more between them. Al peered around the edges of the paper but not at his wife. Across the street, crates were still in the yard, which they hadn't bothered to mow either, he noticed. Another week like that and someone would report them to the Homeowners Association for sure.
"Let's make a bet," Carrie said so quietly that he almost thought he imagined her speaking. Still the sound of her voice was enough to yank him back from his inner musings.
"What did you say?"
She curled the top of the morning paper down and said it again, "Let's make a bet. If I win, I can call the Dead Psychic Hot Line as much as I want."
"Okay? I see where this is headed. But if I win, Carrie?"
"Then I will..."
"Will never call these charlatans again."
She swallowed hard. "Yes. I agree. To the bet; not that they are charlatans."
Al smiled wickedly. "Okay. What's the bet, Carrie dear? The usual? Connect Four, UNO… or wait, shall we push it to the edge and play a rousing game of Phase 10?"
She looked away, considering, and said, "No. I bet this: The Psychic will know about our bet when we call. So I call the Hot Line from the study and you can listen on the phone in here and if he mentions the bet, then I win. If he doesn't, you win. Got it?
"Yeah," Al said softly. He bit his lower lip to hold back his victory yell. What a moronic bet, he thought.
With that Carrie left the kitchen for the study. A moment later she yelled for Al to pick up the phone. He did, and cradled the phone to his ear, a victorious smile on his face. There was no way he could lose, he was sure of it.
"Thank you for calling the Dead Psychic's Hot Line. One moment please and you will talk directly with a message left just for you, by the Psychic himself.
"You are so going to lose, Carrie."
"Shhh."
"Fine."
A moment later, good to the recording's word, it was the voice of the Dead Psychic, prerecorded.
"Greetings friends. Today, I predict conflicts are resolved with a simple live-and-let-live policy. You will see a green light at the end of the tunnel. This is not a good time in your lives, but this call is a sure bet for a new beginning of positive thinking. Just listen to my guidance and it will all work out for the best. Thank you, we are all that much closer to our dreams."
The call ended. Still holding the phone Al heard Carrie running through the house back into the kitchen.
"I win! I win! I win!" Carrie cried.
He placed the phone down as she danced around the table.
"How do you figure that?"
"Isn't it obvious," she said mid-twirl. "He mentioned both of us by saying friends. Plural, silly. And he said the word bet. So I win."
"I don't think this is fair…"
Carrie was performing her victory dance and didn't acknowledge another thing Al said.
Too tired to fight, Al sighed and looked out the sliding glass door to the neighbor's yard. Were they putting up a third satellite dish? How many dishes does a household need?
Carrie punched buttons on the phone. Al didn't need a psychic to know who she was calling.
* * *
The days passed and the phone bill grew. Every day, Carrie retold some amazing story of what the Psychic said or had mentioned would happen. Each morning Al nodded, drank his glass of pulpy orange juice, and stared across the street, until one day he could not take it anymore. He called the number and listened.
"Thank you for calling, friend. Former American president Ben Franklin said a penny saved is a penny earned. I say a penny lost is a penny found by you. Before you cross the street, look at your feet, and there, Ben Franklin will you meet. Thank you. We are both closer to our dreams."
Al slammed the phone down, ashamed. He planned on going to work and forgetting about the five hundred pennies he just flushed down the proverbial toilet. What an idiot. Everyone knows Ben Franklin was never elected president.
* * *
After he parked in a downtown garage and waited to cross to his building, Al happened to look down. Tucked on the curb, teetering near a storm drain, lay a crumpled piece of green paper. He snatched it up and could not believe what he saw. It was a hundred-dollar bill, old Ben Franklin smiling up at him.
"Well hello, Mr. Not President Franklin," he said, feeling a broad grin come over his face. For the rest of the day, he did not give the matter another thought. Hours later, sitting in his cubicle, the words of the Psychic came back to mind, and he nearly fell out of his chair. "That was a one-in-a-million chance," he muttered. "Just a waste of money is all it is." And he resolved to not call again.
* * *
Early in the morning, hours before dawn, Al paced in the kitchen, phone in hand.
He returned it to the receiver—for the tenth time. He continued pacing from the phone to the sliding glass door and back again. He stared at the neighbor's house across the street, where it seemed all the lights were on, even the outside floodlights. Occasionally, all its lights would flicker out and come back on again seconds later. Nearly every other house in the neighborhood was dark, and the ones that weren't, he never saw so much as a dimming of the lights. It was almost as if the new neighbors had their own power source.
Al made up his mind and hit the speed-dial number that Carrie had programmed weeks ago. The phone rang twice before connecting.
"Thank you for calling, sir. I believe you are worried about several things. Perhaps even money?"
"Yeah, I am," Al, answered. Then he smacked his head, chastising himself for talking to a recording—of a dead guy, for that matter.
"Of course you are. I can help you. It is in my power to predict anything for customers, so how would you like to win the lottery?"
"I'd love to." Then it occurred to him so he asked, "Why didn't you play the lottery yourself and win enough money to launch your satellite? A couple of states and you would be set."
"I knew you would ask that. It's part of the psychics' oath not to take advantage of our powers for our own direct personal gain. We have to give to get, if you know what I mean."
"Oh. I see," Al said. Then he shook his head. "Not at all, actually."
"Do you want the number or not?"
Al considered for a moment and decided, "Yes. I mean yes, please."
The Dead Psychic obliged, offering up the numbers and just as Al was about to hang up, the recording said, "Don't hang up yet."
A bit surprised, Al did not and responded with, "Okay. What now?"
"Take some spare change with you.
"Why?"
"Good question. Because on the way back from buying the ticket, your engine is going to blow, so you will need change to call a cab."
"Right," Al said doubtfully. He hung up and returned to the bedroom.
But he still could not sleep. In order to prove the Psychic wrong once and for all, Al slipped into his robe and went for a drive, careful not to wake Carrie. As he pulled his station wagon from the driveway, he noticed his neighbor's lights were still on and wondered if they ever slept.
* * *
Al played the lottery and would find out later that evening that he won $7 million, which made him feel much better, thank you very much. As he was driving back from buying the ticket early that morning, however, his car sputtered smoke and died in front of a lonely stretch of woods. Just as predicted. Al was furious; jumping up and down by his car, yelling at his out-turned robe pockets because he did not remember to bring enough change. Making matters worse, he knew his cell phone was disconnected due to one late and very high phone bill. So for the three long miles between an unmoving car and home, wearing only slippers and a robe, arms waving in maniacal fury, he screamed at himself, the world around him, and the even dead the entire walk home.
After Al quit his job, he and Carrie kept busy over the next two weeks. They purchased new furniture for the house, went on a last minute weekend cruise, and bought two new cars. They even flew
to Europe for a week. All the while, the Dead Psychic and the Hot Line were in the news. After all, the launch window grew near and the goal was almost met, just as the Psychic predicted.
Al could not stop thinking about what had happened. The Hot Line had to be rigged, he decided, but he could not figure out how or why. So he resolved to call one more time and do exactly the opposite of whatever was suggested. Soon after they returned home, he saw the news that the financial goal had been achieved. In days, the Dead Psychic satellite launch would take place. That was enough to push Al to call.
* * *
"Thank you for calling the Hot Line… Al."
"How do you know my name?" he stammered.
"I was a Psychic."
"Oh yeah." It was the first thing that came to mind.
"Listen, Al. I helped you out, right? Sent you to a great Hollywood party and made you rich, so you could pay for all the calls your wife made to my hotline, and you bought that red Corvette you always wanted…."
"I admit, you guessed the numbers for the lottery, but this has to be some kind of scam. This just can't be real." He paused and the thought struck him. "Hey, how did you know about the red... wait don't tell me, you're a psychic, right?"
"Right, and it's all real. I mean, I was real. Now I'm dead, but that doesn't matter right now. Nothing else does. I helped you out Al, so I need you to do me a favor."
"What kind of favor?" He remained resolved to do the opposite of what he was told.
"I need you to go buy a shotgun and...."
"Buy a-?" Al yanked the phone away from his ear and stared at it. Then he brought it back to his face. "Are you crazy?"
"How can I be crazy, Al?"
"I know. You're dead."
"Right. Anyway, buy a shotgun and load it with rock salt. Then I want you to go over and shoot your neighbors."
"That is crazy!"
"Don't hang up, Al. Trust me, or you'll be sorry."
"And I won't be sorry after I shoot my neighbors? I don't know them well enough to want to do that! Besides, why should I trust someone who doesn't even know Ben Franklin was never president?"
"He should have been. Even that halfwit Nostradamus thought so..."
Al hung up before the recording could say another word. He did not even feel sorry. So he did exactly as he said he would—the opposite of what the Dead Psychic told him to do—and felt good about it.
The phone rang but Al vowed to ignore it. He'd had enough of this foolishness, and dog-gone-it, he was not going to be someone's dunderhead any longer. With the phone still ringing, Al grabbed his coat and keys and took a long, fast drive to nowhere in particular in his red Corvette.
* * *
The next evening, just like the rest of the world, Al and Carrie watched the news and the space shuttle launch with the historic moment of the satellite probe being put into orbit. Al was so angry at the Dead Psychic he did not even allow Carrie to record it like most every other TIVO and VCR in America was doing at the time. "What's the point, Carrie? We know what's going to happen. He already told us. Besides it'll be released with his other TV specials next month on DVD," he grumbled.
Al went back to pretending to read his evening paper, four letter words flying through his mind.
* * *
The morning after the launch, Carrie and Al sat at the breakfast table. Carrie read the special morning edition of the paper, reporting about the successful launch. While Al tried to swallow his pulpy orange juice, he kept staring at the neighbor's yard, wondering about the strange green glow coming from the house. The ringing telephone startled them both. Carrie answered it and her face drained to white. With a shaking hand she handed the phone to Al. "It's for you, honey," she said, her voice trembling almost as much as her hand. "It's the Dead Psychic."
"What do you want? I already told you I wasn't going to shoot my neighbors."
"It doesn't matter anymore, Al. Go over to your neighbor's house. You might as well see what you failed to do."
"What are you talking about?"
"Just go across the street. I'll call you there. Your neighbor's front door is unlocked."
The line went dead.
"Fine!" Al yelled and stood up from the kitchen table.
"Al?"
"Just stay here, Carrie. I have to go meet the neighbors." He stormed though the kitchen and out the sliding glass doors. He had nothing against the neighbors but figured it would be easier to yell at them than at his wife, or even a dead person. He crossed the street, noting that the green lights issuing from the house seemed to get brighter.
At the front door, where green light seeped from the cracks, Al was about to knock when he tried the handle. It opened. He swallowed, steeled his nerves, and walked inside.
He was about to yell hello when a strange and loud humming sound seeming to come from the basement tripped the words on his tongue. Then the phone rang. He followed the sound through the empty house to the kitchen. A cordless phone rested on a wooden counter. Next to it was a takeout menu from a health food store. Circled in red was every selection featuring seaweed.
He picked up the phone
"Yes?" he said.
"Hello, Al."
"What the Sam Hill is going on?"
"Go down to the basement, but stop at the last step otherwise you'll run into the force projection."
"What are you talking about?"
"Just go down the stairs."
For the first time it occurred to him that something very strange was going on. The recording continued as he walked hesitantly toward the stairs. "I tried to convince you," the Psychic said. "I tried to show you, but I knew that you would never really believe. You are just one of those stubborn people. It's too bad. You could have been a hero. First guy to save the entire planet. They would have given you a banquet, movie of the week, and talk show fame for at least a month. Oh well."
Al started down the steps, the humming louder now, electricity tickling his skin reminding him of insects crawling all over him. His hair stood on end.
"Hero? What should I do?"
"Nothing, now. It's too late; they have their force fields up to protect them. Careful, you should be at the last step." He was. "Now, reach out slowly..." He did and saw a ripple of movement across the entrance to the basement, felt his hand impeded. Green light pulsed from the basement and Al felt a sickening feeling weigh down his stomach. Then a grotesque, giant slug moved passed, sparing him one glance with an antenna eye and left a trail of ooze in its passing on the cement floor.
"You could have been a hero if you had come even one day earlier. They have assumed their true forms and have their protections in place. With the rock salt you would have burned through them, easy as pie, saved the world even. Now they are just about ready to activate their colonization device. I think they screw around with the planet's electromagnetic fields or something like that. Well, whatever happens, they will just change the Earth to another slug planet."
"Why me?" Al stammered, unable to comprehend it all.
"It's simple. Partly because your genetic makeup enabled you to see through their image projectors. But mostly because you freakin' lived next door to them! Doesn't matter now. I guess you might say they are going to slug it to the world, eh?"
The Dead Psychic laughed.
"Oh boy. I screwed up."
"That's an understatement. Light 'em if you got 'em."
"Light what?"
"A cigarette."
"I don't smoke."
The Dead Psychic laughed. "I know. Neither do I; now. Dying is better than the patch, let me tell you. Anyway, goodbye, Al. Maybe I'll see you on the other side."
"You don't know if I'll make it to heaven?" Al screamed, as the slug's colonization device began to power up. It looked like a Matt Smith, Doctor Who console with a dozen Slugs sliding around through switches and pressing odd buttons and levers leaving trails of slime.
"Of course I know, you dunderhead! I am a psychic after all. I just don't
feel like saying since you owe me thirty bucks for this call. Oh yeah, Carrie always bought that pulpy orange juice just to piss you off, Al."
"Figures. It all just figures."
"One last thing."
"Yes?"
"What did the slug say to the other who had hit him and ran?"
"Are you kidding me? The world is ending and you're telling a joke?"
"That's not it. He said, 'I'll get you next slime!' Get it? Next slime? Eh, well, take care, Al."
Not giving the Dead Psychic any more satisfaction, Al decided he wasn't going to say anything else at all. So he pouted, for the remaining three and one half seconds of his life…
Green lighted; the slugs powered it all up…
ZzzzzzzsssSsssssLllllllUuuuRrrrrPpppppp!
* * *
I guess in the end Al was no different than anyone else who feels like the butt of some cosmic joke at the end of the world. A little bit pissed off, a little lost on the path not taken.
You didn't even have to be a psychic to predict that, did you my friend?
* * *
"Do you want to know your future, call 1-900-Dead-Psychics, a computer satellite is standing by. If you have already dialed, please stand by, as all our lines are busy at the moment."
Navigator by Paul Parisi
I don't know why they asked me to write this. Everyone knows what happened already. But they just keep pestering me, and I want to get them off my back so here goes.
It started when I laid my hands against the hood. It was the color of the ocean in some tropical paradise I've only seen in postcards and photographs. There's never time to visit such a place. Shutting my eyes against the world, the metal absorbed into my palms. I caressed the gentle curves of the machine and became one with the engine. Gasoline replaced my blood. It pumped in and out of the car's brain; my brain. The accelerator revved. I rocked in place. My pistons beating against my frame, I waited for, no, craved release. I needed it. My tires would hug the gravel. I'd wrap around angled corners without a whimper. It was my time. Finally.
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