Stasis (Part 2): Iterate

by E. W. Osborne

  “You got me something?” The guilt, and worry, was sinking in. He wondered if he’d missed an anniversary or even forgot it was his own birthday.

  “Just open it,” she encouraged. She didn’t take her seat back at the small table, but instead settled on the sofa a few feet away, watching with rapt attention.

  They weren’t gift-giving kind of people, so Christopher was beyond perplexed. He shook the box, the light contents rattling against the side. “What is it?” he frowned.

  “Will you please open it?” she demanded with exasperation.

  The paper flew off, the ribbon discarded. As he lifted the lid, he didn’t realize at first what he was looking at. The white stick had a blue cap and a display field with two lines. He had to read the writing on the stick three times before it fully sank in. With an open mouth, he slowly blinked up.

  “You’re…”

  Kristine nodded. “Yup.”

  “But we…”

  “I know. But I’ve taken like, a dozen of those things and every one came back the same.”

  He could feel her holding her breath for his reaction, watching every muscle twitch, every slow blink. This wasn’t something he was remotely prepared for, but the rest of the night clicked into place.

  Maybe it was the three beers he’d had with dinner, but Christopher suddenly felt lighter, floaty. He stared at his hands hoping their familiarity would ground him.

  Kristine huffed and crossed her arms, slamming her left leg over her right. “Well, can you at least say something?”

  Whatever reaction she’d been hoping for, he wasn’t providing it. He licked his parched lips and knew what he had to do. It wasn’t how he’d imagined, but it was the right moment.

  Without a word, he stood and made his way to his side of the mattress. The drawer creaked. He left it open. He returned to the sofa where Kristine looked like she was about to eviscerate him and pull out the dinner she’d fed him.

  Christopher fell to his knees in front of her and placed the black box on her lap. Even though he was still reeling from her announcement, he enjoyed watching the cascade of emotions sweep across her expression.

  Like most women, she instantly recognized the size and shape of the box. Surprise. She tentatively picked it up with one hand. Hope. There was a slight hesitation before she opened the lid. Doubt. Fear. Apprehension.

  “If this is a joke…”

  He smiled, surprised how nervous the moment was making him. “Just open it,” he said, repeating her line from earlier.

  The lid of the box snapped open and she gasped. She covered her mouth and stared at the ring, almost as if she couldn’t believe it was real. He could relate. He plucked the box from her hand and slowly pulled the ring free.

  “Kristine McKay. You are the most beautiful, inspiring woman I’ve ever met. Not only will you be the mother of my children, but I’m hoping you’ll be my partner in life,” he said, choking up at the end.

  Christopher’s heart swelled as she cried, “Of course!”

  And just like that, his life completely changed direction. Not six hours before he had blissfully left his job expecting a few days of not a lot. Lazy mornings, diner coffee, and some time with his hot girlfriend. Now… father, husband. It was a terrifying, wonderful shift.

  He gazed into her eyes and knew life would never be the same.

  They spent the next hour gushing back and forth about wedding plans, baby names, and how long they’d each kept these secrets. Every few minutes one of them would look up and declare, “This is crazy.” And it was, in the most amazing way.

  Later that night as they were laying in bed, the headlights from the road outside dancing across the ceiling, he pulled her onto his chest.

  “You know what? My present was so much better,” Christopher said as he squeezed her shoulders. She arched an eyebrow at him and opened her mouth getting ready to lay into him. He kissed her quickly and laughed. “I didn’t piss on mine.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  London, UK

  JULIAN CONSIDERED SPITTING in the tea. His back was turned to the office, no one would notice. The thought made him smile but he decided the act was beneath him. He was far more capable than petty, disgusting pranks like that. He had bigger plans for his boss.

  He stole a few moments for himself as he waited for the tea to brew. Some days the mask he wore felt a little too tight. The pressure built up over time, leaving him itchy and liable to explode. Of course, he had expert control over these urges, but he’d have to hide away in the bathroom or in a quiet space of the office for a couple minutes until the desire passed.

  He added milk, squeezed the teabags dry, and turned to dump them in the bin. Instead, the spoon and bags clattered to the ground as they were knocked from his swinging hand.

  A female voice cried out. “Oh!”

  Without thinking, Julian rounded on the assailant ready to rip them a new one. Alicia, the perky intern who always gave him doe eyes, was already bending over to collect the rubbish. It gave him an opportunity to recover with an appropriate response.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you come in,” he said, his voice tight with irritation.

  She smiled, flicking greasy, shaggy fringe from her eyes. “I’m stealthy like that.”

  Julian had no real response to that. Even for him, that was an odd flirtation. “Yes, well.” He returned to the cups of tea, adding three spoons of sugar to the palest one. None for his.

  Alicia leaned against the counter, partially blocking his exit. “Crazy, isn’t it? Everything that’s going on.”

  With thin lips he agreed. “Crazy. I best get…”

  “Have you seen anyone yet?” she whispered.

  “No, I haven’t, thank God,” he replied appropriately. “Anyway, can’t let them get cold,” he said as he lifted the mugs of tea.

  “Right, sure,” she blushed, stepping aside.

  As Julian traversed the busy room, he realized that was part of what was making his skin itch so badly. All this gossipy talk behind hands and in corners was thanks to him. Yet he couldn’t claim an ounce of credit…

  At least, not yet.

  He resigned himself to enjoying the building chaos from the sidelines. To shout his involvement from the rooftops before he was finished would defeat the entire purpose, wouldn’t it?

  The office door was slightly ajar and with both hands full, he couldn’t know if it was occupied. “Sir?” he called through the gap.

  “Yes.”

  Julian found his boss hunched over his desk, both hands holding his head up as he read his tablet. When he looked up, his forehead was covered in red pressure marks the same size as his thick fingers.

  “Your tea, sir,” Julian said as he set the weak, sugary monstrosity beside the man’s elbow.

  “Cheers. I’ll need this.”

  Julian hesitated, sensing it was a moment the man might confide in him again. As the suicides grew, so had the pressure on his shoulders. Not only was he an MP for one of the wealthiest constituencies in the country, he was also the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Community Health and Care. A bunch of Londoners killing themselves was his direct responsibility and over the past week, Julian had made sure to be a trusting, reliable shoulder he could lean on. It could only help…

  “Have you looked in there yet?” Kieran asked, bracing for the worst.

  “Not recently, sir. But I heard one of the interns say they were arranging an overflow room,” he replied, twisting the knife a little.

  Kieren collapsed a little more, hunched over his tea now rather than the tablet. “I don’t know what they’re wanting from me. What can I say that the Secretary hasn’t already said? It’s not like I know more than he does!” His voice grew louder as he carried on, impotence turning to anger.

  “I agree, sir.”

  “And what? What? By coming here and shouting at me, what does that do?”

  Julian set his tea down and swiftly shut the office door, giving them p
rivacy. Kieran acknowledged the action by lowering his voice, coming to his stoic, British senses. Julian tried not to smile, knowing this exact behavior would be their ultimate downfall.

  “You should see my messages. You should listen to what they’re saying,” he continued, pointing an angry finger at the street beyond his window. “It’s times like this I wish I’d come from… hell, I don’t know. Yorkshire. At least then I could hide in the city. But there’s no escape here.”

  Julian had never seen him this vulnerable. He decided to push the envelope of their relationship just a touch. As he collected his tea from the side of the desk, he settled into one of the two leather seats opposite Kieran. It’s not that the MP ever demanded such rules of formality, but Julian himself had always conducted himself with respect to the position, and by proxy, the man. But to speak as colleagues, that was another step towards a possible friendship.

  “But then you’d be from Yorkshire,” Julian ventured with a dry tone.

  Kieran cracked a smile and the tension was diffused. “Good point, well made.” He let out an exasperated sigh and threw a scrap of paper across the desk. “I hate being blamed for things I didn’t do. It’s bad enough when I get blamed for all the things I did.”

  Julian laughed politely and leaned into the soft leather. He loved every second of this moment. All the plebs out in the main office working their asses off and he was right where he belonged.

  “For what it’s worth, sir, I don’t understand why they’re here either.”

  “I appreciate that, Julian. And you can drop the sir stuff too.”

  Julian’s smile was genuine. “It’s not like you can put the whole city on suicide watch. Make everyone walk around with live streaming cameras.”

  Kieran snorted. “Instate a buddy system so no one can be alone?”

  The pair chuckled over the sheer ridiculousness of the extraordinary situation. Julian matched Kieran’s expression as he grew more serious.

  “It is bizarre, isn’t it?” he asked quietly, as if he didn’t want to get caught even hinting at how clueless he was.

  “It is, definitely.”

  “Statistically speaking, the city has had more suicides in the past week than the entire country had all last year. Hundreds…”

  Julian covered his pleasure in that statement with a long whistle. “To be fair, statistics have anomalies all the time. I’m sure some years fewer people took their lives than average.”

  “But why now? Why all of a sudden? Why so publicly?” Kieran asked, shaking his head. “And why am I the one who has to try and answer the unanswerable?”

  Because it’s your fucking job, you tosser, Julian thought.

  A gentle rap at the door produced another mousy intern Julian couldn’t stand. He loved the way her gaze lingered over him as she realized she’d caught them in the middle of a private conversation.

  “I’m sorry sir, but it’s time,” she squeaked.

  Kieran knocked back the rest of his tea and slammed the mug onto the table, carelessly denting the wood. “Well then, time to face the firing squad.”

  “I’m sure it’ll go great,” he replied, deliberately leaving off the formal sir just for the intern’s benefit.

  When the man reached the door of his office, he turned back to Julian who was busy collecting the dirty mugs. “Aren’t you coming?”

  Another genuine smile spread across his face. “Of course, sir.” He couldn’t help it that time.

  Sweat poured off the MPs forehead in shiny, awkward rivulets. It was made worse by his sheer determination to ignore that he was sweating at all. The exceedingly hot room was stuffed to the rafters. Like many buildings in London, the office wasn’t made to withstand high temperatures. Add nearly seventy people into the mix, and you had a stifling atmosphere.

  But Kieran wasn’t just wilting under the temperature. Their scrutiny pummeled his stature from the very start.

  The constituency of Kensington was a largely residential and wealthy community. These were people who normally got exactly what they asked for, and they required a lot. So when they arrived at their government representative's office demanding something be done about this rash of unexplained suicides, they expected to leave satisfied. Particularly when their MP was also the Under Secretary of State for Community Health. Unfortunately for everyone involved, all Kieran Hart could provide was an ear and a hollow politican’s promise.

  “As I’ve said, we have our best looking into possible causes. But we have to remember, sometimes these things just happen,” he repeated for the third time.

  “Is it environmental? I’m thinking of leaving the city until this passes, but if it’s something in the atmosphere, I need to know if my trip should be abroad,” a gray-haired woman called out from the back of the room.

  “As of now, all the environmental tests that have been conducted have come back negative. I assure you, you’re perfectly safe if you…”

  “My son saw a man throw himself from London Bridge. Can you imagine? Right in front of him. How am I supposed to explain this to him.”

  “My kids are asking questions and I don’t know how to reassure them. How do I know I won’t kill myself?”

  Julian kept a straight face, although inside he enjoyed watching the politician squirm. He’d taken up a position by the door at the front of the room, the one through which the MP would escape when his private lynching was through. Kieran hadn’t once looked at him, but Julian knew he was a strong presence in the room. Many of the public watched him, sensing and wondering who he was.

  Your god, he thought sarcastically.

  Kieran laughed. Julian could tell he was losing his patience and trying to cover it with feeble humor. “What would you have me do? I can’t lock everyone up. I can’t take away every sharp object or keep everyone on the ground floor.”

  “That’s not what we’re asking,” a man in a three-piece suit snarled.

  “Then what? What? People kill themselves. What am I supposed do about that? And as for you ma’am, I kindly ask you to not kill yourself. It’s one less body to deal with.”

  His declaration sucked the air out of the room, leaving a vacuum that could only be filled with indignation and wealthy rage. Kieran blatantly winced as he realized what he’d said. The room exploded at once, all their complaints and perceived injustices coming out in an explosive burst.

  “How dare you belittle…”

  “I came here for answers, not to be treated like…”

  “As my MP, I demand you…”

  Kieran practically collapsed under the deluge of demands. They were on their feet, yelling, gesturing, already thinking of who they could call to get this man ousted from his position. He looked to Julian who replied with a tight nod. He was needed. There was no way this meeting was going to end on a good note, so he had to be proactive.

  Julian shrank out of the door into the hallway beyond, finger navigating his cuff on memory. Seconds later, Harriet’s voice filled his earpiece. She sounded like he’d roused her from bed.

  “Please tell me you’re knocking off early and coming home to play,” she yawned.

  He concealed a secret smile by turning toward the wall. “Not today. You need to get up. I have a job for you.”

  Harriet mixed a string of curses into her next yawn. “Job. It’s like you constantly confuse me with someone else.”

  “And how could I possibly do that when you’re one of a kind?”

  Alicia walked by and tried to catch his eye. He gave her a grim nod and pointed to his ear, pretending to be on an important call. It was a wonder she and the woman he spoke to could be considered the same species let alone gender.

  “So what the hell do you want from me now?” Harriet asked with a sharp good nature.

  “Put something nice on and come visit me at work,” Julian commanded.

  He turned as he reached the end of the hall. The sight at the far side made his stomach churn. A bad day was about to get much worse for Kieran Har
t.

  The Secretary of State had apparently caught wind of the meeting and raced over from Parliament. Even from a distance, he had a thunderous air about him. From the few dealings Julian had had with the man, he knew he’d earned the myriad of nicknames he left in his wake.

  “Actually, I changed my mind,” Julian corrected, his eyes pinned on the short man beyond. “You know that red, slinky dress you wore at Christmas two years ago? Put that on and come surprise me at work.”

  “That hasn’t fit right since I got my tits done,” she replied.

  “Even better.”

  “It’s two in the afternoon,” she complained. When Julian didn’t reply, there was a loud thunk on her side of the call. “Anything else, master?” she asked, sounding like a petulant child.

  Julian’s cock twitched. “You can remember that word for later. Now get your ass down here.”

  He ran back into the room just as Kieran finished shaking the Secretary’s hand. Julian had never before seen so much pent up, repressed rage in a single greeting.

  “Sir, we weren’t expecting you,” Kieran declared loud enough for the entire room to hear.

  “I love a good surprise.” Although slight, the man had a formidable air about him. With the body of an marathoner and eyes of a weasel, he looked purpose bred for politics. A slight turn toward the crowd snapped Kieran from his surprised state.

  “Yes, well. Ladies and gentleman, it’s my pleasure to introduce the Secretary of State, Sir Geoff Dughar.”

  Dughar’s slight turn became a full one as he physically dismissed Kieran from the front of the room. He looked around awkwardly for a moment before finding Julian by the door.

  He hid his discomfort with the intrusion with a bitter, whispered comment. “Let’s see him deal with them.”

  “Too right,” Julian replied.

  “They’ll eat him alive.” Julian couldn’t tell if Kieran was trying to convince him or himself.

  The already riled up crowd settled with surprising speed. It was a lesson in people management, particularly the elite and stupid. All they really wanted was to feel as though they were given exclusive information since, of course, they were very important people. They weren’t to find out about the suicides from the news like a commoner. They received their information direct from the man in charge of every hospital, clinic, and health program in the country. His mere presence in the meeting had thawed their anger.