The bartender looks over his shoulder at the sign, then turns back to Gene.
“Used to carry it. No one ordered it. Don’t carry it no more.”
Gene orders a Budweiser. When the bartender returns with their beers, Devlin and Gene clink bottles.
“To Pickman’s,” Devlin says.
“To you,” Gene says.
They drink. Gene winces. “How does anyone drink this?”
Above the bar, a television is playing a local news channel with the sound off. The crawl at the bottom of the screen informs them that the mayor is set to make a speech outside city hall in a few minutes. He’s embroiled in yet another sex scandal, the third in as many years. The crawl says that, despite this, the mayor is not expected to resign.
“Can you believe that?” Devlin says, nodding at the television.
Gene looks up from the beer he didn’t want. “Can you blame him? He’s sure to get re-elected. Probably in a landslide.”
Devlin shrugs. “True. But where’s his sense of dignity? My opinion, he should step down. Be done with it. Stay out of the public eye. What do they always say, ‘Spend time with my family’?”
“Fat chance.”
On the television the camera cuts to a bedraggled looking man in a dark blue suit and red tie. His wife and two children, both teenagers, stand stoically behind and to his right. With the sound off, Devlin can’t hear what the mayor is saying. He looks apologetic, like a puppy that made a mess on the carpet. He gestures to his wife, to his children. It looks rehearsed. It probably is rehearsed.
Then, at the bottom of the screen: Mayor Anderson to step down immediately; wants to spend time with family
It must be a coincidence, Devlin thinks. Sure, it’s almost verbatim what he just said to Gene, but that was only because he was following a script himself. A script he’s seen played out after a thousand political scandals.
Only it wasn’t just Mayor Anderson, was it?
Devlin feels a pit open in his stomach. What is going on?
“You okay?” Gene asks.
Devlin ignores him. He’s got an idea. He calls the bartender over.
“Help you?” the bartender asks.
“That beer my friend wanted…” Devlin says.
“Already told you, we don’t carry it anymore.”
“I know that’s what you said. But why don’t you go look? You have a stock fridge in back? There might still be one there.”
The bartender considers this, looks like he’s going to refuse. Then the storm clouds lift from his face.
“Guess it won’t hurt to look,” he says.
Five minutes later, the bartender re-emerges from the stockroom.
A frosty bottle of Stella is in his hand.
* * *
Back at the office, Devlin thinks that the possibilities are endless. His every suggestion is taken as though it is a command from On High. He can end poverty by mentioning to the wealthy that there are others less fortunate. He can stop wars with the slightest hint. Crime will become a thing of the past. Devlin’s head spins with the thought of it all.
At the very least he can smooth things over with Rebecca. Their marriage has been rocky lately. It’s not that they fight; they’ve never fought. From the outside, Devlin is sure that they look like the ideal couple settling in to middle age. But he knows that it isn’t true. He can feel Rebecca drifting away from him for the first time in twenty-three years, can feel what they’ve built together start to crumble under the weight of time and familiarity. He is helpless to stop it.
Well, not so helpless now.
Still, he has to be careful. This kind of power is not something to be taken too lightly. No doubt there will be unintended consequences if he gets reckless.
So far he has only used his newfound powers to get some decent coffee in the break room. He did this by casually mentioning that it should be so to Jill Clayton, the head administrative assistant in charge of purchasing the office refreshments. In the past, she’s scoffed at his suggestion that the firm pony up the cash for anything fancier than store-brand instant. Today, she spent her lunch break trekking across town to a small boutique coffee shop that specializes in high-end beans. When she returned, she had a new French press, a $200 burr grinder, and five pounds of $30/pound Kona coffee.
Yes, Devlin thinks as he sips the heavenly brew, he’ll have to be careful.
And something else niggles: where did this power come from? And why now?
Devlin gets up from his desk, begins pacing. It is how he does his best brainstorming, how he came up with the latest print campaign for Butler Shoes, the one that got him a mention in Ad Age. He sticks his hands in his pockets, jingles the change he finds there.
Devlin stops cold in his tracks. It is as if all the heat has been sucked out of his body. He empties the contents of his pockets out onto his desk with shaking hands. His keys skitter across the polished surface and the change rolls off onto the floor. Devlin’s heart stutters and suddenly he is down on his hands and knees, searching. The quarters and nickels and dimes he ignores. When he doesn’t find what he’s looking for immediately, he’s starting to get frantic. Where is it? He runs his hand under an armchair halfway across the room and feels something. He stands and turns the armchair over.
There it is: the penny.
His lucky penny.
Devlin holds it up to the light. His earlier assessment was correct. There is nothing special about it. And yet didn’t all of this start after he found the penny? Weren’t pennies, especially pennies found heads-up in the street, as this one had been, supposed to be good luck?
Devlin knows that they are, though he has not admitted as much in years. Now he thinks that perhaps this is the reason he spends so much time searching for lost change. Perhaps this was why he suffered a permanent, nagging crick in his neck from walking hunched over, missing the sky and the trees because he had his eyes glued to the sidewalk. This and not the tchotchkes the change he finds enables him to purchase.
Devlin thinks that perhaps he’s been waiting for something like this to happen all his life.
It is not yet the end of the day, but suddenly Devlin cannot stand to be in his office any longer. He gathers his things and leaves, telling Jill on his way out that he isn’t feeling well.
Outside, the sun seems to be shining brighter than ever before. Devlin goes to a park and strolls behind a young couple. They clearly have feelings for each other, but the young man is too shy to make a move.
“If I were you,” Devlin mutters under his breath as he fondles the lucky penny, “I’d slip an arm around her.”
Moments later, the young man does, and the young woman folds herself into his side. Devlin smiles.
When he passes a playground, Devlin sees a boy push another down, bloodying his knee.
“That kid ought to get a talking-to,” Devlin says to no one in particular, the penny clutched tightly in his palm, and moments later the boy’s mother arrives from nowhere to scold him for his bullying.
Devlin finds a bench and sits, thinking. He sits for a long time.
* * *
It is late when he decides to head home. This is nothing to worry about. He often works late. Rebecca does not even bother to ask why he misses dinner anymore.
But Devlin is in a good mood. He stops in at the florist a block from his house to buy flowers for his wife, something he has not done in years. He asks for hydrangeas, Rebecca’s favorite. The flowers the florist removes from the basket are wilted, their blooms already starting to brown at the edges. There are others in the basket, brighter and more alive.
“Why don’t you give me those,” Devlin says, indicating the ones he means.
“You don’t like what I give you, you can go someplace else,” the florist says.
“Excuse me?” Devlin says.
“I said, take ’em or leave ’em, pal.”
Suddenly, he feels uneasy on his feet, like he has just stepped off an amusement park ride.
Why didn’t the penny work?
“You might remember that the customer is always right,” Devlin says, trying to salvage the situation, hoping against hope that the magic hasn’t worn off. “Of course, that’s just my two cents—”
And then he knows. He hasn’t had good luck. What’s happened is that everyone has taken his advice. All day Devlin’s been giving people his two cents and they’ve done what he said, whether they heard him or not.
His two cents.
Which means that the penny he found this morning is only half of the equation.
But where is the other half? He only found the one penny today.
His mind flashes to the pickle jars where he keeps his change. He must have had the first penny all along. The one he found this morning completed the spell.
Devlin rushes out of the florist’s shop and down the block to his apartment. He tears open the front door and dashes to the coat closet, which he throws open like a man possessed. He inhales the musty winter coat and board game aroma of the closet, normally so comforting. But now it smells like the grave.
The pickle jars are gone. In their place is a brown calfskin briefcase, a red bow tied around the handle.
“Do you like it?”
Devlin spins around to see Rebecca standing in the foyer.
“I was walking by that little luggage store on my way home this afternoon and saw it was on sale,” she says. “I came home, turned the pickle jar money in at the bank and went and bought it for you. I figured, this way you wouldn’t have to wait to collect more change.”
“You cashed in the change.”
Rebecca knits her brow. “I’m sorry,” she says. “Should I not have? Did you want to do it yourself? I thought it would be a nice sur—”
“Oh, it’s a surprise, all right.” He’s hysterical. The other penny, gone. “It’s the biggest surprise of the century! Do you have any idea what was in those pickle jars, Becky? My god, what have you done?”
“I just thought it would be—”
“Do me a favor, next time you have the feeling like you’re going to have a thought, don’t.”
Devlin collapses in a heap on the floor. He reaches in his pocket and pulls out the penny he found this morning, examines it. It looks like any other penny, and without its mate, it might as well be. He feels as though he is going to be sick.
When the nausea passes, he looks up at Rebecca. She hasn’t moved, and tears are streaming down her cheeks. Why is she crying? She’s not the one who lost the power to change the world.
Then Devlin sees the conversation from her point of view. He’s horrified at the way he acted, more horrified than when he’d come home to find the pickle jars gone. She’d done him a favor—bought him a present, really—and he’d raged at her, called her stupid. He’s never yelled at her before. Not even once, in all the years they’ve been married. Sitting on the floor, staring up at his crying wife, Devlin feels worse than losing the other penny could ever make him feel.
“I’m sorry,” Devlin says, standing. “God, Becky, I’m so, so sorry.”
Rebecca says nothing. Her arms are crossed high on her chest, but the tears have stopped. The lines around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth are softening, and Devlin sees her the way he did all those years ago, back when they’d first been married and had nothing. Back when he’d had to use the change he collected not for fancy trifles, but to make the rent and to buy groceries. She hasn’t been drifting away; he’s become too comfortable, taken her for granted.
Suddenly he knows that this may be his last chance. He’s scared—scared because without the pennies, there is no guarantee that she will listen to him. And though he can make a case to the buying public on behalf of his clients, he is not sure he can make his own case to her.
If he can get her to talk to him, he thinks. If he can only get her to talk, then he can say the things he’s kept hidden and buried all these years, even from himself. One word from Becky and it will all come flooding out. He knows it.
“Please,” Devlin says. “I know I was an ass. At least talk to me.”
Rebecca regards him from across the foyer but remains silent.
Devlin looks down at the penny in his hand. Perhaps it is not worthless after all.
He holds it out to her.
“Penny for your thoughts…” he says.
Copyright © 2018 by David Afsharirad
George Nikolopoulos is a master of the short-short, these days known as flash fiction. This is his fourth appearance in Galaxy’s Edge with one of his trademarked shorties.
FROZEN MOMENTS, STOLEN OUT OF TIME
by George Nikolopoulos
As I see the man pull a gun out of his pocket and point it at my son, I feel like my heart just stopped.
Instead, time stops.
I can see the bullet, frozen in place midair, sleek and deadly, pointed toward my son. I can see the twisted, delirious face of the gunman. Everyone else in the great hall is frozen, immobile, oblivious. My son, too. Frozen in mid-speech, he doesn’t seem to have noticed yet. Moments ago, I was proud to hear him speak of putting an end to all discrimination on grounds of gender, race or creed; but freedom always comes at a cost and this time the cost would be my son’s blood. Unless time stopped.
How can this be happening? Is it a miracle? Whose miracle? I am not religious and, frankly, I don’t care. I only want to save my son.
I jump up from my seat and rush to the hovering bullet. I mean to rush, but all I can do is wade through air that seems thicker than water, like I’m in slow motion. I finally reach the bullet and try to push it away from its path; it won’t budge. I grab it in my hand and attempt to snatch it out of the air. Nothing. I use both of my hands and pull at it with all my strength. Still nothing.
There must be something I can do. I leave the bullet and move toward my son. I struggle to push him away, out of death’s path.
As I dreaded, I can’t move him at all. It seems that everything—but me—is frozen in place.
I frantically wade around the hall, making an effort to move anything. If I can pick up something solid I can place it in front of the bullet and deflect it. Nothing moves, not even the chair I was sitting on.
I search my clothes, my pockets. Not a thing that can be of any use.
There must be an explanation, or at least a hint to help me; an idea will come. I can’t think of anything; or in fact I think of many things, but none of them is useful and most are nonsense. I even try some, to no avail.
I wait for a supreme being, a supreme being’s messenger, an angel, an alien, an AI, anyone. Someone to come and explain to me why they did this and what I must do to save my son. Nobody comes.
There’s nothing I can do, but I can’t accept that.
Could I just stay here forever? Keep time in a standstill?
I go to my son again. I caress his cheek. It doesn’t yield; it feels like marble. My son has become a statue. A frozen statue.
Should I stay here forever—forever watching my son as he is about to die? What good would that do? To me, or to him?
I begin to wonder if it’s all pointless, a mindless prank by the powers-that-be. I feel so useless. I feel like I’m killing him myself.
I linger a little longer in that neverland, thinking about my son. Trying to fill my mind with him, to sate myself with him—as if that could be possible. Thinking of his childhood, of the first time he said dad, of the way he used to make his voice sound childish when he kissed me goodnight, of how he used to cry when he was old enough to know that people die and someday I would die too and he would have to go on without me.
And then I know. There is one thing I can do. Everything in the world is
frozen in place; except me.
I go and stand between the bullet and my son.
Blink.
Time starts again.
Copyright © 2018 by George Nikolopoulos
Kij Johnson is a Hugo winner and a multiple Nebula winner. Her most recent novel is The River Bank. We’re happy to welcome her back to the pages of Galaxy’s Edge.
THE BITEY CAT
by Kij Johnson
Sarah has a cat. She’s only three but it’s just hers. Everyone agrees. No one else even likes the cat. Everyone just calls her the bitey cat even though Sarah knows she’s not really a cat. She’s a monster.
Mom and dad are mad at each other all the time. Sarah never cries but it makes her scream and run and kick things. If she doesn’t she feels sick and then she throws up and then mom and dad get mad at her too even though they act like they don’t.
Mom and dad yell at each other at night when Sarah and Paul are supposed to be asleep. Sarah’s supposed to stay in bed but sometimes when they yell she gets out of bed with her pooh bear and her blanket and she lies in her doorway where the hall light shines. Sometimes she goes all the way down the stairs and into the back hall because they won’t notice anyway but she wishes they would.
They’re getting a divorce Paul says one night. She’s sitting in her doorway punching pooh and then feeling bad about it and hugging him. Paul’s standing in his door across the hall from her. He’s wearing his spiderman pajamas and he’s holding his neopet. That’s why they fight all the time. Paul’s six and he thinks he knows everything but Sarah already knows about divorce because of Jeff A from daycare. His parents are divorced and that means his mom picks him up some days and his dad on other days. She thinks it’s going to be like that.
Sarah wants a cat for her birthday. They ask what she wants and she says a cat because it seems like something someone would want. She’s patted cats before at other people’s houses and at daycare once when a little girl’s mom brought a box that had a towel and four kittens inside. They were so little their eyes weren’t open. Their mouths were very pink. Sarah held one but she was scared she would drop it so she put it back right away.
Galaxy's Edge Magazine Page 6