Close Encounters

by Jen Michalski

  “Well, that makes sense.” She nodded, sitting down on the edge of the bed, a somewhat conciliatory gesture. “You’re always on your laptop. And you never get enough sleep.”

  “Yes, but it’s not blurriness.”

  “Well, then what is it? Did you tell him exactly what it was?”

  “I tried. I just…don’t think he understood.”

  “Well, I don’t understand either, so I think I understand where he’s coming from. Try explaining it to me again.”

  “It’s just that certain objects or parts of objects are blurry.”

  “Maybe it’s some kind of floater or something?”

  “No, because it’s always the same objects that are blurry.”

  “What kinds of objects?”

  He sighed and pulled on a pair of workout pants. “Well, I don’t know—like maybe someone’s hand or something.”

  “Does it happen at the same sight line? Maybe there’s a weakness in that area of your vision.”

  “I think the ophthalmologist would have noticed.” He finished dressing and fetched his jogging shoes. “But I saw this woman a couple of weeks ago, when I was having this vision trouble, and she was..blurry also. If she looks OK tonight, then my problem will be resolved.”

  “Who is this woman?”

  “Someone I saw get off the bus. An older woman. She asked me to help with her groceries and I did.”

  “And if it’s not OK?”

  “I don’t know. But I can’t think about that now.”

  “Can you see my hands?” She held them out for him.

  “Yes.”

  “Then you don’t need to see this woman.” With that, she left the bedroom.

  Outside he jogged quickly to the park. The detail tonight was astounding. Again he noticed the incredible sizes and shapes of the trees and their leaves, along with the infinite numbers of pebbles in the asphalt, swimming against an uneven darkness, managing to stand out only once in a awhile before becoming lost among the million others.

  He did not care particularly for the details of his and Sara’s life, so long as they followed along a path of success and hard-earned ease. They discarded their hand-me down furniture last year and bought new, matching sets for each room from Ethan Allen. They owned carefully time-tested designs of dinnerware, stemware, flatware, barware, table linens, bowls, platters, pots, and pans. Their electronic equipment—cameras, computers, large-screen TV, home theater system—were two years old or less. They spent their vacations in the urban professional resorts—Cancun, Key West, St. Martin, the Outer Banks, Maine—and frequented generically unique bars and chain restaurants on Friday night with their friends, places where the girls wore black with their long blond or auburn hair pulled back, while the guys wore chinos, casual Friday denim button-down shirts, and baseball caps of Midwestern colleges that boasted good basketball or football programs. These details were easily obtainable and showed a certain growth and maturity through acquisition and status.

  It was the unexpected details that David was unsure of—spiritual growth, doubt, disappointment, grief. These were the areas in which one could not update the accessories so easily, and it was precisely these areas in which Sara and David had managed to avoid thus far. And now, some ancient immigrant and self-important office blowhard were playing him like a marionette. He had to see her and dispel the notion that his life was not his own and to do it in such a way that Sara never realized there was a serious breach in the first place. And even if she already did, she would forgive him these past few weeks, he was sure. She, just as much as he, was interested in keeping their boat from listing too far one way or another. She needed him to be, well, David, just as he needed himself to be.

  He reached the little apartment and knocked, ripe with anticipation.

  “Come. We go shopping,” the shrunken woman declared, dressed in a heavy, formless shawl and gloves. She tied a clear plastic babushka on her head and handed David a collapsable shopping cart. They walked side by side to the market without speaking, David walking slowly and out of sync so as to not get too far ahead of her. They passed the Mexican neighborhood, full of brightly colored restaurants and small children playing in the narrow alleys, to the antique neighborhood, where middle-market peddlers were moving furniture back inside for the evening. They reached the market, which was at rest after the apex of the morning and afternoon business. The white and black tiles of the floor were smudged with watery shoe prints and diluted, pinkish blood, and the smells of fish, meat, and coffee intermingled with the hot air that was unevenly distributed from the vents above them.

  “Smelts today for you.” A vendor pointed to his ice-filled display case. “Half price.”

  She looked at the leftover cuts, offered for cheap sale after a day of going unsold. She pointed to a stock bone and some pork chops. The smudge of man, full of soft perspiration and a day’s worth of stubble, carefully wrapped the items while the woman fumbled for a few bills from her change purse. David took the waxed packages from the vendor’s outstretched hands, and they moved on, taking time to study the inventory of some of the other stands, a bakery where the woman indicated for him to buy coffee cakes, a Polish butcher who sold mainly kielbasa and sausage, a raw bar popular with tourists, a coffee counter. David bought a coffee and handed it to the woman. They walked back to her apartment, breathing in the quiet, mild night, drinking in the stars dusted across the sky.

  “Goodnight.” David gave a wave outside the apartment complex. He realized he had not seen her hand and turned to see whether he could catch up with her, but she was gone. He sat down at a bus stop bench in front of the complex. He needed time to think. Would he keep coming back here until he could figure out what was going on, if anything? What did the woman want from him? He noticed that a bar across the street from the apartment complex and thought about having a drink.

  “You comin’ or not?” He looked up at the busdriver, indifferent across the threshold of the open bus door. David stood up and climbed onto the bus, fumbling for a dollar from his wallet. He found a seat near the rear door and sat down. Blue-collar workers and high-school kids heading to work or back home glanced up at him blankly. David looked at their hands, their faces. He felt disconnected from them; it was as if his life were a theory, a figment of their imagination. His reality had been so dramatically altered the past few weeks it would not have surprised him if this were so.

  David looked up at an older man across from him. He was an odd sort and wore a brown polyester sportcoat and a pink button-down shirt, large enough that it seemed to puff out over the cuffs and collar like a marshmallow. David surmised that he must be returning from church services, judging by the parish flier he folded carefully before sliding it into one of his coat pockets. David looked down at the man’s hands. They were both there, albeit bony and pale. They met eyes and smiled at each other. David noted that the man swayed slightly from side to side and looked pale all over. He looked up at the window and wondered whether he should crack it. The bus smelled unbearably like body odor, alcohol, cigarettes, and sweat, and he wondered whether this wasn’t the cause of the older man’s troubles.

  David looked up at the old man again, and audibly gasped for breath. The man was completely transparent and looking much more in distress than before. David and the man stood up at the same time, and before David knew it, the older man had fallen into his arms, knocking him onto the floor of the bus.

  When David woke up, he was in the back of an ambulance, a bag of oxygen clamped to his mouth.

  “Don’t panic,” the EMS worker assured him. He was an olive-skinned man with hairy arms, a double chin, and pleasant demeanor. “You hit your head on the floor of the bus and knocked yourself out when that old guy fell on you. We’re taking you to the hospital to get you checked out, make sure you didn’t really hurt yourself.”

  “The old man, what happened to him?”

  “Probably had a heart attack or something—hard to say for sure. Maybe they’ll
do an autopsy.”

  “He died?”

  “Yep.”

  “I think he was coming home from church.”

  “Well, at least he was in with the right people before he went.” The EMS tech laughed.

  “Can I see the body?”

  “Why?”

  “I just…need to see it.”

  “Unless you’re a member of the family, I doubt the hospital will let you see the body.”

  “Have you seen a lot of dead people?”

  “My fair share. Why?” He laughed.

  “Do they look any different from people who are alive?”

  “Well, they’re not breathing. It depends on how long they’ve been dead.”

  “Newly dead.”

  “Then no, not really.”

  “I could have sworn…that the old man looked different before he died.” David said aloud.

  “Well, supposedly some people can see other people’s auras.” The EMS technician explained. “And they say when a person is about to die, their aura disappears. I don’t know whether you believe that kind of stuff or not, but that’s what some people say. But for me, people look the same, dead or alive. When they’re dead, it’s like they’re sleeping or something.”

  David went through triage, a CT scan, a medical student, two nurses, and one attending physician before it was decided he would be observed for a few hours before being discharged. He leaned over his bed and strained to see out of the curtain at other patients.

  “Honey.” Sara stood at the opposite side of the curtain. “Are you all right?”

  “I think so.” He felt the firmness of her shoulders and back in his arms as she leaned over him. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “What…what were you doing on a bus?” She sat down stiffly on the seat beside him.

  “I had to test my hypothesis.”

  “What hypothesis? What about the old woman?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “I don’t know—I went to see her, and we went grocery shopping at the market. But I was so involved in that I forgot to look. Anyway, I was sitting at the bus stop, trying to figure out what it all meant, if I should go back and ask, when a bus pulled up. So I got on. And that’s when the old man fell on me and died.”

  “So what are you saying? Are you saying that people die around you?”

  “No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that…I know when they are.”

  “How?”

  “It my vision—I mean, it’s what I don’t see. People start to disappear.”

  “Honey.” Sara’s voice quivered as she clutched her purse tighter to her stomach. “I don’t understand what it is you’re trying to tell me. Are you saying you’re some kind of psychic, that you’ve got ESP or something?”

  “I don’t know. The paramedic told me that there are people who can see auras. And when people are about to die, their aura disappears.”

  “But…do you really believe in that stuff?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just telling you what I see. Or don’t see.”

  “But David, why would you be psychic?” Her eyes moved in agitation across the room. “You don’t notice anything.”

  “What, are you jealous that I may have this special ability?”

  “No.” She stood up and paced slightly, rubbing the underside of her nose with the top of her hand. “It’s just that…are you going to be religious now or something?”

  “I don’t…think so.”

  “What if it’s just coincidence? What if you’re hallucinating? I think you should talk to a psychologist—you’ve been really stressed out lately, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, because this has been going on. You don’t believe me, do you? You think I’m crazy.”

  “I don’t think you’re crazy, David.” She look up at him and smiled. “I just think we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

  “Jump to conclusions? How is this jumping to conclusions? I’ve had weeks to think, to come to this conclusion.”

  “David, will you please talk to someone for me?”

  “This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you—you think I’ve freaking lost it.”

  “David…I want you to tell me things. I just think…you sound so desperate. Listen to yourself. This is not the David I know.” She squeezed his arm. “I just wish…you hadn’t brought this up, in a way. I mean, I’m glad…you told me, but I just wish everything was the way it used to be, you know? Not that it won’t…go back, I just…I’m going to get the doctor, OK? We need to get you home.”

  “Honey, the alarm’s going off.” Sara murmured. “Get up.”

  “I’m calling in again today. My head still hurts.”

  “Let me feel it.” She wove her hand gingerly between his head and the pillow. “Yes, you still have a lump there. Do you want some of the medicine they gave you?”

  “No.”

  “Does it feel any worse than last night?”

  “No—it’s just dull.”

  “Maybe you should go to your doctor and get it checked out. It’s been almost a week.”

  “I have an appointment on Friday.” He heard her sigh and roll out of bed. “Where are you going?”

  “To shower. I have to go in early.”

  “I might need a little nursing assistance.”

  “I’ll be home earlier. You should sleep, get some rest.” She pulled on her robe, smiling slightly, the locks of her auburn hair matted to the side of her face.

  “About last night…”

  “Mmm-hmm?”

  “About our conversation earlier this week…about people dying, what I see and stuff…do you think what I’m saying might be true?”

  “I don’t know.” She turned to leave. “It would just be so weird. I mean, you’re so normal in every sense of the word…and you work so much…I think you should talk to someone first and go from there.”

  “I’m talking to you.”

  “But I’m not qualified…to judge, to explain what is going on here.”

  “I love you, Sara.” He leaned over to touch her face from the bed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner; I was scared. I am scared.”

  “We’ll figure it out.” She squeezed his hand and left the bedroom. He closed his eyes again and tried to sleep but began to search for events in his life that may have suggested a psychic sensitivity. It dawned on him in disappointment that his life had been rather ordinary. He had been an average boy with loving parents, a boy who played baseball and soccer in high school and majored in business administration in college. He belonged to a fraternity and didn’t want for dates. He had married his college sweetheart and was offered a job at the company for which he interned the summer of his senior years, a company that paid for him to earn his MBA taking night classes.

  At no point in his life had he felt different or ostracized or weird. In fact, he felt his life was rather envied, a model of success. He was used to people asking him questions and taking an interest in his affairs, even if he didn’t follow-up with an equal interest in theirs. He was used to the fact that he was perceived as handsome and affluent and therefore in many ways special, like getting better service at car dealerships and restaurants.

  “Honey, I’ve got to go.” A freshly showered and dressed Sara emerged, her heels clicking the hardwood floor. “I’m going to call you with the number of a good psychologist, OK? I’ve got the number at work.”

  “How would you know the number of a good psychologist?”

  “I…don’t. I just have the number at work. Through our human resources help desk.”

  “But how do you know he or she is good?”

  “I’ve heard good things about him.” She kissed him quickly. “Try and get some sleep, OK?”

  He closed his eyes, and when he opened them she was gone. He had the sudden urge to run after her but felt it would be futile, so he shut his eyes again, feeling tears slide to the corners of his eyel
ids. What was happening to him? What was his purpose? He did not have any answers. He did not have any plan. He would sleep until he woke up and things were as they used to be. And if they weren’t he’d just continue to sleep.

  David knew that he couldn’t stay at home forever, and he would have to make some sort of concession with his power. Perhaps if he just ignored it, only concentrating on those people with whom he was intimate, he would be OK. But what if others at work besides Bob began to disappear? Could he really sit by and watch them disappear and not say or do anything? Would he have to invest time into everyone, learn about them, become intimate with them on the chance they might die? How could he possibly do that? He would have to ignore everyone, not look at them, well, look at them sometimes, but not get involved emotionally. He would act the same as he always had, and throw himself into his work. Maybe he if didn’t engage the power it would recess back from whence it came. Perhaps something had jolted it out from where it lay latent, something innocent. He could ignore it, and it would become background, white noise. It was the only thing to do. After all, he had to return to his normal life.

  “How was your day?” Sara asked him as they watched TV.

  “Good.” He smiled at her reassuringly. “I’ve decided to go back to work tomorrow.”

  “Oh, honey, that’s great! I’m glad we’re able to put this behind us.”

  “Well, I don’t know if any thing’s changed—I just decided to approach the situation in a different way.”

  “That what they say, and I believe it entirely, that reality never changes, just your perspective of it.”

  “Maybe. I hope you’re right.”

  “Well, you’re just so much calmer than you’ve been for a long time. I was really worried about you.”

  “You never believed me, did you?” David turned to face her. “You don’t believe I can see people dying?”

  “Well, I don’t know, honey. I mean, it happened so fast, and you came to the conclusion pretty quickly. I mean, how do you really know that’s what it means, if in fact you’re seeing people disappear? The man you saw who died was rather old. And you don’t know necessarily that Bob Fuller is dying, or the old woman, right?”