by J. S. Bailey
I am trapped inside it.
From time to time I conducted experiments to see what would happen if, for example, I stopped eating and drinking.
Nothing happened. I cannot die, so it only makes sense that starvation and dehydration would have no effect on my health. I never even felt sick. I’ve avoided all diseases as well, or rather they’ve avoided me.
These facts have made me wonder: if illness and poor health can’t kill me, am I truly alive? I think that—
[Page too scorched to read]
—few decades I changed my identity and moved somewhere else. I saw nations born and nations in ruins, natural disasters sculpt new terrain, and technological advancements the people from my childhood never could have dreamed of.
I picked up many new skills along the way, learning new languages and musical instruments and the like. I even took up screenwriting again, though the medium itself had changed into something nearly unrecognizable from the olden days. I enjoyed it, though. Screenwriting has always been my biggest love despite all my other pursuits. Bringing entire worlds into being through dialogue amounts to bliss.
I moved back to Wales as well. It was a very different place from what I remembered. The towns and buildings had all changed, leaving only the green, rolling hills as a reminder of where I truly was.
Which reminds me: two thousand years isn’t a long time, either.
Man flew to the stars, and still I lived. The air grew hotter and then colder, and I left the Earth behind to see what lay beyond my own experiences. I found worlds both dazzling and frightening and met strange beings who weren’t that different from us at heart.
I met monsters, too. They are not worth describing here.
I watched as mankind changed. It was subtle, but over long eons I no longer looked like them. Their faces had a different shape to them. And their eyes! They thought me an alien whenever they saw me. I didn’t try to convince them otherwise.
It broke my heart, though, knowing that what humanity had once been lay interred beneath the ages like a forgotten corpse.
Eventually the sun expanded and died, taking the Earth and inner planets with it. Wales had been long gone by then anyway, the continents long ago shifted into shapes unrecognizable. The history that had once been reality to me faded with the ages and was lost even to myth.
And still I lived on.
New stars and planets formed from the ashes of their predecessors, and I thought it beautiful.
But even they died in time.
I’m not sure what year it is anymore. I’m not sure that years matter. What does matter is that all the remaining stars are dying, and no new ones are forming from their remains.
The universe is becoming very cold.
As I write this entry, I’m sitting outside a cave on a nameless planet where I’ve taken refuge, in the remnant of a galaxy many millions of light years beyond the one where I was born. I’ve lived in this place for several centuries now. No one notices if you don’t age anymore.
I’m looking up at the sky this very moment. I see one faint star, maybe two if I squint hard enough. The air has been growing more and more frigid with each passing year. This planet’s tiny sun doesn’t put out enough heat to warm me.
The beings who live near me seem not to notice the cold. This is what they’ve always known.
I don’t like living here. Most of the vegetation is brown, the water tastes like rust, and the air smells sour as if the planet itself is ill.
I don’t think there’s anywhere else to go, and no more transports even if there was.
I’m scared. The small sun will burn out, too, and then I’ll have nothing to look at but darkness for all of eternity unless God takes pity on me and finally removes me from time.
I write this entry in case explorers from another universe come along and find it, though how they’ll be able to translate it is beyond me. Hopefully they’ll find a way to understand my words and learn not to make my mistake.
After these countless eons, I understand why life is supposed to be short: it’s to preserve our sanity and make each moment something to be treasured.
I’m going to keep this journal with me always. No one will be permitted to look at it while I live. If you’re reading it, you’ll know the end finally came for me. I take comfort in that.
I DON’T KNOW what’s going on anymore.
Things used to make so much sense. One plus one is two, twelve makes a dozen, don’t drive on the left or you’ll get creamed. Are you with me so far?
I lived for sense and order. Things that could be jotted down in an infallible book of rules that nobody in their right mind would ever question. But I’m not in my right mind at all. I’m telling you all of this because I have gone insane, and it’s all gotten me into an interesting place, if you get my meaning.
I’ll tell you how it all started. My name is Jenna Carlson and I live in an ordinary house on an ordinary street in an ordinary town called Wisteria Farm that, for all intents and purposes, is located in a dreadfully ordinary part of the country called Southern Ohio. We see little violence here. You’ll rarely run into someone who has fluorescent hair and two dozen piercings. Nothing in our town ever changes except the price of gas (Three-fifty a gallon? Really?) and the models of cars we drive. Me, I’ve got a 1997 Chevy Cavalier, and I’m perfectly happy with that.
So you see, things outside the norm don’t belong here. I think that the people who sometimes pass through on their way to elsewhere know that, because they’ll stop for a fill-up and a pee and a bite to eat and be gone down the road again before you can say, “Could I interest you in some dessert?”
I work in a restaurant. We sell burgers and fries, and sometimes milkshakes, if the weather’s nice enough. It’s called Joe’s Bar and Grille. We don’t serve alcohol like the name implies, but Joe Youngman thought the place would sound catchier that way, and I can’t disagree. People who want a good, stiff drink can go down to Riley’s Pub on Ash Street. That’s a pretty normal place, too.
Anyway, I’m Jenna Carlson, I work for Joe Youngman at his Bar and Grille, and I never had to question anything I did in my life. I’m thirty-five, single, and nobody ever gives me much trouble (except for that greaseball Leroy Graves, but who wants to talk about him?). I get up at seven every morning. I fire up my little computer to check out the online news since I don’t get the paper. Then I fix me a coffee and get a bite to eat; usually Cheerios or some oatmeal. I read for an hour or two. Mostly cozy mysteries—the kind you can read in half a day and completely forget about five minutes after reaching the final page. Brain fluff, my momma calls it, but she’s just mean.
Maybe that’s part of my problem. My brain’s been fluffed too much.
I go into Joe’s at noon. He doesn’t care what I wear, but I usually put on a cute white polo and a long black skirt. Apron is red. I think it looks nice, and Joe does, too; and everyone is happy as can be.
But then this afternoon something happened that I didn’t expect. Something that wasn’t normal, at least not for me.
THIS morning wasn’t the best to begin with. I got up at my usual time and discovered I’d run out of coffee, and I’m the type who needs at least four cups in order to function. I made an emergency trip to the grocery store but had to wait in the parking lot for an hour because the owners are too lazy to open before eight; then when I got inside I found out they were out of Folgers. I won’t touch Maxwell House, no way. That stuff’s poison.
So I got a giant cup of coffee from Dunkin Donuts instead. I sat down with it at the table when I got home and knocked it over everywhere when I reached for the ringing telephone. Turned out it was just a telemarketer. Should have billed him for the coffee.
So, yeah. Fun morning. I’m lucky I made it to work in one piece, especially after I nearly got t-boned by a pickup truck on the way in.
It was about one o’clock when he came into the restaurant. Tall guy, brown shirt, jeans. He had brown hair just going gray at the
temples. Perched on his head was a tan Stetson, like he thought himself some kind of displaced cowboy. I was wiping up a spot of something on the counter and he gave me this look. You know the one. Like he was undressing me with his eyes.
We have tables in the most of the place, and I’ll be darned if he didn’t plop his womanizing self down at the table closest to where I stood. Don’t get me wrong, this man was a stranger—one of those passing-through folks I told you about, probably—but I knew his type. We have some of our own around town. I may have mentioned one to you already. Leroy Graves? Yeah. Anyway, this newcomer sat down, looked me in the eye, and said, “Hey, good lookin.’” Not in the I’m-just-flirting-with-you-because-you’re-pretty type of tone, but in one that plainly said, “I would love to tie your hands behind your back and have my way with you.”
I immediately decided I didn’t like the guy.
I tried to be nice because it’s bad form to be rude to someone who’s going to be giving you their money; just not too nice. Wouldn’t want to give him the wrong idea. He ordered a bacon and egg cheeseburger and an enormous side of hash browns. Clogged arteries on a plate, I call it, but I didn’t tell the man that. I didn’t want to talk to him more than absolutely necessary.
But Creep—that’s the name I’d already assigned to him—clearly had other ideas.
“So what’s your name?” he asked through a mouthful of beef a minute or so after I’d set his lunch in front of him.
At this point I stood at the counter pretending to be preoccupied with arranging a stack of flyers a local charity had dropped off a day or two ago. I feigned deafness, but Creep cleared his throat and said, “Can’t you talk? I said, what’s your name?”
I turned and gave him a steely glare that had served me well on other occasions. “Steve,” I said, blurting the first name that came to mind. I thanked Jesus that Joe Youngman didn’t make me wear a nametag.
I heard one of our other patrons, a middle-aged septic-truck driver named Arnold, let out a snicker from his seat near the back. Claire, our cook, started humming loudly as she assembled Arnold’s lunch. I recognized the melody as “Creep” by Radiohead, one of those songs we listened to on the radio in the car after school when we were teenagers. Sometimes Claire and I think so much alike that it scares me.
While Claire continued to hum Creep the Song behind me, Creep the Man gave me what I’m pretty sure was a condescending smirk. “Steve, huh?” he said. “Someone ought to check underneath that apron of yours and see if that’s right, because you sure don’t look like no Steve, honey.”
I shrugged. My cheeks were so warm you could have roasted marshmallows over them. “Had surgery.” I sneaked a glance over at Arnold, who appeared to be silently convulsing in his chair.
God help me.
Creep knew, of course, that I was not, and never had been, a Steve. “You live around here?” he asked, still giving me that I’m-picturing-you-naked look.
“Nope,” I said. “Live in the jungles of darkest Burma. The commute’s a nightmare.” I didn’t even know if Burma had jungles, or if it was even a real place, and I sure didn’t care. I grabbed a bottle of Windex off a shelf and started blasting the already-clean counter with it, hoping the smell would ruin his appetite and make him leave.
Creep remained silent for maybe thirty seconds while he started on his hash browns. But then, “I always did like a woman who knows how to clean.”
I considered spritzing Windex all over his food, but I didn’t want to get fired. “Is that so,” I said, making the phrase sound like a statement instead of a question in order to decrease the likelihood of receiving a response.
I was vaguely aware of Claire delivering a plate of food to Arnold and whispering something in his ear. His convulsions had lessened in the past thirty seconds. I saw him grin.
Creep, however, was not grinning. “What are you actin’ all uptight for, honey?” he asked me.
I forced a blank stare, then made the mistake of flicking my gaze to the guy’s hand to see how he stood in the marriage department. The only ring on his finger looked like the kind I’ve seen Freemasons wear.
“I had me a woman once,” he said, knowing full well what I was looking at. “Pretty little thing. Looked a lot like you, come to think of it.”
“Good for her!” I blurted, remembering that I wasn’t supposed to be rude to customers but not particularly caring that I’d just violated the Number One rule of customer service. I could only imagine what it must have been like being this guy’s “woman.” Poor thing must have been smart and left him, though I guess she couldn’t have been much smarter than a tree stump to have been with him in the first place.
An odd look clouded Creep’s eyes as he opened his mouth to form a reply, when—praise God!—three of our good-natured regulars came in and occupied their usual stools at the counter. Martin owns a lawn service, Trey works down at the hardware store, and Oswald does stuff with computers; and compared to Creep, they’re absolute saints, even if their jokes do sometimes get a little raunchy. They struck up a conversation about which brand of tractors they thought were the most reliable, asked me for my opinion (don’t have one, sorry, but I like the color orange, so Case, I guess?), and ordered lunch like good customers are supposed to do. I wanted to throttle Creep and shout, “This is how you’re supposed to act in a family restaurant!” right in his face.
While our regulars waited for Claire to get their food ready, Creep cleaned his plate and pushed it away from him. “Is there anything else I can get for you?” I asked, bracing myself against the lewd reply that would surely follow, but Creep just shook his head.
“That remains to be seen,” he muttered, and grabbed my butt.
It was all I could do not to murder him on the spot.
My voice shaking, I told him the total he owed and watched as he fished the right amount of cash out of his billfold. As soon as he flipped the thing open, I caught a glimpse of his driver’s license.
Theiss
Larry Walter
42608 Wallford Rd.
Hillsboro, OH 45—
So Creep came from Hillsboro. That’s not too far from Wisteria Farm, maybe only twenty miles. Lord only knows what he was doing here. Maybe Hillsboro ran out of babes that fit Larry Walter Theiss’s qualifications. I hoped to God he wouldn’t decide to move here.
After Creep paid for his meal, he headed toward the door and gave me one final, long look that meant nothing good. I thought I saw something black flutter in his eyes. Probably my imagination.
Make him pay for humiliating you, a tiny voice whispered in my ear. He deserves it.
My foul mood refused to lift after Creep left. The guy had made me madder than I’ve been in years, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Larry Theiss really did deserve punishment for treating me like that. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it had been all talk, but he touched me, and nobody does that and lives.
As the end of my shift grew nearer, my anger continued to simmer like a pot of my favorite chili, only I knew that this chili would be too bitter for anyone to eat.
“You okay, Jen?” Claire asked me at one point as I slammed boxes around in the kitchen trying to find more burger buns.
I muttered something incomprehensible and avoided eye contact with her. I felt like a volcano getting ready to blow its top and it was all I could do not to erupt in front of my friend.
Dang, I needed some coffee. Maybe if I’d had some I wouldn’t have felt like murdering someone.
Eight o’clock finally rolled around. Aside from my day-spoiling encounter with Larry Theiss, the only other thing of note that happened was when Julie Harkness’s little boy had a meltdown in the middle of the floor when he refused to eat his French fries. The brat should have been more grateful; we have the best fries in town.
But as I was saying, eight o’clock rolled around and I got to go home to my ordinary house on the ordinary street I’ve called home for years. I half-expected to see Creep wait
ing for me on the porch wearing that arrogant smile, which was silly since he neither knew neither my name nor where I live.
Of course, lucky me knew both about him. What fun.
Some people get catchy songs stuck in their head when they hear them on the radio. Other people get foreign words stuck in their head when they’re learning a new language. I, however, kept seeing the image of Larry Theiss’s driver’s license flash through my thoughts again and again like a song on repeat. 42608 Wallford Rd. 42608 Wallford Rd. 42608 Wallford Rd. Probably out in a cornfield somewhere, judging from the length of the house number. One of those places where you can only see your neighbor’s place through a pair of high-powered binoculars. Broken farm equipment rusting by a barn older than God. A mangy dog barking at the infrequent cars passing by.
I have a good imagination, but I’m no psychic. 42608 Wallford Rd. could have been a sprawling estate for all I knew.
I set my purse down in my armchair when I got inside and bolted the door, now struck with the burning desire to find out exactly where Larry Theiss lived. I started toward my little desk where I usually sit my computer, but hesitated. Why was I doing this? To sate my curiosity, of course. What could it hurt? Nothing that I knew of.
So I sat down, flipped the laptop lid open, and went online as soon as it awoke from hibernation.
I sat still for a moment, thinking about which website would help me out the most. I’m not big on using the internet for much other than news and email, but I had used the Google Maps page a couple different times when I needed to go to Columbus and Chillicothe, so I figured that if the thing could find a hospital (one of my cousins in Columbus had her gall bladder out last year) or a park (family reunion, Chili Town, 2010), then it could locate Mr. Theiss’s residence without a hitch.
I went to the web page and typed my residence into the starting address and that of Larry Theiss as the destination. I hit Enter and watched a snaking blue line appear over the green and brown satellite imagery of Southern Ohio. The fastest route listed was 22.1 miles in distance.