by Joslyn Chase
Ruben’s world exploded in a boatload of pain.
~~~~
He returned gradually to awareness, to the ache in his groin, the ice pick tingle of pins and needles in his wrist. Forcing his eyes open, he stared at the convoluted chunk of rusty iron and the cuff which shackled him to it, letting them fall shut again. He remembered writhing in spectacular agony while the girl stepped forward, swinging her racket-toned arm to put him out of his misery. She’d found the key in his pocket, freed herself, and must be long gone by now, alerting the cops, savoring the taste of triumph.
Ruben visualized the end of everything. What a stinking life. The deck was always stacked against him. He was a rat in a trap—always had been.
It was so quiet. The rain had stopped and only occasional drops, flung by the wind from an overhanging oak tree, plinked down upon the metal roof. No sirens. No running footsteps. He rolled over and opened his eyes.
The girl stared at him from the folding chair, her arms crossed over her chest, eyes like blue ice, narrowed and calculating.
“What were you going to do to me?” she demanded, rising and coming closer, taking care to stay out of range.
Ruben groaned and closed his eyes again. Two minutes ago, he’d dreaded the arrival of the police. Now, he wished they were here. He curled himself into a ball, protecting his tender parts, wondering what she planned to do to him. The absurdity of the situation struck him. How many times he had wanted to swap positions with her—and now he had.
He laughed, and two pink spots sprang up on her cheeks. She leaned her head close to his and screamed. “What were you going to do to me?”
He winced and relented. After all, he was uniquely qualified to understand her need to know.
“I wouldn't hurt you.” He hesitated. “Or do anything filthy to you. Like you said, it’s about your mother’s money.”
“How do you know my mother would pay to get me back?”
Ruben's eyebrows shot up. “What else would she do? You’re her daughter.”
Iris snorted, but the look on her face was bleak. He’d seen an expression like that before, and his aunt’s face came to him, pinched and suffering, at his uncle’s funeral. It was the look of bereavement and longing. The poor little rich girl didn’t have it all, apparently.
“And then what? Whether my mom paid—or not—how were you going to wrap this up? Were you going to kill me?”
Ruben spluttered, protesting, but she cut him off. “Don’t bother giving me that indignant bull crap. ‘I may be a kidnapper, but I would never stoop to murder.’” She mimicked him in a pompous voice and he flushed. Those weren’t the exact words he would've used, but close enough.
“I had a good escape plan.”
Her gaze flew to the ceiling and back again, a derisive smile twisting her lips.
“You’d have never got away."
Ruben reflected that she was probably right. Life always punched him in the face.
“The real question,” Iris said, pacing the room and looking thoughtful, “is what am I going to do to you?”
He watched her, his palms growing sweaty, heart beating fast. The rush of his blood thrummed in his eardrums until he could stand it no longer.
“What are you going to do to me?”
Her pacing halted, and she turned to face him square on, just out of kicking distance. Her eyes burned into his.
“Not one damn thing.”
She spun and was gone, leaving Ruben with only the echo of the slamming door.
~~~~
A fly buzzed against the grimy glass of a window high above him, the relentless drone like a power drill on his sanity. How much time had passed? An hour? Six hours? His judgment was obviously impaired. She’d asked him for water and in that moment he’d almost felt like he had a choice, like he could make a decision that mattered. Illusion. That deed—all his deeds—only sowed and watered the seeds of his destruction.
Had she gone to the police, or did she intend to take her revenge by letting him rot here? The room darkened by degrees and the droning of the fly was replaced by the tiny outboard motor hum of a mosquito. Cold seeped into him from the hard, cement floor. Wallowing in misery, Ruben fell asleep.
When he awoke, the room was glazed in the weak light of morning. He was hungry, he ached all over, and his bladder cried out for attention. He extended a foot, hooked the bucket handle, and dragged it closer, jostling against a glass of water and spilling half of it onto the cement.
A glass of water. It hadn’t been there when she left. He stared at it. It was the same dirty glass he’d offered her, and it was half empty. Or was it half full? Something clinked against the glass as he pulled it toward him. He peered down into the cloudy contents.
The key to the cuffs lay at the bottom of the glass.
~~~~
Weeks passed, and Ruben waited. He was tense and jumpy, expecting the police to show up and arrest him or thugs to show up and break his legs. He reported to work as he always had. He clipped hedges, mowed grass, and tended roses, but he swore people could see him now. Sometimes they even greeted him or smiled.
He watched the snobby girls and wondered how he’d never noticed their uncertainty, how hard they worked to appear nonchalant, how slender the stalks of self-assurance to which they clung.
He looked always for Iris. Once he thought he saw her playing tennis, but when he got closer, he could tell it wasn’t her. He listened to the measured pock pock as the players swung their rackets, connecting with the balls which fell into their court. Where was Iris? Was she happy? Had she dealt with her own demons? She’d certainly dealt with his.
She’d brought him a simple glass of water. There were so many other choices she could have made, but she’d chosen to give him a second chance. As he’d once done for her. He’d thought he was sowing the seeds of his destruction by that act, but the plant that sprouted up was his salvation, and a simple glass of water contained the key.
NOTES
Many of my short stories originated from magazine prompts for various competitions. I’ve found writing contests to be a good way to exercise my creativity within a set parameter which imposes some discipline on the ideas and their development. I like the challenge and I’ve been fortunate enough to at least make the short list for a number of competitions. Beyond that, it’s a fun way to stretch my writing legs.
A Simple Glass of Water is another example of a story written from a prompt for a contest. The theme was “man in a hole,” based on the Kurt Vonnegut story arc. Basically, man gets into trouble—man gets out of trouble. My goal with this story was to smack the reader broadside with a couple of unexpected twists. I thought that might impress the judges of the contest. Apparently, they thought otherwise. No prizes for me this time.
I also wanted to impart a heart-warming underlying message. I hope that came through.
Tickling The Tiger
____________
A young doctor, part of an elite medical
task force, sets a course for adventure
in Bangladesh, where she faces the
harsh realities of a killer disease.
And the human element which aids and abets it.
Virulent germs, natural disaster,
and the murder of a Hindu priest combine
to make Dr. Elizabeth Mason’s
first tour of duty more than she bargained for.
But just what she needed.
Bangladesh, October 1974
The monster came for him in the night. Narayan felt a thousand tongues of fire lash open the flesh on his arms and legs. His face was kissed by the red demon, again and again, each touch raising a welt that throbbed and grew until his head was a blazing mass of pain. Screaming and thrashing, he called for the Cooling One, praying through cracked lips for her to hurry. His swollen eardrums itched with the echoes of monstrous, profane laughter and he was nearly enveloped in despair when, at last, he saw her. She was riding the white donkey, carrying the br
oom, with the blessed pitcher of vanquishing water cradled against one hip. The demon paused in his obscene whirling, snarling deep in his throat as the woman approached. He spun toward Narayan, enveloping him in a suffocating embrace, then raised the red-hot killing knife and plunged it home.
Narayan’s dying scream was his awakening. He lay panting in the sweat-soaked cot. Streaks of pain slashed through his skull and his tongue drooped, a desiccated thing, from slack lips. He stumbled to the washroom. In the dark, he knew where to find the bowl of tepid water. Splashing and slurping, he assuaged the burning torment and stood trembling, held up by the rickety table, to catch his breath. Shaking hands lit the flickering lamp and he carried it to the square of mirrored tile plastered on the rough wall of his hut. Leering shadows danced in time to his faltering steps, adding to his terror. He knew what his reflection would tell him. Fever, headache, vivid dreams. Everyone in the village knew what these meant; they awaited the ominous portents with dread. Lifting the lamp, he peered at the red splotched face staring in horror from the cracked tile, and saw. The nightmare was real.
The monster had come.
~~~~
“It doesn’t present like a typical case, but I’m afraid the major elements are here.”
Dr. Elizabeth Mason folded her stethoscope into a pocket. She gently prodded under Narayan’s jaw and noted the condition of his eyes. As a compassionate human being, she was sorry to see that Father Lohar, the Hindu priest, displayed the classic marks of smallpox. Dubbed the most terrible of all ministers of death, the disease was decimating the population in the small villages along the Ganges delta. As a medical practitioner, however, Dr. Mason felt a small squirm of satisfaction. The priest’s illness could be a boon to the community.
She’d seen horrible monstrosities caused by the disease. It had a kill rate of nearly 33 percent and left virtually one hundred percent of its victims scarred or blinded. In these village outposts, she’d treated hundreds of patients and knew their troubles began with fever, headache, and vivid dreams which subside a few days later when the rash appears. The red spots grow into thousands of pustules which harden and merge, destroying the underlying skin, making it impossible to eat, drink, or sleep.
Elizabeth gently palpated the soft tissue under the priest’s ribcage. A grimace of pain crossed his face, but he kept silent, maintaining an impassive stare.
“When did your symptoms start?” she asked.
“I woke last night from a terrible dream. The fever and headache have been with me since.”
“You came quickly, then. That is good.”
Dr. Mason and her colleagues were part of the world-wide effort to eradicate the disease. Recruited by the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) in the early 1970s, their mission was to conduct a clinical drug trial for an experimental treatment and also to administer vaccinations to those not yet infected. In other parts of Bangladesh, they had been well-received and largely successful in their inoculation efforts. But here, among the coastal villages, they met a strange opposition. Her name was Shitala Mata, goddess of the smallpox, and Father Narayan Lohar was her greatest devotee.
“We could include you in our treatment trial, Father Lohar.”
“Absolutely not.” Narayan was firm in his refusal. “I’m simply here to confirm the diagnosis. Your treatments will not work. I will wait upon the will of Shitala Mata.”
He was correct about the treatments. They were not working, had never worked on humans. Only laboratory test animals had enjoyed the benefits of effective treatment. Dr. Mason wondered, in fact, if the experimental medicines were intensifying the symptoms and prolonging the course of the disease. The results had been so disheartening that she planned to call her supervisor and recommend the trial be discontinued.
Narayan snatched up his shirt. The fastening of each button seemed to punctuate his parting words. “Either she will spare me to continue my work here. Or she will take me so that I may continue elsewhere. It doesn’t matter to me, either way. Good day, Doctor Mason.”
The door clicked shut behind him, and Elizabeth rested her elbows on the examining table, sinking her head down between them, lacing her fingers over the back of her neck. She’d believed the EIS to be the glamour branch of the Centers for Disease Control, the secret agents who travel the world, tracing and eliminating enemy combatants. Refusing to acknowledge the stars in her eyes, she’d signed on as a deliberate detour off the path of least resistance. Medicine ran through the blood of the Mason clan. Her father and brothers were all family practice physicians and her relatives graced a variety of disciplines in the medical field. But their work seemed so tame, so plodding and predictable. Elizabeth craved a little mystery and adventure in her work. Her training with the EIS—Tyvek suits and gas masks, linking alarming symptoms to horrifying causes, learning to pursue and attack the causative agents—had met her expectations, but the realities of laboring in the field had taken the shine off her dream.
A gentle rap sounded at the door, and it opened as Dr. Peter Fuller entered. He nudged Elizabeth’s elbow. “I’m afraid we have another fatality for the books.”
“Oh, no,” she groaned. “Little Tahna?”
“Yes, and you might as well write off the mother, too. I think we need to terminate this trial. The drugs seem to be doing more harm than good and I really can’t administer the treatments in good conscience any longer.”
“I agree. Write up your report and I’ll call Gordon and pass on our recommendation.”
“I’ll do it right after rounds. I want approval on this ASAP.”
They left the room together and returned to the treatment ward. Rows of cots lined the walls, festooned with IV tubing and the pall of death. The trial was a double-blind study, but Elizabeth thought she could identify the patients who were receiving the placebo. They were the ones who survived.
She and Peter donned rubber gloves and stepped to the bed of their first patient, a man who was afflicted by a particularly vicious strain, the hemorrhagic pox. His skin resembled purple suede stretched over a skeletal frame, and the rash, instead of puffing and swelling as in most smallpox cases, had sunk and spread into a massive bruise covering the entire body. The man’s head lay angled, looking like an eggplant upon a pillow. A pulse beat and roared in the hollows of his throat, but the eyes, staring from purple sockets, held no signs of life. Peter swore and stepped away from the bed. Elizabeth followed, watching him with concern as blooms of scarlet spread up from under his collar, staining his face.
He kept his voice low, but she felt the intensity vibrate in the space between them. “Preventable,” he snapped. “All of this is preventable, Elizabeth, and it must be stopped.”
~~~~
In the marketplace, word of Father Lohar’s illness was spreading faster even than the infection. Ravi Ghosal allowed the specter of a smile to touch his lips as he loaded his basket with bananas, grapes, and lentils. Here was justice! Father Lohar deserved to suffer, deserved to be brought low by pain and humiliation, for such are the fruits of deceitfulness and pride. Ravi selected cones of incense from a vendor’s tray, delighting in the sensuous fragrance, savoring the sense of balance which wrapped his soul. Smallpox would claim the priest and end his reign of lies and unfounded criticisms. Perhaps Vandana would return. His shopping complete, Ravi turned homeward, to the house no longer graced by a loving wife whose absence he placed at the feet of Father Lohar. He nodded to Taslima Majhi, the beautiful widow, and she smiled back.
~~~~
Taslima also found cause to rejoice in the morning’s news. She did not think the priest was a liar. Indeed, it was his dedication to principle, his very integrity that threatened the life of her two children. She reached out, choosing an apple from a barrel, but her hand shook a little and her nails pierced the delicate pink-flushed skin. The fruit stand palette of colors melted and ran before her eyes as she hunched forward, pain twisting through her core. She groped through the swirling anguish and found it, that buoy, the convi
ction she held onto to carry her through. The moment passed and sucking breath into her clenched chest, she placed the apple into the basket on her arm. It still punched her sometimes, the realization that her Jess was gone. And the memory of his going.
She’d sent Vijay and Neirah to stay with Nonnie, each carrying a small suitcase with clothes to last a week. They’d wanted to kiss their father, to tell him goodbye, but she had not allowed it, had ignored their tears. She pushed them from the house, locked the door. Through the cracked boards of windows and door, their dismayed mewing stabbed and cajoled. And through the cracked boards of windows and door, the hot miasma curled its tendril fingers, reaching and searching.
“Go away, go to Nonnie’s,” she’d pleaded. The sobbing from the porch grew louder. “Beat it!” she’d screamed. “Get out of here! I don’t want you here. Nonnie wants you now. Go to Nonnie’s.” She’d stood, ear against the door, until the kitten cries faded to silence. She didn’t go to the window, couldn’t allow the image of their hurt retreat a place in her head for the rest of her life. Instead, she sank to the linoleum, stretching out and staring at the ceiling stains with hot, dry eyes. In the brown ink-blot shapes above, she saw a rabbit emerging from a top hat. She floated there, among the dust beams, until the rabbit seemed to hop and her head bumped the floor, snapping her from her stupor. She rose and went to tend her husband.
Two days later, he was dead.
Even in the midst of her mourning, Taslima was overjoyed to hear reports of a team of doctors who brought medicine to protect against the smallpox. But Father Lohar forbade his flock to avail themselves of the vaccinations. He insisted they lay their offerings at the shrine of Shitala Mata, goddess of the pox, and wait for what may come. It was a test of faith and Taslima dared not defy him. She wished him no ill, but now that he was sick, perhaps he would rescind his restriction. And if he should die…