Ugly Little Things

by Todd Keisling

  Granny, the woman who had raised me, who was my best friend, the woman who had died to me the day I gave my life for hers. I’d finally found a way to escape the mess I’d made for myself, carving my thoughts into empty white paper one word at a time. I shirked my responsibility in exchange for what I thought was self-fulfillment. Once again, I thought I was doing something right, but in reality, I was being just as selfish as ever.

  I moved away, leaving behind someone who I thought didn’t mean anything to me anymore.

  Six months had passed when I got a call from my cousin. I hadn’t spoken to anyone in my family since I’d left, and even then our words had been sour, tainted. I was visiting a fellow writer at her home, hanging out and listening to music, talking about our current works in progress and exchanging the woes of a writer’s life. Agents and publishers. Editors and being edited. I was far away and living in my element, exorcising those demons one by one, and meeting others who were doing the same thing. For the first time in my life, I felt like my own person. A new person, removed from his past. Free.

  My phone rang, and I excused myself from the room. I walked outside into the dark, sucking in the crisp autumn air, and examined my cell phone. My heart skipped a beat when I saw it was my cousin. We’d not talked all that much after I’d gone to college. My curiosity got the better of me, and I answered. The world dropped out from beneath me.

  “Listen,” my cousin said, “you need to come home. Granny passed away tonight.”

  ***

  I’ve made some long drives in my life. The drive from Pennsylvania to Kentucky is anything but short, and the time of day is a determining factor of its length. The day I left for Kentucky, I had to work first shift at my crappy retail job. My wife Erica (she was my girlfriend at the time) picked me up from work because we only had one car. We left from there, driving through the night across the mountains of Maryland and West Virginia. Erica slept, and I had a lot of time to myself to think about everything.

  I hadn’t seen Granny since that day in the nursing home when she didn’t recognize me. I couldn’t bring myself to face her after that. Now here I was, returning home to pay my respects to the woman I had shunned during my teenage years. I’d left her behind like the detritus of my past, scraps of paper crumpled in a wastebasket, filled with the lines of incomplete drawings.

  We’d just crossed the Kentucky state line when I realized the pact was complete. Although I’d spent the last several years ignoring the nightmare of our agreement, chasing away Harvey’s demons with every single written word, I had failed to recognize Harvey’s absence. To be fair, I hadn’t drawn anything in years, so if he was still with me in the form of his looming shadow, I didn’t know—or maybe I refused to see him. Maybe I couldn’t. Maybe I’d grown blind to him like any other child does to an imaginary friend.

  To my surprise, I felt nothing. No sorrow, no fear, no relief. I was going back home exactly how I wanted to be: a clean slate.

  We arrived at my mom’s house around five in the morning. The funeral visitation wasn’t until that evening, so we had time to catch up on our sleep, but I tossed and turned in my old bed. Everything was smaller than I remembered. To be back in my room felt like a dream in which everything is familiar and somehow foreign at the same time, slightly off, with memory and reality colliding. I spent most of the dawn trying to justify my actions of the last ten years, worried that the peace I’d worked so hard to find would suddenly leave me.

  When I finally slept, I did so deeply and without dreams. After I woke, I spent the hours leading up to the visitation composing my thoughts, preparing for an onslaught of nasty looks and remarks. As the black sheep of the family, I suppose that was to be expected, but it didn’t stop me from asking if I could say a few words. I felt that was appropriate—even if they didn’t—and nothing they could do would stop me. I only asked to be polite.

  Truth is, though, I had no idea what I’d say. Not until I put pen to paper. How arrogant I felt, composing something for a woman who I had all but abandoned—but that was all the more reason to do it. I owed her. She didn’t have to be a Granny to me but did so anyway.

  I felt ashamed, scribbling my words onto paper. Memories of all I’d felt, done, and said over the last ten years washed over me. A tsunami raged in my head, and I expected Harvey to resurface, but he didn’t. I was alone with my thoughts. Just as I’d always been.

  ***

  I stepped outside the funeral home for some air. Members of my family lingered inside, shaking hands, thanking longtime friends for showing up to pay their respects. I hadn’t yet read what I had to say, struggling with the right time, struggling with the fear that what I had to say would be taken out of context. Everyone was civil to me that night, leaving me to wonder if the scorn I expected was nothing more than a projection of how I felt about myself.

  Standing under the awning, watching cars drive by on Master Street, I fell into my own thoughts. My heart was racing and my hands shook. Had I grown into the man she always wanted me to be? Had I made her proud? That was a laugh—there’s no way I possibly could have. I wasn’t worthy of her love. I was a selfish child. I wanted her for myself, even if it meant her suffering through the last of her days. I condemned her to that nursing home, and for that, I was damned.

  “Not necessarily.”

  I looked to my left. Standing in the shadows was the figure of a man. The cherry ember of a cigarette glowed in the darkness.

  “Can I help you?”

  “You already have, kiddo.”

  My heart climbed into my throat as I recognized that familiar voice. The lingering stench of sulfur rose with the breeze, causing my stomach to tumble into itself.

  “Harvey?”

  He stepped out of the shadows and gave a shallow bow. “In the flesh, child. I would have it no other way.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “To honor our agreement. I told you I would own your life until the day your Granny passed on. That day has come, and here we are. Your life is now your own—just as it always was.”

  “What do you mean?” I stared hard into his glowing blue eyes. “It was never my own. I ruined my life the day I gave it to you. And I ruined hers.”

  “But she never stopped loving you, kiddo. You may have stopped loving yourself, but she never did. She never gave up on you.”

  I wiped tears from my eyes. I wouldn’t let him see me cry. Standing there in the dark, I suddenly felt empty, a husk of a man, drained of everything. There was nothing left.

  “She always told me you were a tempter, a liar. That you were the enemy of man.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, puffing on his cigarette, “but I’m more of a mirror than an enemy. I’m here to show you who the real enemy is.”

  I thought about that for a moment, twisting his metaphor around in my head. I was about to respond when he held out his hand and looked at his watch.

  “I need to be going. Enjoy your life, kiddo. Keep writing those stories, too. They might take you somewhere someday.”

  “You didn’t come for her, did you?”

  “Hmm?”

  I took a step forward, so close I could smell his burning breath. “This was never about her, was it?”

  Harvey J. Winterbell, the Devil of my life, tilted his head back and laughed. “You’re just now figuring this out? Of course, it wasn’t about her. This was about you. It always has been. I was there for you, child. To measure you. To teach you and test you.”

  I scoffed at that. All he’d taught me was anger and resentment.

  “Don’t look at me like that, kiddo. You know I’m right. You were given a choice, and you chose. But it wasn’t about the choice so much as what you did with it.” He paused for a moment, snuffing out his black cigarette beneath the sole of his shoe. “You once asked your granny why I tempted Jesus in the desert. You remember that, don’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “Right,” he went on, “and the answer is quite simple. I tempted Hi
m because I had to, because that’s what I was made to do. I am what I am because I have to be, because sometimes the Old Man Upstairs needs a measuring stick. I measured Jesus just as I measured you, and sometimes I have to cut people down to do that. I separated Jesus from His human pride, measuring His resolve against His own nature. He could’ve had food anytime He wanted. He could’ve flexed the power that was gifted to Him by His Father—but He didn’t. I tested Him to teach Him that He could stand on His own, that He had the guts to become what He had to. And like Him, I gave you a choice to teach you the one thing you needed to learn.”

  His words vibrated in my head, filling me with confusion and turmoil. I didn’t understand him then. It would be years before I could. He didn’t wait for me to acknowledge him. He continued:

  “You had to learn that, in life, separation is the greatest teacher. Nothing else will teach you more. You made some bad choices, kiddo. I won’t lie to you about that. But they were your choices, and they led you exactly where you were supposed to go. You couldn’t have made those choices if we hadn’t met.”

  “Then they weren’t actually choices, were they?”

  “That depends on how you want to look at it. How you choose to look at it, even. You see a life wasted in regret and resentment, afraid of your own shadow, running from demons you chose to see. I see a life enabled to its full capacity, tempered with those sour emotions, lifting you up where you need to be. Whether or not you dissect my words, you will still reach the conclusion that you are who you are, for better or worse. You are who you chose to be. Where you go from here is up to you.”

  He turned his back to me and took a couple of steps toward the corner of the building. I watched him go with tears clinging to my eyes. He paused for a moment, cocked his head to the side, and smiled.

  “She loved you something fierce, kiddo. Jesus didn’t have the luxury of a Granny, but you did. Be thankful for that.”

  And then he was gone, leaving me standing in the dark, taking deep panic breaths. I leaned back against the brick wall of the funeral home, buried my face in my hands, and cried.

  ***

  Memories are a funny thing. Sometimes the ones you try to keep afloat in your mind sink into the murk, lost forever in a sea of consciousness; other times, what you try to keep submerged has a habit of popping up to the surface when you least suspect it. I realize now that those things I left behind have come to define certain pieces of me, like vital corners of a jigsaw puzzle. Without them, the frame of a whole picture is lost, and the more integral pieces are harder to place.

  Not long after Erica and I were married we returned to Corbin to visit family and found ourselves standing in Granny’s dilapidated home. The property was in its final stages of being sold, and my family was there to clean out what was left of Granny’s belongings. The old house had fallen into disrepair, its roof caving in, water stains on the plaster and mold growing along the walls.

  I stood in the living room, smiling at old memories that hadn’t surfaced in years. One piece here, a piece there, all part of a greater whole that defined the man I’d become.

  Affixed to the adjacent wall was a framed newspaper cutout. The drawing was something I’d done in Kindergarten, accompanied by a story of two boys going fishing. Somehow, some way, that story ended up in the local paper, becoming my first publication. Staring at it, I suppose I should’ve known the path I was meant to take, but memories, well, they’re a funny thing.

  At the far end of the room was Granny’s old writing desk. I remember her sitting in her armchair, reading a newspaper while I sat at the desk, pecking away at her old typewriter, its keys occasionally sticking, double-printing letters on the page. I’d typed a story of gibberish, letters without any meaning, tearing the page from the roller and handing it to her with a big stupid grin on my face.

  “Do you like it, Granny?”

  She smiled. “I do, honey.” She handed me another blank piece of paper. “Now write me another one.”

  I saw this in my head through the transparent haze of a memory tucked away for almost two decades. I walked over to the desk and lifted its rolling cover. The typewriter sat alone, covered in a thin sheet of dust. A piece of paper was stuck in its roller, waiting for me, as if it knew I’d come back some day.

  Smiling, I reached out and typed three words: ALL GONE DARK.

  The last key stuck, and I closed the desk with a sigh. Turning back, watching my wife walk through the house I grew up in, watching the rest of my family pick its rooms clean of any last remaining artifacts, I reached into the past for something to remind me of what Granny and I once had. Something to reassure me and settle my fears that I’d done the right thing.

  I found that something, sitting in a jumble of memories, coated in dust just like the typewriter. Me as a child, barely able to walk, sitting on Granny’s knee while she sang a lullaby. She looked down at me, smiling that big heartwarming smile of hers, and told me, “You’re my boy, Toddy. I’ll always love you and nothing will ever change that.”

  I closed my eyes and took a breath. I waited, holding that picture in my mind, until everything else—the fear, the doubts, the demons—were silenced and left to drown in the shadows of the past until they, too, had all gone dark.

  THE DARKNESS BETWEEN DEAD STARS

  Commander Foster was memorialized today. Well, honorary commander. A posthumous and somewhat dubious rank, if you ask me. Maxwell Foster was never enlisted in any branch of the military, nor was he actually in command of anything since his ship was fully automated. The corporate executives wanted to make his death look good for the cameras and newspapers and blogs, and hey, I can’t say I blame them. I’d do the same thing in their position. I suppose that’s one of the things they teach you in Public Relations 101: How to Make the Best Out of a Dire Situation.

  And my God, Foster’s situation was most certainly dire.

  How dire depends on who you ask. Offworld Incorporated’s PR department already has a stranglehold on most forms of media, and I’m sure enough pockets were padded to effectively stall further inquiries by the White House-appointed Foley Commission. Such collusion between corporate interests and the various branches of government comes as no surprise, really, but in this case, I find it particularly offensive.

  It’s the flagrant disrespect, I think. Maxwell Foster was a civilian just like you and I. The ‘official’ story of what happened aboard the DSS in Foster’s final hours is a slap in the face—not only to the public but to his memory, and I’m writing this to present another version of the truth.

  After playing my part in jettisoning Mr. Foster off this rock to his untimely demise, I believe that revealing the truth is the absolute least I can do. I realize this in no way absolves me of my sins, but if it at all casts doubt on the lies my former employer is feeding to the masses, then perhaps I can go to my grave with a clearer conscience.

  The official story of Maxwell Foster’s demise aboard Offworld’s first Deep Space Shuttle, the DSS, is one of cold simplicity. A manual override of the ship’s automation system ODESSA was triggered and the ship’s airlock subsequently disengaged, resulting in an immediate depressurization event that caused Foster’s death.

  What officials were willing to reveal about this mysterious override was buried in jargon that most citizens can barely grasp, and the ultimate synopsis of the matter boiled down to a simple lapse in judgment. Offworld, Inc. has a contingency plan for just about everything, even with a fully-automated security blanket like the billion-dollar ODESSA system, but when you are millions of kilometers from Earth and you open the door to a vacuum, there isn’t much Mission Control can do about it.

  Maxwell Foster died twice that day. Once in the vacuum of space and again on the screens of Mission Control twenty minutes later. None of us were prepared for what we saw.

  Some of the images captured by the shuttle’s onboard cameras were released to the public as part of the Foley Commission’s official report. Those are the images y
ou’ve already seen, the ones plastered across every screen on the planet. We’ve all seen the blown hatch and the eerie stillness of the aftermath, with pieces of detritus floating forever in the shuttle’s sterile spaces. There’s the one of his toothbrush hovering out of focus before the camera. And then there’s the famous photo of Maxwell’s naked hand clutching the side of the airlock portal moments after he was sucked out, presumably holding on in one final attempt at saving himself. The media loved that one.

  Then again, the media loved everything about the project, didn’t they? “Offworld, Inc. seeking volunteer for one-way trip to Mars.” Variations of that headline ran for at least a year along with that disgusting slogan, “Are you Earth’s MVP?” Yeah. That’s the best our marketing team could do.

  I was one of the lucky few appointed to the so-called MVP committee. I helped plan and execute a nationwide hunt for a suitable candidate. In the interest of Offworld’s profit margin, we restricted our focus within the country, screening thousands of candidates who all thought they wanted to be Offworld’s MVP. Needless to say, our task was a daunting one. After nearly three years of screenings, we narrowed our list of possible candidates down to just three. Maxwell Foster was one of them.

  You probably remember the media circus around the ‘MVP Three’. That was all part of the plan. Behind closed doors, our superiors told us that part of the program’s success hinged on public relations. We were, after all, selecting an ordinary citizen for what amounted to a long-term suicide mission. An average, ordinary, non-suicidal citizen. The irony of our task was not lost on us. That little detail proved to be the ultimate crux of the whole program: which one of the candidates would be the least compelled to self-harm?

  Imogene Croswell of New Hampshire, age 34, was disqualified on account of her history with substance abuse in her early 20’s. She failed to disclose at the onset of our investigation, or else we might have overlooked the matter considering her decade of sobriety. Unfortunately, the prospect of sending a recovered addict into space aboard a ship stocked with a moderate supply of emergency painkillers didn’t sit well with my cohorts.