Fiction: A Baker’s Dozen of Vignettes

Hindsight is 20-20, they say. For all the good it does you now, you wish you had not had that drink at the party. You looked forward to the party as a chance to meet people, have some fun and maybe even get laid. You enjoyed yourself and met some interesting people – including the stranger missing his right eye who offered you a drink.

You think about this as you move stiffly down the broken road, looking for someone – anyone – to talk to. At this point, that would be deeply reassuring. It turned out to be a hell of a drink and it knocked you on your ass. It made the room spin and faces swim through a murk that sprang up from nowhere. And you do not know if you have visions, dreams or both…

* One *

After turning on the bathroom lights, you took a look at yourself in the mirror. The fluorescent illumination washed you out and made you look gray, though the pale green ceramic tile and the light helped with that effect. You turned on the warm tap, splashed some warm water on and then lathered your skin with shaving cream. You began to shave. In response to a strange thump elsewhere in your home, you jumped and turned your head, as though you could see through the walls. Just then a quick and cold pain bit you as you nicked yourself with the blade. Turning back, you looked absently, momentarily thoughtless, at the cut.

What comes from your wound is blue.

* Two *

Something seemed wrong but you could not place your finger on it most of the day. You only realized it when your family was late getting home from running errands. Both issues are distressing. You want them to be safely home, especially now. And you want to make them look at it and tell you what they think or to reassure you it is just a joke. Because during the afternoon you noticed your image had faded from all of the photos in your home.

You wait for your family to get home because you need to talk to them.

* Three *

While taking trash out from the kitchen, you noticed a woman doing something over at the playground’s sandbox behind the church. You had been “volunteered” to help with the wedding. Aside from your relatives, you did not know anyone at the church, though you thought someone pointed out the woman as a member. Her body language troubled you, so you went to the sandbox after she left. It looked like she had been sticking something in the sand. You ran your fingers through the coarse grains the color of fresh bones.

That is how you ram the dirty, buried hypodermic needle under your finger nail.

* Four *

No one liked Cousin Harriet. It would have been unfair to call her poison but no one honestly would call her nice. However, you still had issues with what her grandson, Hank, did and you wrestled with how to respond. This would be simpler if you did not owe him money and other members of the family had not giggled their approval. Half blind and suffering from senile dementia, she held the pet Henry gave her. She commented on its squirming around. As you watched the scene unfold, you wondered what happened to her pet Chihuahua, the nature of the people you are related to and what that said about you.

You also wonder where Henry found a sewer rat that size.

* Five *

You heard their voices before you saw them. Following the sounds of the conversation, you stepped through the bushes and crossed the broken security fence. Normally you would not have gone in yourself. However, from the pitch and cadence of the voices, they were young. So you went in to scold them and make them leave. That is why you entered the grounds of the old oil well. The place had been closed, though equipment remained. It is too dangerous for boys, especially at night. You follow the sounds of their voices and turned a corner around a rusting gas tank. The boys crouched on the ground under a derrick next to an open oil-well pipe that jutted up from the ground, stopped speaking when they saw you.

That is when the voice, from down inside the open well, speaks up.

* Six *

On Tuesday you realized you are not you but an alien android copy who has replaced the real you with the memories, personal idiosyncrasies and so forth.

You wonder how many other people have figured this out.

* Seven *

It should have been easy. You laced up your hiking boots, grabbed a couple of water bottles and stuck them in your pack. The weather turned warmer than expected and you battled horse flies and mosquitoes. Some bug spray would have been a good idea. During the walk, you felt a thump on your calf before the pain registered. You realized on an emotional level you had just been snake bit before you processed it intellectually. The bite happened in mid-stride and as you stepped forwards on the bitten leg, it collapsed. As you rolled onto your back and sat up, the pain slithered up the inside of your leg and white spots appeared before your eyes. Through these spots you saw a viper curled up at the edge of the path. It watched you with unblinking eyes. A few feet back stood an eyeless man dressed in a tattered black suit.

“I can make this go away, for a price,” says the man.

* Eight *

At first it seemed a mystery why the used car dealer hung two of those pine-tree scented gizmos from the review mirror, in addition to placing a handful of mothballs in the glove compartment and ashtray. It gave the inside of the car a strong and odd scent. After you took them out you noticed the smell of rotting meat inside the car. You thoroughly cleaned your newly purchased used car inside and out, checked the trunk and even the well in the trunk for the spare tire. Nothing present accounted for the smell. Later, a mechanic who did part time work for the used car dealership told you a child died in the car. She hid in the trunk in a game of hide and seek gone tragically wrong. Her parents discovered her hours later.

However, that still does not answer the question about the persistent smell.

* Nine *

On your way to work, an old pan handler stopped you. You pitied the sad, old and sick looking woman so you gave her the loose change you had available. She responded with a hug and you had to struggle with yourself to keep from stepping away. That done, you checked your pockets and felt reassured to find your keys and wallet remained where you put them. Thinking of her, you tell yourself, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Then you hear a news report about leprosy moving through the local homeless population.

* Ten *

The business trip turned out to be more difficult than expected. Bone tired, eager to return home and get some rest, you simply grabbed your suitcase at the airport. Or at least you believed it to be your suitcase until you opened it and saw the contents. That done you slowly closed it and stared at the suitcase, momentarily stunned into thoughtlessness. You checked the name tag – yes, that is your name on the tag. However, that is damned well not what you packed. They say not to let your bags out of your sight, but you gave it to the clerk, who presumably gave it to a baggage handler.

You open it again and stare inside the case.

* Eleven *

Your tale bone ached from sitting for such a long period. You rubbed your eyes and blinked. As you thought about it, it felt as though you had been driving in the tunnel though the mountain for hours or even days. Entering the dark tunnel cut off the weak radio station entirely. The radio’s clock blinked all zeroes and you wondered when that started. You also wondered why the inside of the car smelt of dust. And why the car’s headlight seemed to illuminate less than they should.

Something is moving at the edge of what you seen in the car’s mirrors, something that is taking its sweet time but is catching up to you.

* Twelve *

You picked up your lunch at the local grocery store. You got your friend some chicken tenders and yourself some bean and bacon soup from the store’s deli section. It had been too long since the two of you had spent time together. The two of you talked a lot of non-sense and enjoyed the day. You told jokes and your friend laughed and your friend was pithy and you laughed. When you got to the bottom of your paper bowl of soup, your friend asked you if it was any good. Once you looked inside the bowl, you stopped speaking.

Clearly visible amid the bits of bacon, beans and coated in the sauce of the soup was what might have been a child’s finger or an adult’s pinky.

 * Thirteen *

Ultimately, the drink made you pass out. You know that because you woke about an hour ago.  

When you woke you found yourself sleeping under bushes in a place at once familiar and unrecognizable. Your hair is now long and matted with filth, as are your finger and toenails. Your joints ache. Your clothing is only threadbare rags and your shoes are gone.

All these thoughts occur to you as you carefully pick your way down a broken road amid ruins, ruins whose damage is not fresh.