I probably started this story a few months after 9/11, back when I’d turn on the news the first thing in the morning just in case something had happened in the night. I started the story, thought it was interesting, but didn’t finish it for one reason or another. A few years later, I came across it and added in some new details, but I think it was becoming dated, so I didn’t put much work into it because I didn’t think I could do anything with it. And that’s how things have stood for the past ten-plus years. But with the recent 9/11 anniversary, I was thinking about this story so I dug it out. It has become even more dated and I was about to move it to my Dead Story folder, when I realized that was a bit of a waste for a story that’s 90% done. I could update it, but that would basically be rewriting the whole thing. So I took five minutes and cut out all the “Add more details here” bits, and ended up with a story that would have been interesting fifteen years ago.
“The
News”
Jason
Cole stood on the end of a pier watching his coworker Susan Black swimming
naked in the ocean. She had not seen him
and he smiled thinking what everyone at the office would say when he told them
of her tattoo of a four-leaf clover on her right buttocks. Then his alarm went off.
With
a groan he rolled onto his side while his right arm flopped around until he hit
the snooze button. He stayed on his side
and fell back asleep. When the alarm
went off again his right arm shot straight out and hit the snooze. This time he sat up, and held his head in his
hands. He was still like that when his
alarm went off for the third time. He
turned the alarm off and continued to sit on the side of the bed for another
minute, yawning, stretching, and scratching his side. What finally got him to his feet was not the
fact that he had to be at work in an hour, but that he had to piss.
Once
his bladder was empty, he walked through his living room to the kitchen and
filled his stomach with a bowl of corn flakes and a large cup of coffee. As he ate he mentally reviewed his
presentation on the Tanaka account he was to give before the board that
afternoon. It did not require much
thought; it was just a rehashing of the last three presentations he had given. The information boiled down to the statement,
“Things are going well, and they will continue going well as long as the board
dosen’t screw things up.” It had taken him three days before his first
presentation to stretch that to ten minutes and turn it into something that
would let him keep his job. Since then
it only took an hour or two to freshen it up a bit.
He
rinsed his bowl out and set it in the sink.
As he was going to the bathroom for his shower, the image of Susan
swimming in the ocean brought him to a stop in front of his TV. His brow furled as he tried to remember the
entire dream. He was walking along the
beach, something had happened, and then he saw her swimming. And she had a tattoo.
This
thought had him laughing throughout his shower.
Susan was the most up-tight woman he had ever met. She would turn red if anyone used a curse
worse than ‘heck.’ Once Mike had dropped ‘the F-Bomb’ in front of her and
everyone thought she would faint. But
she had taken a deep breath, stood up, said, “Excuse me,” and walked out the
door. She did not come back for ten
minutes. Of course Joyce and Todd
thought it was all just an act. They
figured that on weekends Susan dressed up in leather and hung out in biker bars. He would have to tell them about his
dream. They would get a kick out of the
tattoo.
Once
dressed in a dark blue Appignani with a lighter blue tie, he grabbed his
briefcase and went outside. When he
started his car, Pink Floyd’s “Welcome to the Machine” blared out of the
speakers. He needed music as he drove,
something that had driven Carol insane.
He never listened to the radio because there were too many commercials,
too many annoying DJs, and too many crappy songs. He needed to get into his car, and hear
nothing but great music as he drove.
The
streets seemed rather empty for a Thursday.
When he got on the freeway there was very little traffic. He checked his watch and saw that he was
running a few minutes early. He had
noticed that if he left home five minutes late he hit the rush and ended up
being twenty minutes late to work.
Not
far from the office was a huge church.
As he drove by he noticed the parking lot was packed. It seemed odd to have a wedding or a funeral
that early.
He
didn’t have much time to think of it because he soon pulled into the parking
lot at work: it was empty. He looked at
his watch, 7:52. He had never been this
early, but surely someone else should be here.
Then
he heard Carol’s voice in his head, “Someday something big is going to happen,
and you’re going to be the last one to know about it.” That conversation had
taken place a few weeks after 9/11. Like
everyone, he watched the news constantly those first few days. He had never been much of a news watcher
before, but the weeks after 9/11 burned him out. Carol would stay up until midnight watching
the news, and then wake up around three to watch for another half hour, just in
case something happened, then go back to sleep and get up at six to watch for
an hour before going to work.
When
they drove, she made him turn off his CDs and play the radio, just in case some
breaking news happened. The last time
Jason had thought of her was when Pope John Paul II had died. He had been flipping through the channels
when he came to CNN which had a banner saying, “Breaking News: Pope near death.”
Jason wasn’t Catholic, he wasn’t religious, but he thought the Pope was a good
guy, and felt sorry. But that did not
stop him from watching a movie, going to bed, and not turning on his TV for
almost twelve hours. When he did, and
turned to CNN just to see what had happened, their banner still reading,
“Breaking News: Pope near death.” The thought hit him, Carol would have watched
TV for those twelve hours, waiting for the Pope to die.
Jason got back into his car and started the engine. Then he ejected the CD, and searched for a radio station.
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