Microstory 42: New World

A few months ago, while I was on a road trip, the world ended. I won’t get into specifics about what went wrong, but it happened quickly, and very few of us survived. I’ve encountered a few camps in the area. The majority of them were fine people. Post-apocalyptic films like to show how twisted people will become in dire situations, but most of us are just trying to find our way through this new world. After feeling like I’ve exhausted the resources, I get into the fastest car I can find, and leave. So I’m driving down the highway, going at least 90 miles per hour, when I hear and see flashing lights behind me. Guy doesn’t know who he’s messing with. I speed up and just try to ignore him. He matches my speed and gets on the intercom, instructing me to pull over. I can’t keep this up. I’ll eventually need to get some gas, so I concede to his demands and check my weapons. Then I step out and point my shotgun towards him. He gets out and protects himself with his car door, shouting at me to put down my weapon. I don’t, of course, so he calls back-up. More police cruisers arrive. What a bunch of dishonorable people, pretending to be law enforcement officers in a time like this. Outnumbered, I give in and disarm myself. The first “cop” stuffs me in the back of his car and drives me into the city where I see tons of other cars driving around; far more than there should be, statistically speaking. All I can think is, “dawut?” After much confusion in the interrogation room, I’m finally able to convey to them that it doesn’t matter how fast I was going, because the world’s ended. They look at me like I’m crazy, and end up showing me a park where children are playing without a care in the world.

Another cop finally figures out where the misunderstanding was coming from. “Oh, no,” he says. “The world hasn’t ended. That’s just what Independence, Missouri looks like.”

Microstory 41: Fast Food

Half the crowd at the fast food restaurant aren’t even eating. I guess at some of their motivations, unable to hear them with my headphones on. Many people go to coffee shops and libraries to study, but one college-aged girl is studying anatomy here. I can see the flashcards of the human body. What an odd choice of location. A man who had already finished his meal when I came in sits with his arms folded, watching one of the employees fiddle with the interface for the drink dispenser. An exhausted woman walks in and lets her two children run to the play area, happy to be free from them for a few moments while she orders. A younger man eats with his son who looks relieved to be there. He probably doesn’t get to eat fast food very often. A large family huddles around a small table. Why they didn’t pick a larger table when there are plenty of options, I couldn’t tell you. An elderly woman steps in, takes one look at the menu board, and immediately leaves, as if she didn’t realize how cheap this place was. A young girl moves back and forth from the car to the counter, taking turns with the people established in the queue. They seem to have messed up the order, and are having further troubles fixing the problem. A couple drives by the windows, stuffing their faces. They look like they haven’t eaten for days. A teenage boy uncomfortably stares at the wall, occasionally getting up to throw something away or look through the options of the drink dispenser, without a cup. He looks nervous. Maybe he knows something. And me. As I nurse my soda, I massage the grip of my gun, anxious for what I’m going to do next.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 26, 2019

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Mateo gently removed his face from Leona’s. She gave him her best evil smile. Then she turned around and grabbed an infant from Carol’s arms. “Mateo Matic, say hello to your son, Theo.”

“What!?”

“I’m kidding,” she laughed. “He’s my baby brother. Half-brother.”

Carol pursed her lips. “Wasn’t funny when you told us you were going to do that joke, and it isn’t funny now that you’ve actually done it.”

Leona handed Theo to Mateo. “Funny from this side. How was your trip, honey?”

“Instant,” Mateo replied. “Theo does sound like he’s named after me.” He lifted the baby’s hand with his finger and shook it politely. “Little odd.”

She took Theo back. “It’s a family name. Er...well, not really. But my dad says he was incapable of naming him anything else; like it was already his name, and we were just discovering that fact.”

Everyone went to bed. Leona’s father and stepmother were on a vacation, so Carol and Randall were taking care of little Theo. He was technically Leona’s responsibility but she, of course, had classes to worry about. They were more than willing to pick up the slack, having felt a deficit since the onset of Mateo’s condition. Frida’s father passed not long after Mateo’s last departure. He lived long enough to see Frida’s engagement to her now-husband, but not long enough to be there for the wedding. Kyle was better than ever, and had all but moved on with his life. He was back to being a lawyer, and was rumored to be a far more genuine one than before.

Upon waking, Mateo snuck out of the house again. He needed some alone time. It was selfish of him, but he had just spent the last several days dealing with all this. It was true that he would be completely alone in only a few weeks when everyone would be dead, but he couldn’t help it. He and his friends liked to hang out at the large cemetery on the edge of town, but there was a smaller one in the middle of nowhere that only he knew of. That was his secret hiding place. There, he could find some of the oldest graves he had ever seen. There were those who had died in the early 19th century. It was peaceful and calm, and not just metaphorically. It was literally calm. Something about the formation of the trees, or maybe by divine choice, made the air milder than just outside of its borders. When it was cold outside, the secret cemetery would be warmer, and during the summer heat, it would be cooler.

He leaned up against a headstone and began to pray with his birth mother’s rosary. “Sorry to disturb you,” came a voice from the side. He opened his eyes and saw a middle-aged woman dressed in two coats. It was much too warm for that. She took the first one off and stuffed it in a bag. “Could you tell me where I am?” She removed a bottle of water from her bag and took a long drink from it.

“I don’t think there’s a name for this graveyard,” Mateo answered.

“No, I mean...I mean the city,” she clarified.

That was an odd question, but she was dressed in more layers than necessary. She must have been a nomad. “We’re a few miles Southwest of Sherwood Lake. In Topeka, Kansas.”

“Oh, wow,” she said. “That’s not far from home.”

“Where do you live?”

“Kansas City. I don’t suppose you were driving that way.”

“I wasn’t.” She was deeply saddened, clearly having been far from home for a long time. He had selfishly left his family at home and come to cemetery to pray. This was a sign. It was a very Catholic sign. She needed help, and he was the only one around. The chances that she would be here at this special place during the one day of the year that he was in the timestream were too low. She needed to get to Kansas City, so he was going to take her there. “But I am now.”

They stepped into the truck and headed out. She introduced herself as Daria. When he introduced himself with his full name, she laughed. “Are you joking?”

“No, why?”

“That’s my name too,” she claimed. “I’m Daria Matic.”

“Ah, well. It’s my birth father’s name. I never met him.”

She sat in silence for a good long while. At a glance, it looked like she was working something out in her head. “His first name wouldn’t happen to be Mario, would it?”

He freaked out, and his first instinct was to stop the car. But he remained calm, and kept driving. There were very few things that Mateo knew about his father. One was his first name, one was his last name, and the other was that he hated pickles. That’s all his birth mother had ever said. In fact, the third one had slipped out in the middle of dinner once, and she treated it like a matter of national security; like she had just committed treason. He tried looking for him, only for intellectual reasons, but he could find no trail. Mario Matic was a ghost. “Oh, my God. Are we related?”

“Looks like it. Are you a traveler?” she asked. She emphasized the word in a way that made it seem like she wasn’t just talking about a person who goes to other places. Traveler was a category. It was a species.

This time, he did stop the car. “On my 28th birthday, I traveled forward in time exactly one year. I get one day every year, and then I’m forced to move on. My girlfriend...I mean, my friend calls it a timeslip.”

“Oh, interesting,” Daria said thoughtfully.

“Do you do that too?” he asked, not sure what answer he was looking for.

“I’ve never heard of any time travel. I’m a teleporter. Like you, I can’t control it. But there doesn’t appear to be a pattern. When I start having dry mouth, I have a few minutes to gather my things, and then I’m gone.”

“I don’t get dry mouth. I get really tired before it happens, but it’s always at midnight anyway, so I don’t know if that’s part of it.”

“Yeah, I call that my indicator. Speaking of which, I’m really thirsty.”

“Well, we can stop somewhere. Oh...” He realized what she meant. She was about to leave again. “We’re not done with our conversation!”

She rummaged through her bag to make sure she had everything she needed. “I am certain that we will see each other again. These journeys are controlled by someone, and they know we didn’t have enough time. That was surely done on purpose. But I have to get out of here. If someone is too close to me, I risk bringing them along. It’s not uncommon for me to end up in Antarctica.” She tried to open the door.

“Oh, it gets stuck,” he apologized. “You have to—just...here.” He leaned over to get it for her.

“No!” she screamed, but it was too late. They disappeared.

They were still in a sitting position when they teleported out, so they fell to the concrete upon arrival. “Had a little too much to drink?” a stranger asked jokingly as he passed by with his friends. Mateo got to his feet and looked up to where he could see the Eiffel Tower. “Heavenly father, we’re in Paris,” he exclaimed.

“No,” Daria said. She moved his head over so that he could see the Arc de Triomphe. Those two landmarks were not that close together. And they weren’t that small. No, they weren’t in Paris. They were Vegas. Either way, he wouldn’t get back to his family for another year, at least.

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Siftens Landing Part IV

Click here for the first installment of this series.

Click here for the second installment of this series.
Click here for the third installment of this series.

Allison Siften’s younger brother, Junior would turn out to be the cause of the explosion. While all six of the parents went out to search for Moe, he and Libby Lander were asked to keep the two youngest children from the new family company. They had a lot in common with Sandra and Johnny Kapka. They liked playing video games, they hated conformists, and they couldn’t care less that their families were in this weird unspoken feud. While Libby and Johnny played against each other in a racing game, Sandra watched with an air of superiority, and Junior sat restlessly. He wanted to do something interesting. He wanted to do something fun. He wanted to do something dangerous. “I have some firecrackers,” he announced.

The other three stood up from the couch immediately. “Let’s go!” Johnny said excitedly.

They spent the rest of the day shooting off fireworks clear on the other side of the forest, so they wouldn’t get caught. They had found another thing in common; a love for destruction. They were quickly unsatisfied with the firecrackers themselves, and started rigging them to blow up other things. A computer monitor here, a bottle of cola there. They tried to use a pile of dead grass as shrapnel, but it wasn’t as glorious as they had hoped. Once they had depleted their supplies, Junior said, “We could always get the Ferocity Sunstrikers.”

“What are Ferocity Sunstrikers?” Sandra asked.
“They’re the biggest firecrackers ever created by human man,” Libby explained. “And they aren’t his. They belong to my dad.”“They’re basically legal bombs,” Junior continued. They went back down to the houses to retrieve the legendary fireworks from the Landers’ garage. The box got caught on some rope that someone had put in front of it. Junior tugged and pulled, trying to get it out. He was always so impatient and thoughtless. After one last try, he fell to his back. The box opened, spilling the Ferocity Sunstrikers. One of them started rolling down the garage and out to the driveway. They tried to catch it, but it was too fast. Junior had no idea how, but the Sunstriker activated and shot across the lawn. They watched as it flew right into his own garage, and exploded, sending a massive plume of fire up through the house, and out of the roof. Click here for the final installment...

Microstory 40: Take a Hike

Yesterday, I was in the middle of my four-hour walk when a girl suddenly came down a hill and sidled up next to me to ask what I was doing. Not really something you do in a civilized society. People tend to leave me alone during my hikes. When I told her what I was doing, she asked if she could walk with me. I reluctantly agreed, ya know, in case she too had a knife. I politely answered her questions, and asked her a few of my own; which is against my nature. It felt less like a conversation, and more like an interview. Nearly a half hour later, I tried to turn to the left, but she stopped me and asked where I was going. I was heading toward an industrial area, and she was clearly perturbed by it. But that was my plan. I’ll go out for an hour, maybe two, with no idea where I’m going. But I map out my longer hikes since I may have to make sure I get to a road that safely goes under a highway, or over a stream. And we were past the point of no return. If I took any other route, it would be too long before I reached home. She said that there weren’t any restaurants in that area, and she was hoping we would grab a bite to eat. I cautiously asked her if she was homeless. She nodded and hung her head. “If you needed money, you could have just asked. You didn’t have to walk all this way with me.”

“I was hoping to pretend like it was a date, and you would pay for a meal anyway,” she answered. I considered my options for a few moments. I explained to her that she would be risking coming home with me, but that I would be risking letting her into my house, and that I could either give her twenty bucks and walk away, or we could risk it together. She hesitantly agreed. I woke up today half-expecting my television and computer to be gone, but everything was fine, so I guess I just have a roommate now.

Microstory 39: Keyless Entry

Last night, while I was taking a bag of bad ham from the freezer and putting it in a trash bag, I saw something dripping from it. It was probably just water, but I wanted to be cautious. After I was finished with rolling the trash to the curb, I wiped the kitchen floor with disinfectant, cutting myself off from the sink. I didn’t want to use the bathroom sink because I needed to wash my arms too. Instead of just waiting, though, I decided to hop over the place where I had cleaned. I apparently underestimated the range of my reach. My socks slipped on the disinfectant and I fell to my back, scraping my feet against the edge of cabinet under the sink. I quickly jumped back up and washed my hands. That was more important than dealing with the pain. I could have broken my leg, I still think I would have washed up first. Once I was done, I looked down and saw a little baggie on the floor. I must have knocked it from its hiding place under the cabinet. Inside was a small object that looked like a vehicle’s keyless entry device. I pushed the the button and heard a chirp from the basement. I pushed it again. Another chirp. Was there an invisible car in my basement? I put on pants, grabbed my wooden training sword, and carefully walked downstairs. The chirps were coming from the far wall. I hovered the device a few inches from the wall and pressed the button once more. The wall receded and disappeared into a pocket, revealing a room filled with jars of food and MRE’s. A disheveled and dirty man was in the corner, eating some rice. “Is Cthulhu defeated?” he asked.

Microstory 38: The Sock

“When I was eight years old, I lost a sock in the dryer. It had a green, then blue, then another green stripe at the top. The sole was red, and the base of it had a print of soccer balls. I loved all of my socks, and had one pair for every major sport. My older brother told me that dryers operate at a particular frequency; one that opens up wormholes to other dimensions, and that socks are just the right size to slip through on occasion. He wasn’t being mean. He used a fictional story to validate my overdramatic reaction to something so innocuous. Since then, I’ve been through a few dryers, and lived in several places. When I moved here to Japan, I brought with me very few of my possessions. Somehow, though, when I was doing laundry a few months ago, I found my soccer sock in the dryer. I blinked and shook my head, trying to rationalize it. It probably wasn’t the same sock. It couldn’t be. But it is. It’s the exact design that I remember. There’s even a small hole on a part of the sole that doesn’t usually tear. It’s the same sock, I’m telling you. How did it get here? Had my brother been right? Did dryers open up wormholes? That’s ridiculous, of course. But I’ve always been open to believing in miracles, and I’m not sure that this one doesn’t apply. I wasn’t in a great place when it showed up, and maybe that’s why it came back.”

“That’s an interesting story. But you should probably consider removing your framed sock from the wall for the next party your host.”

“Fair point.”

Microstory 37: Life Hacks

Draw eyeballs on your eyelids. That way, while you’re sleeping at work, your boss will think you’re an idiot and fire you. This is for when you’re trying to get fired. | I used to work at the DMV. Wait, that’s not a life hack. That’s just a fact. No, wait, I mean it’s a lie. | There are over seven billion people in the world, and you only need to kill one of them to be a murderer. This is in case you don’t know the rules for murder. | The next sentence is true. The previous sentence is true. Hold on, I think I did that wrong. | Cows can climb upstairs, but they can’t climb downstairs. So, if you want a bunch of cows in your basement, you’re going to half to build it above ground. | Every once in a while, tell your mirror that you know they’re watching you. If there’s no one there, no big deal. If someone is there, it’s a pretty big deal. You should move. | Lift with your back. | Sleep in a headstand. | There’s a preschool in New York that’s designed for adults. You get to fingerpaint, have naptime, and do show-and-tell. That’s not the life hack. The life hack is don’t go there, you creeper. | You can remove permanent marker from a whiteboard by drawing over it with a dry-erase marker first, and then erasing all of it. Okay, that one wasn’t a joke; it really works. I discovered this on my own when I was, like, 8.