Vessel, Book I: The Advent

by Tominda Adkins

  * * * * *

  He almost didn't get the chance. It was James Brown who almost killed me.

  An hour had passed. The guy in the corner eventually settled down and went back to dying or mutating or whatever he was doing before I'd so rudely disturbed him. He was quiet, and so I pretended he was not there. I pretended I was not there.

  Rain drummed against the steel edges of the building, creating a uniform din of sound, a loud and steady silence. I hadn't moved, and I was afraid to try. The cold had already transitioned to numbness, then to burning, then to throbbing, and now it was just a strange heaviness on my limbs and in my chest. I sat against one of the shelves, going over each bleak outcome in my head just to stay awake. Freeze to death. Bleed to death. Or wind up like one of those things in the corner. I was wondering which of the first two would be faster when a box on the shelf―the one I happened to have my head propped up against―screamed directly into my ear.

  Or, more specifically, the voice of James Brown screamed directly into my ear.

  I saw stars. My entire body defied gravity. My shriek bounced off the shabby walls. My heart did something new, something that hurt.

  The box stopped screaming and started playing "Get Up Offa That Thing".

  I recovered. I ripped the box off the shelf, opened it.

  Pagers, iPods, cell phones.

  Cell phones, cell phones, cell phones.

  I followed Mr. Brown's advice. I got up off of my thing. I grabbed the singing phone―the most beautiful object I'd ever seen in my entire life―and silenced it with quaking, fumbling, stupidly joyful hands.

  A quick dig through the box told me that this was the only phone with any charge left. Two bars of service, low battery―not much, but still all that I could ask for. I steadied my fingers and dialed the only number I knew by heart.