Except there wasn’t. Because of him.
She assumed that he’d been a man, the one who chased her and called her a whore. In the erosion of his identity and individuality, his hate had remained. She wondered who he’d been before the Forming, what kind of life he’d lived, whom he’d cared for, if anyone.
He waited for her.
So she stayed in her apartment, pacing, fretting, and calling out to Arthur, hearing nothing in return.
The fourth day, Viola sat down at her mirror and touched its smooth surface lovingly, perhaps for the last time. Instead of ruby lips, she drew a straight, pale line, remembering the times she’d clench her jaw and press her lips together. Plucking the black wig from the stand, she adjusted it on her head until it felt right.
Exiting the building, she held the skirt of her gown so it wouldn’t trip her on the stairs and hitched her purse up on her shoulder that she’d loaded with a paperweight. She paused, wanting to appear defiant to anyone who might be around, but then she hurried toward Arthur’s.
The two others who had waited for her came out from a building across the street and followed her. Viola quickened her pace.
Whore.
One of them snatched at her skirt and she whirled, swinging her purse. It hit the other across its head, knocking it back. Its buddy lunged at her, but Viola sidestepped and kneed it in the stomach. Before it had hit the ground, Viola started running.
Rounding the corner of Arthur’s block, Viola collided with him and they both stumbled to the ground. She clutched at him, then jumped up, trying to pull him after her. They needed to get inside, but he wouldn’t come. His grip on her wrist tightened.
Snatch and Buddy came around the corner. Others crossed the street toward Viola and Arthur, more emerging from his apartment building.
Viola needed to see and understand. God had been right. He had unified the world.
But she still remembered her face. And his.
He had not drawn his today.
Viola twisted away from him, but by then, it didn’t matter. Other hands caught her, held her. Arthur smeared the lines of her eyes, nose, mouth, the squiggles of her ears. Another plucked the wig from her head, threw it to the ground, and stomped on it. Others tore at her gown. Her purse disappeared from her hands.
Snatch stepped up to her and put his hands on her hips. Viola struggled against those holding her, jerked back and forth, but Snatch pulled her to him and slapped his smooth pelvis against hers.
Their skin melted into each other’s and she had the sense, for just a moment, of smoldering anger directed at everything and nothing, without reason. Then that slipped away.
Another plunged Viola’s left hand into its chest and she was afraid of a dim room at the end of a long hallway, then that feeling faded.
They crowded closer to her. Their arms wide, bodies pressing tighter, their skin melting together and enveloping Viola.
A cacophony of emotions and images buried her, threatening to dissolve her in this mass of formless humanity. She held on to what it had meant to have eyes that could cry, a mouth that could smile, and all the wonderful and horrible smells and sounds that had faded into the background for all those years before the Forming.
She remembered and she wouldn’t let that go.
But the world had attained peace.
Crime had stopped.
Petty dramas had ceased.
People lived without identity because once a person was something, another was not. Groups formed and ostracized others. She had done that by hiding away.
God had corrected his worst mistake.
She could see that now.
As the sun’s light touched the mass of humanity the next morning, forms began pulling away. First one at a time, then twos, threes, and droves, leaving only two.
The one helped the other up, patted it on the shoulder, then went up the stairs into the apartment building.
The one remaining stood, trembling. At its feet lay a wig. It picked the wig up, its texture intoxicating, its meaning gone. Raising a hand to its blank face, it thought it might remember something. Then that, too, faded away.
Special Delivery
Tim Waggoner
For the past twenty years, Tim Waggoner has been building his reputation as a true master of the uniquely strange and disturbing tale. That this is his first appearance in the series is a shock because he is one of his generation’s best. (You don’t get nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award for selling lottery tickets . . . ) His latest example is a subtle portrait of domestic discord worthy of the classic Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series.
“I promise you, this is the last time you’ll have to do that.”
Roy paused, the handle of the snow shovel he was holding cold in his bare hands. The mail truck was idling at the curb—in front of his mailbox, naturally enough. Funny, but he hadn’t heard it pull up.
The carrier—they used to call them mailmen when Roy was a child, but no longer, not in these enlightened times—leaned out of the window and gave Roy a grin. He looked normal enough, in his midforties, a bit older than Roy, thin face, scraggly brown beard, teeth yellowed but straight and even. Almost too even, as if they were all of a uniform shape and size. Roy couldn’t quite make out the man’s eyes. Though it was sunny out, his eyes were clouded by shadow, probably caused by the upper part of the mail truck’s doorframe, Roy guessed.
The mailman—mail carrier—kept grinning and looking at Roy (at least Roy thought the man was looking at him; it was hard to tell with his eyes in shadow like that) as if he was waiting for a response. Feeling suddenly awkward, Roy replayed the man’s words in his mind: “I promise you, this is the last time you’ll have to do that.”
Roy frowned. Do what? Shovel snow off the front walk? It was March 16th, and while it wasn’t completely unknown for it to snow this late in Southern Ohio, it was unusual. They’d gotten three inches since this morning, and Roy had come home from work to a walk and driveway that both needed to be shoveled clean. He might’ve let them go. Roy was a weather reporter for an all-news radio station. His own forecast called for it to warm up over the next few days, and he knew the snow would melt on its own soon enough. But he’d had lunch at a Chinese restaurant that afternoon, and the message in his fortune cookie had read Do today’s work today. As soon as he got home, he’d grabbed the snow shovel and gotten straight to work. He’d already finished the driveway and had been halfway through the front walk when the mail carrier drove up—without making a sound, a little voice inside his head added—and made his strange pronouncement.
The carrier waited, still grinning, as patient and motionless as a mannequin.
Roy decided the man was trying to be reassuring, telling him that this late snow was bound to be the last of the season and after today Roy could put his shovel up until next winter. What else could it be?
So Roy smiled and lifted a hand in acknowledgment. “Sounds good to me!”
The carrier’s grin widened, and though Roy couldn’t clearly see the man’s eyes, he had the impression that they flashed with amusement. He then reached through the truck’s open window, and though the motion was slow and nonthreatening, Roy nevertheless experienced a rush of fight-or-flight adrenaline.
“Here you go.” The carrier held out a small package. When Roy made no move toward the man, he wiggled the package as if trying to capture the attention of a small child, or perhaps a dumb animal.
“Come on . . . I’d tell you that I don’t bite, but that’s not strictly accurate.” Again that tone of amusement, this time with a dash of derision added for seasoning.
Roy told himself he was being ridiculous; the man was just delivering the mail. Even so, he nearly told the carrier to put the package in the mailbox and that he’d get it after he finished shoveling the walkway. But not wanting to be thought a coward even by a strang
er—or for that matter, by himself—Roy laid his shovel in the snow and started toward the mail truck.
The carrier kept wiggling the package as if he thought Roy might change his mind and turn around, without the enticement of a constant lure. As Roy drew near, he was finally able to make out the man’s eyes. Brown, the whites tinged yellow as if the carrier suffered from a slight touch of jaundice, but otherwise unremarkable.
“Thanks.” Roy reached out for the package. It was small and rectangular, the sort of box that banks use when mailing new checks to customers. Roy closed his fingers around the package, started to pull . . . but the carrier didn’t let go right away. Roy looked into the man’s jaundiced eyes and saw mockery there.
“Hope you enjoy it,” the man said, then released the package, causing Roy to nearly stumble backward. “See you later!” The carrier gave a jaunty wave, then turned forward, put his truck in gear, and pulled away from Roy’s house.
As the vehicle moved off, Roy saw a bumper sticker affixed to the back. It was a black-and-white picture of Marilyn Monroe’s face—eyes half-closed, lips forming a pouty O—and beneath it the caption: MURDER YOUR DARLINGS.
Roy watched, expecting to see the red glow of brake lights as the truck stopped at his neighbor’s home. But the brake lights didn’t come on; the truck picked up speed and continued past the next house, and the house after that, and all the others on Roy’s street, until it came to an intersection and turned left without so much as slowing, let alone stopping.
Roy stood for several moments, holding the small package at his side.
That was strange. Why had the carrier taken off like that? Roy checked his watch and saw it was 5:18. He was used to the mail coming late around here, but he’d never known any carrier to just quit before his deliveries were finished, no matter the lateness of the hour. Guess that stuff about neither rain nor sleet nor hail went out with the ten-cent stamp.
Roy examined the package. The rectangular box was addressed to him in simple black letters that looked as if they’d been placed directly onto the white cardboard with old-fashioned typewriter keys. No return address—he turned the package over—on either side.
He stared at the box for several moments. He thought of the strange thing the carrier had said: I promise you, this is the last time you’ll have to do that. Thought of Marilyn and MURDER YOUR DARLINGS.
He slipped the package into his coat pocket, and if his hand trembled a little, he pretended not to notice. Not much in the way of mail today, but he supposed it was better than getting a stack of bills. A sudden realization nagged at him, and he glanced at the mailbox, saw that it wasn’t covered with snow. He hadn’t brushed the snow off, had only finished half of the front walk. So if the snow had been knocked off by someone else . . . He opened the mailbox door and reached inside.
He took out a half-dozen pieces of mail, mostly those dreaded bills and several clothing catalogues for his wife. Odd, but he hadn’t seen the carrier put the rest of the mail in the box, hadn’t heard the metallic creak of the door opening, the hollow chunk! as it closed. And if the man had put the rest of the mail in the box, why had he insisted on handing the package to Roy? Unless . . .
Unless someone else had put the mail in earlier, before Roy had gotten home from work. But who?
The real mail carrier, of course, came the answering thought. Who else?
But if the man who’d handed him the package wasn’t a postal worker, then who was he? Now that Roy thought about it, he realized the man’s truck had displayed no logo to identify it, no UPS or FedEx. Nothing but that sticker of Marilyn. Maybe the man worked for some minor-league delivery service, Roy told himself. That would explain why he hadn’t stopped at any other houses on the street.
Roy then noticed he’d left the mailbox door open. Irritated, confused, and despite his best efforts at rationalization, more than a little afraid, he shoved the door closed harder then he intended, catching his thumb in the process.
“Goddamnit!” Nerves screamed in pain, and he yanked his thumb away from the mailbox, sending a splash of blood arcing through the air. It pattered onto the snow, staining the white crimson.
Cursing, and holding his thumb out to the side so it wouldn’t bleed on his clothes, he hurried up the half-shoveled walkway to the front door, leaving a trail of red behind him.
“This is officially the dumb-ass thumb,” Roy said.
Marcy looked at the thumb in question and smiled. He’d wrapped it in so many layers of gauze that it appeared to have swollen to twice its normal thickness.
“I mean, how many people cut themselves closing their mailbox?”
They sat on opposite sides of their small dining table, facing each other across a low-carb dinner of broiled boneless chicken breasts, peas, and pear slices. Since they didn’t have any children, a small table was all they needed.
“I appreciate your sacrifice, getting wounded in the line of duty and all.” Marcy took a bite of chicken and chewed, a mischievous glint in her eyes. She swallowed. “I’m surprised you didn’t take it as a sign of some sort.”
Roy stiffened, suddenly tense, a piece of fork-speared chicken paused in midair on the way to his mouth. He thought of the rectangular package still in the pocket of his coat, now hanging in the foyer closet. Right then Roy almost told her about the mail carrier, the bumper sticker, the other mail in the box, the white cardboard package with no return address . . . But if he told her all that, he knew he’d end up telling her the rest: that the reason the package was still in his coat pocket was because of his thumb. Hadn’t he cut himself right after he examined the package? Hadn’t it been a warning?
“What do you mean?” he asked, though he knew exactly what she meant.
Marcy was a petite woman with short black hair and an almost comically expressive face. When she smiled, she exuded waves of unadulterated joy. But when she scowled, like now, every line of her face—forehead, the corners of her eyes and mouth—deepened, became more pronounced.
“Never mind. Forget I said anything.” She scooped up a spoonful of crisp, hard peas—Marcy believed that if you cooked vegetables too long, they lost most of their nutrition.
Roy knew he shouldn’t pursue the matter, that doing so would probably just lead to an argument, but he couldn’t stop himself.
“I just wonder why you brought it up.” He lowered his hand with the newly christened dumb-ass thumb below the table so Marcy couldn’t see it. He rubbed his index finger against the smooth surface of the gauze, pressing a little, and his cut throbbed in response.
Marcy swallowed her peas, put down her spoon, and took a sip of wine. Roy knew from long experience—they’d been married sixteen years—that she was stalling for time to think. Finally, she put down her wineglass and sighed.
“You know you have a . . . thing about seeing signs.”
Roy thought of the fortune he’d gotten this afternoon. Do today’s work today. He’d put it in the jar on his dresser with all the others that he’d saved over the years.
“I don’t know if I would call it a thing. I’m just detail oriented. It’s a necessary quality in my line of work.”
“I’m not talking about precipitation levels, Roy, and you know it. Fortune cookies and horoscopes are harmless enough, if you take them the right way. You know, like the disclaimer for those 1-900-PSYCHIC commercials: for entertainment purposes only. But when you take it too far . . . ”
It was an old argument, and Roy could say his wife’s lines as well as his own. But he couldn’t stop himself from continuing with the same tired script, “And you think I take it too far.”
Marcy sighed. “You know you do. Remember when we first looked at this house? You were dead set against buying a ranch . . . until you saw a cardinal perched on the roof.”
He almost said, But it’s the state bird. My mother always said seeing one was good luck. But he decided to
skip this line of the script. Bringing up his mother now would only give Marcy more ammunition.
“And how about a couple years ago when we were talking about having children? You were all for it until you read that article in the newspaper.”
The headline flashed in his memory: Marriages and Stillbirths on the Rise. The article had nothing to do with them . . . it wasn’t even about America, for God’s sake, but some country in Africa.
“Too far is when you let these signs of yours control your life.” He thought she added “and mine” beneath her breath, but he wasn’t certain. And then Marcy returned her attention to her meal, their perpetual argument over again, at least for now.
Roy did the same, though he continued rubbing his wounded thumb and listening to its soft whispers of pain.
After dinner, Marcy sat on the couch and watched a home design show on HGTV while Roy sat in the chair next to her and looked at the paper. There was really only one thing that he was interested in, but after what Marcy had said at dinner, he made a show of going through the paper slowly, one section at a time, skimming articles rather than reading them, until he finally reached the Lifestyle section. There, right next to Dear Abby, was today’s horoscope. He was a Pisces.
Today you’ll find it a bit harder than usual to preserve domestic harmony, but don’t give up; the effort is worth it.
He looked up from the paper, started to say something to Marcy, but he caught himself in time and kept quiet. It didn’t matter how accurate his horoscopes were; she always put it down to coincidence and his imagination. Besides, didn’t his horoscope say that it was important to maintain “domestic harmony” tonight? Why start a pointless fight that would do neither of them any good?
He folded the paper and set it on the chair arm. Later, after Marcy was asleep, he’d clip out the horoscope and save it with all the others he kept hidden in a scrapbook under the bed. He’d then put the paper in the recycling bin so Marcy wouldn’t see that he’d cut out the horoscope, though he was pretty sure she knew that he kept them.
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