by Joel Varty
He smiles with a mouth full of pearly-white teeth. “And don’t even ask me what I’m gonna be tomorrow, ‘cause I don’t even know myself, yet.”
“Whatever,” I say, squinting, and turning away from him, striding through the coffee line.
“Change your mind soon, son, and I’ll see you in the basement,” calls Michael after me.
I don't turn around. I just keep walking and pretend he was never there.
Chapter Three – Another Meeting
Jonah
I walk quickly the rest of the way to work. It’s only a few blocks but it seems much further, now my routine has been interrupted. I’m shaken by the encounter, wondering what it meant, and then only a few moments later almost disbelieving that it even happened at all.
I have to go to work. I have to pay the bills and do what I do, that’s the right thing, now more than ever.
I work as a writer for a science and technology journal, and we occupy the second floor of a large downtown office building. I go through the glass doors of the lobby and climb the stairs to the second floor. My cubicle is across the room, on the far side, next to where the windows are. I begin to move towards it, wondering why the rest of the crowded space seems so quiet, muffled even. It is as if an invisible blanket has been draped over everything, muting the normal clicking and talking that one usually associates with a busy office.
There’s something wrong with my desk: it has a cardboard box on it, with my photo of Rachel and the kids on the top, sticking out at an odd angle. Their smiles, coming out of the black and white photo, puncture all my illusions about what this place is. Looking out from that glass and frame, she knows that I don’t belong here. The photo was taken six months ago, but she knows.
My wife has an uncanny ability to foresee events; she has often predicted my professional demise at the hands of the merciless editors here. They pay no attention, she says, to the quality of my work, but only to its immediate saleability. I didn't like that idea when I first heard it, but I now guess that she is right. My attempts to focus on technology from a purely scientific angle merely serve to irritate the advertising mechanisms that rely on shelf-available products and their related hype to churn ad-ratio dollars.
Looking at the box, I realize I have failed to be anything but blind, and she had known, had tried to warn me of it. In the glass of the photo frame I see the reflection of the human resources manager standing behind me.
“Excuse me, Jonah,” she says, smiling almost seductively. “If you would kindly step into my office...”
She gestures towards the frosted glass office that is traditionally known as the “war room” where group planning sessions and strategy meetings are held.
Her new office, then.
I look her over with my head at a slight angle. Her name is Sally, and she’s worked here for about six months. She hasn’t been at work for a couple of weeks because her mother died in a car accident.
The office staff are completely silent. They should be; I was the first full-time writer here. Back then this magazine was completely reliant on my knowledge, on my ability to interpret science in a way that they could understand. But things change in six or seven years – technology especially. I should have known better, and I stand here guessing that I have missed my chance to move with it. I decide that I don’t want to be in this cubicle anymore anyways; I don’t belong in this box.
I have to leave.
“I am sorry about your loss of your mother, Sally.” I say, closing my eyes.
I open them again and turn back towards the door. “Goodbye everyone.”
The silence is overwhelmingly respectful. I stand for a few moments, letting them stare at me, wondering at the finality of it all, as if I’ve missed something obvious, and I suppose that indeed I have – for quite some time.
I stalk back to the door, back down the steps, out the glass entrance.
I stand there wondering why I didn’t listen to Michael, five minutes earlier.
The morning air is still fresh, but a strange mist seems to be closing in, and I can no longer see the sky as it was earlier. The smell of rain rolls off a thickening, cloudy breeze making its way through the city. As if a presence has come out from its hiding, to observe, to bear witness, perhaps to coerce...
Something clicks in my brain then, something about being out of time or being late for something. I can’t think exactly why it seems important to hurry anywhere, since I have just lost my job. The impending fiscal doom I have brought down around myself and my family ought to outweigh any other disturbance, but it is there nonetheless: an urge to be somewhere else. It is as if a presence has sprung out from the unspoken silences of back alleys and the clamour of the city as it attempts to express its unhappiness.
A presence that seems to speak to me from the cloud.
The end is near.
I run.
I run with the madness of the damned and the clumsiness and drunken luck of the uncaring. The streets are oddly empty, and traffic lights are strangely green for longer than normal, and suddenly I am back at the coffee shop, in the very same spot where I had been standing several minutes before.
The line for coffee is gone, as if the patrons have dissipated into the fog. The mist is thick and growing thicker as the breeze becomes a whirling tempest, making a sudden calamity of the quiet morning from before. I turn to look up where Michael motioned to earlier.
The church is no longer there.
I turn all the way around, searching the suddenly unfamiliar landscape for the church. But wait, I think to myself, the church was what didn’t belong. I had never seen it before Michael pointed me to it. In all the years I have walked this route to the office, I have never seen that church. So why do I care if it isn’t there anymore, when it never was there to begin with? Which seems more unnatural, that fact that it appeared, or that it’s gone, and replaced with a plain brick building?
A voice, distant, fighting to be heard against the wind, suddenly calls down from high above, so soft against the howl of the wind that I can’t make out any words. Still looking up, I continue to turn back and forth, trying to discern the figure through the fog and mist. The voice is coming from the top of the brick building. It is the voice of a small child, desperately calling out in an attempt to be heard.
The brick building has a fire-escape on its alley side with an old fashioned ladder rusted in the down position. The bottom rung of it is around shoulder height, and I pull myself up, hooking my feet beside my fingers and hanging upside down before I reach up for the next rung. I feel the skin pinch between my wedding band and the rusted metal. The entire structure is somewhat dampened by the mist and fog, swirling through the alley, yet I do not feel threatened by the slippery bars. I am not afraid of heights, having spent my childhood climbing corn silos and the tallest trees I could find.
Once I reach the stair portion of the fire-escape I run, causing the antiquated structure to rattle and twist under my two-hundred pounds. Even though my legs are still warmed up from my earlier run to catch the bus, I can’t seem to make them move fast enough. I wish I had listened to Michael, who must have known the kid was up here – maybe this is his friend who needed saving. The child sounds like he is in serious trouble, and his continuous cries for help are snatched away by the force of the gathering storm.
The top of the building brings me face-to-face with a driving gale that seems to tug and pull at me to go back down the fire-escape, to get away as quickly as possible, to not have to hear this child who seems within my reach, yet so far away that I can’t touch him.
A boy is standing directly opposite me, facing the other direction, practically hanging off the edge, calling down towards the street with violent ferocity. It reminds me of a scene from my early childhood, on my family’s dairy farm, watching eleven puppies attempting to suckle ten teats. The runt of the litter was powerless to dissuade his siblings from their activities, just as this child is unable to draw the attention of
those below.
I start to move towards the boy, for I can see now that it is a young boy of about ten years, fair-haired and freckled, wearing tattered clothing, struggling against the force of air resisting him.
“Be careful,” I yell, stretching out my hand as I draw nearer. “Don’t lean too far!”
“It doesn’t matter if I fall,” the boy says in a voice that is loud, but no longer at the top of his lungs. “It won’t make any difference at all. I am powerless. Maybe I should jump; someone might take notice of small children lying broken in the street.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, incredulous at the look of resignation in this boy’s eyes. That kind of expression I am only used to seeing on the faces of those far more aged. In spite of his youthfulness, this boy is, in my eyes, turning from a young pup to an old dog, and I can see now that it is I who is being watched, being appraised, by this person. I ask him, “Why would you think yourself powerless?”
“It’s always been this way, Jonah,” says the boy, his voice now barely more than a whisper. The wind has quieted and the mist seems to have thinned slightly. “We have only ever been messengers in this age of men. I am Gabe,” he finishes, as he extends his small boyish hand towards me with the authority of much older soul.
I am at a loss for words, but as I take the proffered hand and shake it, I feel I must say something in return, as if the telling of a name is an honour that must be returned.
“Michael spoke to me earlier,” I begin, tentatively, meeting this boy’s eye with my own. His gaze is piercing. “He says that someone needed my help. Is that you?”
“Is that what he said? Is that all he told you?” He releases our handshake. “Why did it take you so long to get here? We are on a very tight schedule, and you have missed your appointment.” He turns away. “Come back tomorrow, and don’t be late.”
“Come back tomorrow?” I ask. “What time?”
“Early,” he answers. “We’ll have to adapt the plan to accommodate your tardiness. Certain things need to be done now, and other things can wait until tomorrow,” and he points his finger at me. “But only one day, I’m telling you.” He turns and looks down over the street below, which is quickly clearing of fog and mist, as though the spirit of the moment has passed. “Look to your family’s safety. Without them, you’ll probably fall apart and be completely useless to me.”
A stab of panic streaks through my chest, and I grasp Gabe’s shoulder, pulling him towards me. “Are my family in danger? How do you know this?”
“I don’t know anything. I only know what you are to be told.”
Chapter Four – Rations
Jonah
I practically stagger down the street towards the train station, my hands shaking with the tension of worry for the safety of my family. My fingers fumble over my cellphone, trying to get Rachel’s number keyed in. The call goes through after the third try.
“Jonah? Are you okay?” she asks, the tension and worry obvious in her voice. “Is everything alright?”
“Of course I’m alright,” I say. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Does she already know I’ve lost my job? Can she hear it in my voice?
“Haven’t you seen the news?” she asks, the alarm in her voice alerting me to something beyond the loss of my job. “There’s people going crazy all over the place. They’ve announced a new gas rationing thing for the whole area.”
“Gas rationing? What are they thinking?”
I wait for a few seconds for an answer, but hear no response. Pocketing my cellphone, I turn to look down the street. The wind has died off to something negligible, and the fog has departed with it. A few drops of rain hit the top of my head.
I hear the sound of horns blaring down the street, coupled with the tinkling of broken glass hitting the ground behind me. It causes me to do a complete three-sixty, whirling around in an attempt to get my bearings and figure out what to do.
I have to get home; something is going to happen. I can just feel everything sliding out of place, all of the comfort levels that come with having a fairly routine life now being thrown totally out of whack. I am still standing beside the plain brick building, and I take one last look at its seemingly normal exterior.
Trains. I’ve got to get home. Rachel. The kids. Danger.
I stalk off down the sidewalk – not totally unconscious of the mounting tension in the streets around me. Even though I have walked this route so many times before, its familiarity is stripped from me by the circumstances and the strange weather and its stranger connection to me.
The traffic has halted to a snarl, and people have begun to exit their office buildings in a mass departure. Horns are blaring and many voices are yelling or calling out to each other in anger.
As I hurry towards the train station I look behind me at the rooftop of the old brick building, where I have just been. Gabe is gone, just like Michael this morning. Heavy drops of rain begin to hit my upturned face.
Have to hurry.
Again, I am running. My legs now somewhat tired from all this exertion that I am not used to. The motor traffic in the streets is completely jammed, and even the sidewalks have begun to fill in with unusual crowds. Everywhere there are worried faces, groups of colleagues with heads leaned together in concealed conversation, planning their next move, trying to stay dry under a shared umbrella.
The rain is my friend in my race against time. Checking the time on my cellphone, I see that the train departs in six minutes. I can still make it – probably with lots of time, assuming that the trains tend to run late when there are big crowds and bad weather.
I take to the streets – the cars are no real danger – and I just ignore blare of angry horns behind me as I twist and turn along the lanes of traffic to cross street after street towards the station. I am completely drenched, but that, combined with my growing adrenaline-fed panic, only invigorates me.
Once I arrive, I find the station concourse crowded to capacity. All the doorways into the building are jammed with people, but I know of a way onto the back of the track platforms that most people are not familiar with. I run as fast I can towards that. I feel that I am streak of movement in the storm – a blur unnoticed by the naked eye. The crowds are a blur to me, too, as I run past them.
The doors to the rear platform are partially hidden by a dip in the road under a bridge over which the station platforms are located. Not as many people take that route, especially in bad weather, because it doesn’t link up directly with the subways or the underground walkways. It is fairly crowded now, but not so much that I can’t get through the doors, up the stairs and onto platform without any trouble.
The train has not yet arrived, so I stand on the platform, packed with bodies, where I know a set of doors on the last car of the train normally stop.
I try Rachel on the cellphone again: I still can’t get a signal. I re-dial a few more times and eventually manage to get a ring. Once, twice, three times. Five rings. Ten rings. “The customer you are calling is not responding. Please try again.” Click.
I begin to wonder, for the first time, what has really transpired this morning.
I have met Michael, lost my job, taken Michael’s advice and gone to the church, which has somehow changed into another building, seen Gabe calling out from the roof, gone up there and been told to go home, and come back tomorrow. “Look to your family’s safety,” he told me. He’d looked about ten years old, but sounded more like Michael, who looked about sixty.
You’re losing it, Jonah. I think in my head. Totally wacko today, man.
And then the call to Rachel with the strange news that the gasoline had been rationed; what did that mean?
And had the church really been gone? Maybe it was a different street, and I had gotten turned around in the fog and mist?
The train arrives on time a few minutes late. We all cram ourselves in, with only a little more overt pushing and shoving than normal. The amount of underhanded abuse that a pe
rson will deliver to another on a train has always amused and disturbed me. After so many years of it, I find myself noticing it only when it has increased to the point of real annoyance by a delay or, as in this case, shocking news.
Everyone is speaking of it as we enter the train.
“Can’t believe they did it.”
“Only 20 litres per day of personal use.”
“What’s that in gallons?”
“Why didn’t they warn us?”
“I wouldn’t have bought the Cadillac, that’s for sure.”
“Damned government. Did you see him standing there? That two-faced bastard mayor telling us there aren’t enough supplies for the city.”
“What do you mean, ‘for the city’?”
“It means this ration scam is limited to only a few designated cities. Part of a rolling scheme they’ve come up with.”
“Wankers. Every last one them.”
I stare out the window at the driving rain as the train winds its way to the suburbs.
To my home – my family.
Damn you, Michael. You knew this was going to happen. You and Gabe both. How did you know?
…
I get off the train and onto the waiting bus just before it departs from the local terminal. The bus driver has the radio on loud with the AM news. They are discussing the gas rationing from every angle: how we should have known it was coming, how all the signs point towards more cities being rationed, how we should stay in the city to avoid being stranded on the highways.
And then the mayor, on the line, live on the air, “There is nothing to be alarmed about. This is a temporary measure to alleviate foreign pressure on the oil reserves, coupled with a recent fire at the major refineries in the district.
“I repeat, this is a temporary measure, and there is nothing to be alarmed about.
