The white thing bent at the knees and sat next to Donna’s ear. It leaned over, put its head against her earlobe, and spoke in a droning language he could not understand. To Donovan’s ears, it sounded like a record played in reverse, tinged with the electronic interference of a bad phone connection.
The kitchen flickered and slowly lost its gray hue. Donna’s features regained their definition. For a few seconds both realities overlapped, and Donovan could see the white thing sitting beside her head. She chewed on her toast, unaware of its presence.
Words found their way up the back of Donovan’s throat. They came forth from his lips in a single, incredulous spate.
“What the hell is this?”
The white thing took notice of him. It looked at him with two black, beady eyes, and said something else into Donna’s ear. She kept staring at the table.
“Get off her,” Donovan said, reaching forward to knock the pale thing from her shoulder. His fingers passed through it. Donna did not move. The white thing grinned at him, extended its thin, white hand, and gave him the finger.
He scoffed. Fuck you, too.
The overlap of color and gray subsided with another flash. Donovan ignored the prickling of his skin as his kitchen returned to normal. He watched the creature fade from view. Even when it was gone, he could still feel it leering at him.
For the first time since the affliction began, Donovan wondered if what he saw was not a figment of his imagination, but a reality. No, he thought, things like this don’t happen. Even if they did, the odds of it happening to him were astronomical. Things like this did not happen to Donovan Candle. He’d written about things like this, sure, but for the precise reason that they couldn’t happen, least of all to him.
Donovan got up from the table. He looked at Donna, unsure of himself and his sanity. He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder, expecting to feel the form of that creature, rendered invisible by the kitchen’s lively color. His hand landed upon her shoulder. She was warm.
Donna looked up at him, smiled and said, “I love you, too. Have a nice day at work, dear.”
“I didn’t—” he began, then remembered the thing on her shoulder. He remembered the way it whispered its backward language into her ear. Was it filling in the blanks? Was it the reason she couldn’t understand him?
He glanced at the clock, saw he was running late, and made his way to the door. He stopped short, looked back at Donna. She flipped through the newspaper.
“Love you,” he said, and closed the door behind him. He didn’t see her recoil at the sound of his voice.
• • •
He agonized over the morning’s incident for the rest of the day. At work, even as he read the sales prompt to a stranger on the line, his mind wandered back to Donna. He could see the white thing on her shoulder every time he closed his eyes. When a potential customer hung up on him, he removed his headset and retreated to the men’s room. He had no urge to go, but this was his most private place to sit and think.
Donovan closed the door, locked it, and sat on the toilet.
You can figure this out, he told himself. There’s a logical, reasonable explanation. There has to be. To this argument, Joe Hopper replied, Only logic I see in this is that you’re crazy, hoss. How’s that sound?
He didn’t like it one bit. The alternative prospect was also one that filled him with dread. What if he truly were disappearing? What if these things he saw were real? The little thing on Donna’s shoulder was bad enough, but the big ones that lurked in the corners of the office conference room terrified him. A chill slowly worked its way down his back.
When he returned to his cubicle, he saw he’d been gone for almost a full hour. There were no messages waiting for him in his inbox or on his phone. Given all that had happened—and all that was happening—he was not surprised. First his wife ignored him, and now his coworkers. With enough time, everyone just might forget he existed.
That thought left a sour taste in his mouth. He looked around the sales floor. His stomach twisted into itself as the room was overlapped by its gray counterpart. Other salespeople became dark shades, and he saw more of the little white things sitting on their shoulders. They turned their bulbous, white heads in a single, uniform motion. Their beady eyes looked at him, into him. Through him.
Donovan flickered back into reality. The office returned to its normal, colorful state. He sat and put on his headset, determined to ignore the impossible things he’d witnessed. Unlike those in his immediate presence, the strangers to whom he spoke over the phone lines always seemed to hear him just fine.
• • •
“Seriously, man, don’t you ever get bored?”
“Sometimes.”
“I’d say all the time, from the sound of it. Do you always call customers sounding like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like you’ve had the shit kicked out of you six ways to Sunday. Seriously, you sound like you’re completely drained. How long have you been doing this?”
“Nine years.”
“Wow. I dunno, dude. That’s a long time to be making calls to strangers. Did you go to college?”
“I did. Haven’t thought about that in a long time, though.”
“Didn’t you have any goals? Any dreams?”
“Yeah. I wanted to be a writer.”
“I can dig that, man. Well hey, I gotta go, but look, dude, don’t waste your life there, okay? Go write something. Realize your dream.”
“Yeah,” Donovan sighed, “I’ll get right on that.”
“Cool, cool. Oh, and thanks for the introductory offer, but I don’t think I need to protect my identity right now. Peace.”
Click. Beep.
The script for saving a sale lingered on his tongue. No one ever wants to protect their identity until it’s taken from them. Donovan cancelled the automated dialer before it could place another call. He ran his hands through his hair. Dozens of calls, and not a single sale. At this point he did not care.
What could he do about the gray visions and his own untimely disappearance? To whom could he turn?
Michael crossed his mind. He imagined working with his brother to track down the cause of the phenomenon. Twin detectives. The notion stirred a dying ember of creativity in his mind.
Yeah, right. Michael may have been his inspiration for Joe Hopper, but he was hardly empathetic. Michael Candle was more likely to laugh at his plight than help him. That was, of course, presuming his brother could even see or hear him.
Donovan put away the thought of calling Michael. He was desperate, but not that desperate. This was something he had to figure out on his own.
His body shimmered. The color drained from his vision. He caught a glimpse of the lanky, white figure standing between two cubicles along the far wall. It saw him, took a series of steps down the aisle, and was gone in a blink. The office bustled around him with full, vibrant life. He checked his watch, gathered his things, and made his way out of the building.
By the time he got to his car he’d forgotten all about his brother. Whatever was happening to him, he understood he would have to handle it on his own—and that, above everything else, frightened him most.
• 4 •
THE OMITTED
The days grew worse. He saw more of the tall, white things and their Lilliputian counterparts. On Wednesday night he happened to look outside and spot a lanky one on the sidewalk. He turned away from the bedroom window and looked at Donna, but in the midst of the gray sight she was nothing more than a dark specter shrouded in the blankets.
When he turned back he saw the creature beckon to him with a long, scrawny finger. Its mouth shivered open as it uttered a low moan.
It vanished as color returned. Donna was already fast asleep. He tried to snuggle next to her—after all, it was their night to make love and attempt to conceive a child. She rolled away from him. Defeated, Donovan turned on his side and fell into a troubling sleep in which he was haunted by ni
ghtmares of the white creatures. In his dream, they chased him down a long, gray staircase. It wasn’t until the albino things were upon him that he realized his efforts were futile. The staircase was really an escalator, delivering him straight into their pale, skinny hands.
Donovan woke Thursday morning drenched in sweat and twenty minutes late. Donna was already downstairs, and like the day before, she did not acknowledge his presence. When the gray sight overcame his vision, he saw the little white bastard sitting atop Donna’s shoulder. Its head was pressed against her ear, and he could hear its backward chatter.
“Stop it.” He wished his voice didn’t sound so weak. The creature’s head twisted around. It grinned, revealing a set of prickly teeth, and winked at him.
The kitchen returned to normal. Donna did not look up at him. She ate her breakfast and read the newspaper in silence. He left that morning without saying goodbye, and found that things at work hadn’t changed, either.
At lunch time, rather than sit in the lounge, he spent an hour in the men’s room trying to sort out his troubled life. What if this is permanent? he wondered, to which Joe Hopper responded, What makes you think it ain’t, hoss?
Donovan considered it a fair point. The symptoms of whatever was happening were getting worse. He was isolated now, living among the rest of the world while being omitted from it. The visions, and the question of whether or not they were real, were growing more and more prevalent as well. His “gray sight” revealed monstrosities the likes of which he could never fathom on his own. They were creatures suited for more fortified minds, fictional beings culled from a mind far more creative than his own.
Logic and reason had failed him, left in the past with Monday and some semblance of reality. He wondered if his soul would fade away with the rest of him. He wondered if Donna would remember him once he was gone.
That’s enough. I’ll find a way through this.
He left the restroom strengthened by his determination, but as the day wore on, he wasn’t entirely sure he believed it.
• • •
A five-car pileup on the highway made him almost an hour late for dinner. Donna was finished with her meal by the time he arrived home. He tried to apologize and explain himself, but it was in vain. She could neither hear him or see him. What troubled him most about it was that she didn’t seem to miss him, and it was then he remembered the crude thing on her shoulder for the last two mornings. He remembered the way it whispered it in her ear, the way it mocked him.
Were the white things at the root of all this? If they were, then all of this—the flickering, the gray visions, the tall creatures—were very much a part of reality. It meant there was something far more sinister at work than just the gradual breakdown of his sanity.
Donovan chose not to dwell on it, locking himself away in his office to work on his novel. He struggled for half an hour as he tried to begin again, but his mind kept wandering back to the matters at hand. How would Joe Hopper solve this? he wondered. Or Michael Candle, for that matter? He looked at the phone, contemplated picking it up and calling his brother, but feared he would be met with more silence. Just because the unwitting customers at work could hear him did not mean anyone else could.
He went to bed early and tried to sleep away his trouble. His thoughts kept him awake, and he laid there for an hour before Donna crawled into bed beside him. She usually kissed him goodnight, but for the last two nights she had not, and tonight was no different. If his suspicions were correct, he could not blame her for this, but it still stung him.
Donovan needed his wife now more than ever. Throughout their years of marriage she’d always been his right hand, his navigator, and closest friend. Even though her sudden inability to acknowledge his existence gave credence to his earlier fears that he was slowly being omitted from the world, it did not make the rejection any easier.
He spent the next hour crying into his pillow.
• • •
Friday morning was much like the three mornings before it. He woke, experienced the gut-pulling transition between color and gray realities, and saw creatures that should not exist outside the realm of fiction. Donna ignored him, as did his co-workers. By eleven o’clock he’d made it through a block of automated calls, and so far it seemed those total strangers were the only ones who paid him any attention.
It made little sense to him that they could hear him when those around him could not, but by this point Donovan didn’t care. He was happy to have some form of interaction, whether they were shouting, screaming, crying, or simply talking to him. Even in their hatred for an annoying sales rep, Donovan found some kind of hope in their frustrations. He welcomed them.
In an effort to connect with his audience, if only for a few moments, Donovan abandoned the standard Identinel sales script. Instead he interacted with his potential customers, engaging them in all manner of conversation. What else did he have to lose?
All topics were fair game. If he connected with the right person, the conversation could last for up to an hour. One call went to a woman in Iowa named Eileen Carmike. For forty-seven minutes and fifty-three seconds, she and Donovan held a conversation about philosophy and the proper way to bake a turkey. Another call went to an elderly gentleman in Oregon named Zachary Rosen who had a passion for old cars and The Grateful Dead.
Though he enjoyed these conversations, Donovan grew increasingly depressed as he realized what he was missing from life. Here were people living their lives, with their own quirks and faults, and yet they were still somehow perfectly content. After a call with young Jimmy Frank, and their strange conversation about the nature of first and last names, Donovan removed the headset and checked his watch.
It was 4:30. He had time for one more call before braving traffic for another silent night at home. He rubbed his eyes, yawned, and put on the headset. The automated dialer generated a new phone number with a single keystroke.
Click. Beep.
A sharp hiss of static surged through the earphone. He cringed. It reminded him of an old dial-up modem. The surge devolved into the normal series of rings, followed by an abrupt connection. No one spoke on the other end.
Donovan paused. The monitor revealed no name or address. All information fields were blank.
“Hello? Anyone there?”
More electronic interference shot through the line and took shape as a man’s voice. It was a steady voice, confident but soft-spoken. A whine of digital noise hung in the background.
“Hello. Who is this?”
Donovan cleared his throat. “My name is Donovan Candle, and I’m a sales rep for Identinel Security Services. You may have seen our commercials—”
“I have not. What is the nature of your business?”
“We offer identity theft protection. Do you mind if I give you a sales pitch?”
“I find it ironic that a man of little identity is offering to protect the identity of others. How ... noble.”
Donovan said nothing. He wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
“In lieu of a sales pitch,” said the nameless man, “I would not mind hearing a life pitch from you.”
A life pitch?
“I’m sorry,” Donovan said, “but I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”
“Please forgive my poor manners. You just sound like a man who is not getting all he wants out of life. Tell me, Mr. Candle, what do you want out of your life?”
His mouth was parched. It was rare a customer turned the tables on him so effectively. He had years of experience in dealing with this sort of thing. There were ways to direct a conversation back on track, but Donovan suddenly found he lacked the desire. Something about the man unnerved him, but his curiosity pushed him to answer.
“It’s not every day I’m asked that question. Let’s see ...”
“You do not have to answer that now, Mr. Candle. It was rhetorical.”
“No, sir, it’s perfectly fine. My life has taken a strange turn these last few days. To be hon
est, I’m not really sure what I want out of life anymore. Today, after talking to other folks like yourself, I’ve realized just how much I’m missing.”
“Missing?”
“In life. There’s not much that defines me anymore. I guess if something interesting doesn’t happen to me soon, I may disappear for good.” An uncomfortable silence followed his words. The static on the line rose and fell, accenting a low chuckle from the strange man beyond it.
“Do you really think so?”
“Yeah,” Donovan said. “I do. Just a feeling, really.”
“Actions birth definition, Mr. Candle. Good luck finding your way.”
Click.
• • •
“So how are things?”
Donna Candle juggled the phone and a mixing bowl. She set the bowl on the counter. Her sister, Amanda, waited on the other end of the line for a response.
“That’s a loaded question and you know it.”
“Oh, please. It is not. You’ve bitched about Don all week.”
She reached into the cupboard and retrieved a bag of flour. “I haven’t bitched. I’m just concerned, is all. He’s never behaved like this.”
“I don’t know, Donna. From what you’ve told me, it seems pretty damn suspicious.”
Donna sighed. She regretted ever saying anything to her sister about Donovan’s odd behavior.
“I trust my husband, Amanda, so don’t go putting any ideas in my head. There’s something going on, but I doubt it’s what you think it is.”
“If you say so. You know the man better than anyone.”
“I do,” Donna said, and trailed off. I thought I did. She’d run the gamut of emotion and suspicion in response to Donovan’s silence. At first she wondered if there was someone else, but he wouldn’t do something like that. Not the man she knew, anyway. In recent days, however, it was difficult for her to keep those agonizing doubts at bay.
A Life Transparent Page 5
