Light Remains: Three Stories

by Fuller, A. C.

  Light Remains

  Three Stories

  A.C. Fuller

  Contents

  About Light Remains

  Can You Hear Me Now?

  Celebrity-Prayers.net

  The Last Day on Earth of Zelta Jones, Starwoman

  Thanks for Reading!

  The Alex Vane Media Thriller Series

  The Cutline: An Alex Vane Novella

  Sample: The Cutline, Chapter One

  Sample: The Cutline, Chapter Two

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2017 by A.C. Fuller

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by Yosbe Design

  Note: A version of Celebrity-Prayers.net was previously published by Cracked Eye Magazine. It is reprinted here with permission.

  A.C. Fuller Books

  Hansville, Washington

  www.acfuller.com

  Created with Vellum

  About Light Remains

  Light Remains contains three short works of fiction that examine dark subjects with a touch of levity.

  In Celebrity-Prayers.net, a Boston teenager with an Adderall addiction hires a B-list celebrity to teach him how to pray as he tries to win the affection of a classmate. But even as the prayers seem to be working, the celebrity’s depression causes the teenager to question the nature of fame.

  In Can You Hear Me Now?, a cellphone button designer treks though Seattle in search of his lost iPhone. And the longer he’s away from his beloved device, the more he is overwhelmed by the isolation and alienation he experiences without it.

  In The Last Day on Earth of Zelta Jones, Starwoman, a middle-aged line cook from Blue Mountain, Alabama believes she's been sent from another planet to teach humans about space travel. After years of being ignored and ridiculed, she decides to take her own life. But her last day on earth proves much more complicated than she expected.

  To my wife, Amanda, whose enthusiasm for my stories makes them come to life.

  Transit umbra, lux permanet

  Shadow passes, light remains

  Can You Hear Me Now?

  Seattle

  Sunday, 6 AM

  Survivors of near-death experiences often report some version of the same occurrence: their lives flashing before their eyes. Some describe a bodily sensation, like they are actually reliving every emotion and physical sensation they've ever experienced. Others see every instant passing through their mind on fast forward, starting at birth and ending in the moment they are about to die. For some, the process takes hours. For others, it's instantaneous. Some people even have guides who walk them through the journey.

  Don't buy it?

  Me neither, and not just because I'm a cynical engineer. Just think about what it would mean. If every memory—every moment—passes through you right before you die, that means that every moment is remembered. Maybe not consciously, but if it is able to flash through before you die, that means it's there, stored somehow, right now. Every moment of your life.

  I always assumed that the eight-million Americans who have reported this were full of it. That they were—at best—hallucinating and—at worst—making it up after escaping death, partially to give the event meaning, but mostly to remind themselves and the rest of us to appreciate life.

  It's what I assumed, that is, until the day I lost my iPhone.

  It started when I rolled out of bed to get a glass of water, groggy but not hungover. The night before I'd had just the right number of pints at the local pub, The Lion's Breath. No, I'm not British, but yes, I am a pretentious asshole. I drink pints of ale and lager, sometimes even cider, I eat bangers and mash and fish and chips, and I call it a pub because that's what it's called.

  I drank my water in the kitchen and looked around for my phone: kitchen counter, bedside table, jacket pockets. I checked the sofa cushions even though I couldn't remember whether I'd sat there the night before. I slid back into bed and ran my hands over the sheets and under the pillow, then looked in the crack of the bed frame. Nothing.

  That's when The Feeling first hit me.

  I design the home buttons on cell phones, the little round one you press a thousand times a day as you stare down, waiting for the magic to happen. If you're lucky, you just rest your thumb on it and the fingerprint technology does the rest. I helped come up with that, though I don't actually work for Apple or Samsung or any of the big guys. I work for one of the dozen companies to which they subcontract minor aspects of button design. At the office, we work to make every aspect of the phone fill you with feelings of connection and love. We want the phone to become an extension of your body, an extension of or even a magnification of your consciousness. A part of you.

  So how do we know if we've succeeded? We know because, when you misplace your phone, you get The Feeling. Trust me, we designed it that way.

  But as I rolled back into my bed at six in the morning, I was starting to feel it, too.

  As it often does, The Feeling started as a vague thought: What's missing? But it quickly morphed into a series of more-specific notions. Someone may have commented on my Facebook post. Important tweets might be appearing and getting buried by other tweets before I have a chance to read them. How will I check the score in the Mariners game? Most importantly, I could be missing an important text. Maybe from Maria, the attractive, single, black-haired grad student I vaguely remembered exchanging numbers with the night before.

  From there, The Feeling developed quickly: uncertainty, disconnection, frustration, a sense that I'd been untethered, like a piece of driftwood being carried out into the ocean. Just as we'd designed it to, the darkness descended quickly.

  As I stared up at the ceiling, I actually thought oh-holy-hell-my-life-is-over. I was overcome with a sense of emptiness, and it brought with it the memories of my life, flooding in to fill the void. I won't say it was all the moments, but it damn sure seemed like most of them. A movie of my thirty-four years, playing at 100x speed, slowing down slightly from time to time so I could catch a glimpse of some of the moments.

  Lying to my mom about losing my baseball glove, finding a dollar on the street and hiding it in the waistband of my underwear so my dad wouldn't accuse me of stealing it, Suzy Johnson grabbing my cupcake at my fourth birthday party, my Uber driver from last night, his yellow teeth and crooked smile. And there were smells, too: the sweet grass at Safeco Field, my dad's oily t-shirts in the garage, the dustiness of my first car.

  I pulled the blankets over my head, determined to catch a few more hours of sleep. I knew I'd find my phone when I woke up and, as I nodded off, I thought back to my last yoga class and took five deep breaths.

  I'd helped design this feeling, and I wasn't going to be taken away by it.

  * * *

  9 AM

  Sometimes I like to take little breaks from my phone to show that I'm not an addict. To prove to myself that our design team's efforts have not worked on me.

  So when I stepped out of bed onto my gleaming wood floors, sun streaming through the curtains announcing a beautiful summer day in Seattle, I decided I'd drink my coffee before finding my phone.

  Ten minutes later I was sitting on the sofa, watching the ducks land on the glittering green water of Lake Union, and my first instinct was to take a picture. A shot like that would be good for at least 100 Facebook likes, probably a dozen retweets. But I remembered I was taking a break from my phone, so I settled into the cushions, took a deep breath, and sipped my coffee.

  That's when
I thought of Maria-something from last night. She was tall, just an inch or two shorter than me, and wore tight jeans and a UW sweatshirt. Cute as hell and definitely into me. We'd played darts and downed pints and ate sausage and laughed about people who eat kale salads.

  It was all coming back to me. We'd ordered our Ubers side by side, then stood outside the pub in the warm midnight air as the crowd streamed out around us. When her car arrived, she'd leaned in and pecked me on the cheek. Her hair smelled like cloves and cinnamon.

  I was struck by a sudden urge to see if she'd texted, along with an equally strong urge to scan her social media accounts to learn more about her. They say that Facebook is where we lie to our friends and Twitter is where we tell the truth to strangers, so I'd need to check them both. But first I needed to find my phone.

  I started by checking all the same places I'd checked earlier. Kitchen counter, bedside table, jacket, sofa cushions, sheets and pillows. Next I checked under the bed, on top of the cabinet in the bathroom, under the sofa, and in all the pockets of everything I was wearing the night before.

  I live in a small, but elegant, one-bedroom apartment in one of the new constructions built specifically for young techies like me. The design is clean and minimal, as are my furnishings. It only took me five minutes to check everywhere and by 9:30 I was back on the sofa, sipping my coffee and replaying the night in my head, trying to figure out where I'd left my phone.

  The only two reasonable options were The Lion's Breath and the back seat of the Uber.

  I grabbed my laptop and nestled back into the sofa. Seconds later, I was in my Uber account clicking "Connect via chat."

  I'd slept off most of The Feeling and I was enjoying myself. I had Maria's number in my phone—a phone I couldn't find but soon would—the sun was out, the sofa cushions were soft and springy, the coffee was strong, and I could always check in on my accounts on my laptop, just to take the edge off.

  A chat box popped up and, within a minute, I was connected to a representative named Billy.

  Billy: How can I help you today?

  Me: I think I left my phone in the car I got last night.

  Billy: I'm sorry to hear that, how can I help you?

  I'd assumed that my previous statement was self-explanatory. They must have a system for this, right?

  Me: Did my driver report anything?

  Billy: Oh, I'm sorry, we don't take reports of lost items. Please hold on while I find the information...

  I waited, focusing in on the part of the chat box that said, "The agent is typing a response." Three little dots, like an ellipsis, refreshing over and over.

  …

  …

  …

  A minute went by. Then two.

  …

  …

  …

  The Feeling returned, this time in my shoulders. It was tension mixed with a crawling sensation, like spiders inside my designer t-shirt. I looked out at the water and took a sip of coffee. Everything was basically cool, life was good, but the longer I stared at those dots, the more I felt like something was wrong that could never be fixed.

  …

  …

  …

  I take yoga three days a week, mostly because my sister told me it would be a good way to meet women, so I took belly breaths like I'd learned in class. My shoulders relaxed a little, but then my head began to pound. Maybe I'd had one too many pints after all.

  I breathed deeply into my heart, also like I'd learned in class, but all I felt was a buzzing irritation through my whole body.

  …

  …

  …

  The message finally popped up.

  Billy: Please see the link below regarding how to contact your driver to retrieve your missing item. https://help.uber.com/h/53539bde-f6f4-4909-85de-fa0b99f82be0

  I clicked the link and closed the chat tab without saying goodbye.

  The link explained that I needed to enter a phone number in a box. The system would then connect me directly to the driver's phone. Then I could ask about the phone or, at worst, leave a message. Of course, the page made sure to point out that: "Drivers are independent contractors. Neither Uber nor drivers are responsible for the items left in a vehicle after a trip ends. We're here to help, but cannot guarantee that a driver has your item or can immediately deliver it to you."

  I had already entered the first five digits of my number when it hit me. I didn't have my cell phone.

  I re-read the instructions, which I'd skimmed the first time around. "If you lost your personal phone, enter a friend's phone number instead."

  I don't have a landline, so my first thought was to ask Gretchen, the website designer in the apartment next door. But her kitchen always smelled weird, like fermentation and incense. My head was throbbing and I just couldn't take that smell. Then I had another idea, a two-birds-with-one-stone idea. Maria.

  I logged onto Facebook, figuring I could find her through mutual friends. She seemed to know Miranda, a folk singer who pulled pints at The Lion's Breath on Saturday nights. Miranda had friended me six months ago, probably in hopes that I'd buy her self-produced album, which she pimped constantly on her feed in clear violation of Facebook's terms of service. But when the reassuring blue banner popped up, I realized that I wouldn't need to search for her after all.

  Maria had sent me a friend request.

  * * *

  11 AM

  After a brief chat on Facebook, during which I concealed my satisfaction at the fact that she had logged onto Facebook late last night to stalk my social media and friend me, we agreed to meet for brunch at Pepper's, an old-school diner I ate at when I wanted to rebel against the enviro-chic joints I was forced to eat at during business lunches.

  On the walk over, I found myself calculating how long it would be until I had my phone back. Best-case scenario, I'd reach that yellow-toothed Uber driver and he'd drop it off at the diner in exchange for a big tip. Worst-case scenario, he wouldn't have it and I'd walk the mile or so to The Lion's Breath after a nice plate of corned beef hash.

  But as I turned the corner and smelled the grease from Pepper's deep fryers wafting down the block, I started to have darker thoughts as well. What if the phone wasn't in either place? I paused at the diner's dented metal door, contemplating this.

  Obviously, I'd just get a new phone. We designed The Feeling to be unbearable. We designed it so that you'd have to buy a new phone. I saw myself walking into the Apple Store, plopping down my Visa and returning home. I'd plug it into my laptop, download all my apps and contacts. Everything would be the same.

  But I fucking hated the idea.

  It felt like an episode of an old sitcom where the kid's hamster dies and the well-meaning, idiotic dad—probably played by Bob Sagat—tries to replace it before the kid comes home from school. I knew a new phone would have the same technology, but it wouldn't be mine. My thumb wouldn't feel the same on the home button, which we designed to soften about 2% over time. The case wouldn't have that yellow-gold stain from the time I did the turmeric lemonade cleanse. There wouldn't be that single particle of dust under the screen protector that's annoyed me continuously for six months but I still don't clean.

  I knew how stupid these thoughts were while I was having them, but then I realized that they weren't thoughts at all. The Feeling was creeping back in. My mind knew that any iPhone was as good as any other. But that thing was part of my body. It was a blankie or a favorite stuffed animal. I needed it to feel okay, and I needed to get back to finding it.

  Maria was stashed away at a booth in the far corner. She'd pulled her black hair into a ponytail, but she was even prettier than I remembered. She smiled broadly when she saw me and her dimples were so cute I almost took a step back. I hadn't planned to have a drink, but before I even sat down, she lifted up her Bloody Mary and said, "Hair of the dog. Want one?"

  I nodded, thinking that as long as I didn't have my phone, I may as well have a drink.

  The waiter was ho
vering nearby and Maria called out to him confidently. "Another round."

  I slid into the red vinyl booth, pawing nervously at my hipster beard. "I lost my phone," I said.

  She shot me a wrinkled-eyebrow look. "Nice to see you, too."

  "Oh," I said, realizing how lame it was to sit down and mention my phone right out of the gate. "I meant—"

  "I'm just messing with you. You already told me when we chatted. Remember?"

  I was disoriented. I'd only stood at the door to the diner for a minute, but it was like I'd fallen into some foggy dream world.

  "Right," I said, trying to play it cool. "Anyway, it's good to see you."

  "You want to do the Uber thing now or—"

  The waiter set down my drink and I took a long sip. The sweet-tart liquid went straight to my brain and everything got bright and clear. At that moment, all the shit about my phone seemed silly and far away.

  "No," I said, "let's drink these first."

  * * *

  Noon

  I read once that as hunter-gatherers transitioned into city-dwelling people, the first thing they did was to start making alcohol. The idea was that, if we're going to have laws and religions and societies—if we're going to create civilization—we're going to need a drink.

  And after two Bloody Marys, I understood why. The Feeling was long gone, and life was good again. I was sitting with a smart, beautiful grad student who seemed genuinely interested in cell phone buttons, in iOS upgrades, and in what it's like having "a real job."

  It turned out she was one semester away from getting her Master's in clinical psychology, and she'd clearly aced her class in "Asking Questions in a Neutral Tone That Lead the Client to Tell Deep Truths About Themselves."