At last the white haired man looked upon Colt, who stared back defiantly, too confident, too tragic to look away. “Ah, yes, the carefree Mr. Brewster,” said the salesman, looking down at his tray, searching for just the right box. “You poor cretinous soul. You have no idea what you’re buying at all. But it matters not to me. Sell and sell alike I say, discretion is something that keeps a salesman starving.” He continued to rummage among the collection of boxes before him, Colt’s eyes growing wide, staring at the white, wrinkled hands as they moved over the wooden tops. “Hmm, what do we have , what do we have? Ah, here it is,” he found what he’d been searching for, and picked it up. It was all Colt could do not to snatch it from him. “You’ll like this one,” said the salesman. “This is just the thing. Just the thing indeed for a man such as yourself. They see you as capricious, don’t they? Irresponsible and shiftless. They think you’ve had it easy. You make it all look so effortless, and they can't, so they judge you. They envy you. But if they only knew what you were capable of. If only they knew how important you could be.”
“Yes,” said Colt numbly, wide eyes never leaving the box. He wanted it. He wanted it like a dying alone in a scorching desert wants a glass of ice water.
“I have the answer for you right here. One look inside this box and you’ll finally see how significant you are. Just one look is all it will take. You want to see that, don't you?”
“Yes,” Colt muttered again. “I would like that very much.” And he reached out for the box once more, but the salesman held it away from him.
“Fine, fine, you shall have it. But you must remember to be careful with it. You mustn’t shake it like the others. This one doesn’t rattle. Hold it like a sleeping baby, won't you? Hold it like you’ve got the world in your hands.”
“The whole world in my hands,” Colt assured him. “Now, please, I can't stand it any longer,” he said pathetically, his voice barely a desperate whisper.
“Am I being cruel?” The salesman mocked. “I shouldn't tease you so.” And without another word, he carefully passed the little wooden box to Colt.
He took it gingerly, but quickly and with purpose. He threw the lid back and peered deep inside. And he looked for what seemed like a very long time, what seemed like eons passed. His face was illuminated by heavenly light from the box, and amid the trembling, the wonder and revulsion, and awe, and terror at what he was seeing, a single tear crept down his face, and he looked back at the salesman. “That’s not real is it? How can that be real? How is . . .”
“I’m afraid what you’re seeing is very real indeed,” the salesman grinned, his tight little smile revealing only his front teeth. “And when you wake up tomorrow, you may tell yourself it isn't real, that it's an illusion, but somehow you will know the truth. It will be real tomorrow, it will be real the day after. It was always real, and its yours to hold on to. It was real before you were born, and it will still exist long after you die.”
Colt tried to keep his hands from shaking, tried to hold his prize steady.
“Our business here is done, I think,” said the little salesman. “It was a pleasure. Its always a pleasure.” He tipped his hat and vanished out the door. Colt did not lift his head to see him, he only stood cradling the horrible box in his hands, wishing, as all of the salesman's customers did, that he had never looked inside. He remained at the bar for some time, but never had another drink. Sometime later, he left, taking careful, small, ginger steps.
***
Daisy ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth. It felt arid, cracked like old leather. She had had to stay late at work that night, stuck cataloging inventory, and she was just getting off. She needed a drink in the worst way. She couldn't stop thinking about the sting of whiskey in her mouth, the ancient flavor flooding her palate. She checked her watch. It was late, almost eleven, and she hurried her steps.
She fixated on the liquid fire soon to thaw the ice in her belly, the vapor of spirits wafting out on her breath, and lit a cigarette. She turned a corner and her mouth fell open, cigarette dangling from her lip. It was gone. The Leaky Tap was gone. It just wasn't there anymore. There was only black sky where the bar had stood, rubble spread below and the flashing lights of police cars and ambulances as emergency workers sorted through the debris for survivors. She stood dazed behind the barricade as they drew the first of the crushed bodies up through the discord of crumbled brick and splintered wood. She stared on breathlessly as some formless thing covered by a sheet was wheeled past her on a gurney.
Around where the Leaky Tap had stood, the other structures and business were unscathed by whatever force of nature had been visited upon the bar, as if the hand of God had come down from Heaven to lay waste to that ,single displeasing form before rescinding.
Sometime later, Daisy Day was walking down the hallway to her apartment carrying a bottle in a brown paper bag. Her lips were wet,and the bottle was only mostly full, brown liquid drained to just below the neck. She paused at her door, searching herself for her keys, and suddenly she stopped. The door had been smashed in, the cheap frame had splintered around the lock and settled back on its hinges. Slowly, she pushed In the door and entered her darkened apartment.
It was a small space, a single room, and it didn’t take her long to find the huddled mass cowering in the corner, half-lit by the gloom of streetlights and passing cars coming in though the naked window. And though the man she saw before her appeared to have aged fifteen years in a single night, she was still able to recognize that it was Colt. He said nothing. Did not look up to acknowledge her. He only sat in the shadows and stared at the box he was cradling so preciously in his hands.
Daisy sat the bottle down on the table and poured two glasses. She drank hers quickly but did not offer the other to Colt. She did not turn on a light, did not want to see any clearer how suddenly ancient Colt had become, how gray the strands of his hair were. How his skin sagged.
She sighed and her breath tasted like liquor. “Have a drink, Colt. It’s good for your vision. Helps you see in the dark.”
“I can’t,” the weary thing in the corner said. The deep frown lines around his mouth quivered as he spoke. “I must keep still. I must be steady. My hands cannot shake.”
Daisy emptied his glass for him and whispered, “What have you done?” But she said this only out of compulsion for discourse. She knew exactly what he had done. Colt did not answer her, and eventually she said “Let me see. Show me what he gave to you.” She started over toward him, but stopped when he cried out.
“No! That’s close enough. Stay back. I’ll show you from where you are. You’ll see. You’ll see it all, but just don't come any closer!”
Daisy waited while the newly old man carefully uncovered the box with his pale wrinkled hands. She peered into the box, and saw at first that it was utterly empty. But a second later she noticed that the mistiness, the darkness it contained, was of an impossible depth. It was darker and blacker than anything she had ever seen, and then, suddenly it was filled with pinpricks of white all around. She peered deep into the infinite darkness of the box, the dazzling stipple of white, and there was movement, there was a sense of traveling across a vast expanse at an incredible speed, and all the little points of light blurred with motion. The journey was that of light years, yet contained entirely in the space of the box, and she saw next that it bought her to massive celestial formations, hung in utter nothingness, and they were astounding to see, inconceivably enormous, some crowned with small formations, some wreathed with great rings, and still the journey continued. Fast, impossibly fast. Now was the familiar pale sphere of the moon, and beyond, the Earth, a half halo around one golden edge blocking the sun. Movement continued, and there was sky, and clouds and then the patchwork squares of cities and fields and towns below, all rushing up, looming massive but still only contained in the box. There was the country, then the city she had always known, the skyscrapers and factories, schools and houses. There were streets and apartments, a
nd people, she could see them all. She could see the neighborhood where she grew up, dazzling bright out of the box in Colt’s horribly steady hands. And here was where the Tap had stood, the workers clearing rubble as distinct to her as she had seen them earlier form behind the barricade. Here, finally, was the journey’s end, her building, her outer door, her corridor, the door to her apartment, herself standing in absolute awe, and Colt, aged and awful, terror stricken and sorrowful.
Suddenly the lid slammed shut and Daisy could not be sure she had just seen anything at all. The box was empty. It had always been empty. What she had seen was impossible, beyond her comprehension. It was only a trick. There was an explanation. An explanation beyond her understanding maybe, but an explanation contained within the borders of what she understood to be possible. It was only a trick.
“That,” she said “wasn't real. It can’t be real.”
“But it is. I couldn't believe it myself when I first saw,” Colt whispered. And I looked at it. I stared into it. It showed me everything. Everything. The Tap, I saw it. But I didn't believe. I . . . I reached in to touch it. Just with the tip of my finger. Just to feel it. Just to see what . . .”
Daisy stared at him, her mouth wide in shock. “No!”
“Yes. God, it crumbled at my touch. It all fell down. It was me. I destroyed it all. That’s how I know. It’s real. It’s so real.”
And Colt sat there in the corner, trying not to shake, trying to keep the box steady: A man who had been given the world on a silver platter, and one who could not ever give it back.
On the Lake
“Fishing,” Wendell's dad explained, “is about man's command over nature. That's why for generations fathers have brought their sons to this exact lake that we're on now, and stayed in the exact cabin we're staying in. My grandfather brought my dad here, and my dad brought me here, and now I'm taking you, and maybe someday, if you're lucky, you'll bring your son. But first you have to understand man's place in the grand scheme of things. We catch the fish, because we are greater than the fish. We have every advantage over them: We're smarter, craftier, more engineering, plus we can breathe air. That's the way it's supposed to be. If a man wants fish, he need only sink his line in the lake, lie back, and wait for one to strike. They have no choice. It's irresistible to them. So, do you understand what I mean about man's command over nature? We have utter dominance over everything in this lake. Of course fishing is only a small part of it.” Wendell's dad opened the cooler and helped himself to another beer.
Wendell, who was seated across from his father in the boat, thought about what he had just been told. “I guess you're right, dad. But I just think, sitting here waiting for the fish to bite, I don't know, it doesn't feel very commanding. There's places like fish hatcheries. They breed all the fish they want in tanks and sell them to stores. That seems more like people are in control. In a hatchery, it's like the fish are working for you. And us, sitting out here waiting for fish that may never bite, well, its the other way around. I mean, even if we just went to a store-”
“Shut up,” snapped Wendell's dad. “You'll scare the fish away.”
Wendell had some educated guesses about how well water conducted sound, and thought if anything was going to scare a fish, it would probably be the giant shadow of the boat passing over it, but he obeyed his father, and didn't say anything else. He stared out over the murky lake, thinking about the dark, scaly world that existed just below them.
Wendell's father finished his beer and set the empty can afloat on the laketop. He quickly plunged his hand back into the cooler to replace it and took a long drink. “Fishing,” Wendell's dad belched, sending fumes of musty yeast wafting toward him, “is about self reliance. A man isn't a man unless he can take care of himself. A real man, you can drop him off in the middle of the wilderness, and he'll survive on nothing but his know-how. That's what fishing is, boy, it's know-how. Do you understand what I mean?”
“I guess so. At least it used to be true, but not really for us, dad. We're only able to go fishing because you bought the line and the rods and reels from a store. You paid for the boat and the cabin. You had to buy fishing licenses. You bought the worms at a bait shop, you didn't even dig them up yourself. At a certain point, it stops feeling self-reliant to me. Everything except casting our lines was done by someone else. And even if we don't catch anything we can still go to the McDonald's up the road-”
“Shut up,” said Wendell's father. “You're making too much noise. Do you want to scare the fish away?”
And again, Wendell resigned himself to staring silently out over the vast seething water. So far out now, he could barely see the shore. He began to grow more and more conscious of how easy it would be to tip over and slip down into the cold depths of the lake forever. And what separated him from that watery abyss? Only an inch at best of boat bottom between him and the horrors of the deep. He tightened the straps on his life jacket.
“Here's how you bait a hook, son.” Wendell's dad had to set his beer down to demonstrate. He held a worm in one hand, his fingernails packed with black dirt, and a hook in the other. He held one eye open, bobbling along to the gentle rocking of the boat. “You stick the hook in here,” Wendell watched in horror as his father shoved the hook through the worm, “And the you sort of push him up further, and then just run him though again,” relentlessly, he shoved the hook through again. “And then you stab it through one more time, and you see how it makes a little S shape? And then you're done. Just remember to leave a bit dangling so that it wiggles when it's in the water. You see?”
Yes, Wendell saw. He was suddenly lightheaded and the blood drained from his face. The worm was tangled and impaled on the hook, black, half-digested earth oozed from its wounds. The worm lengthening and retracting in agony. Wendell could only stare wide-eyed at it.
“Don't be such a baby,” he heard his father say, accompanied by a spray of beer foam from his mustache at each labial. “It doesn't feel a thing. It doesn't have a central nervous system. Hell, it doesn't even have a brain.”
Wendell saw the way the worm shrank and stretched when it was pierced. It knew something was going on. The way it was skewered looked like some form of medieval torture.
“Son,” said Wendell's dad, “I can tolerate a lot of things. I know you don't like to go outside if you don't have to. I know you like your books. I see you watching those Japanese cartoons all the time. I can live with that, I can. I've made my peace, believe me. But so help me God, if you don't reach into this container and dig out a worm and get it on that hook in the next thirty seconds, you're gonna have a long swim back to shore while I ride beside you in the boat, do you understand me?”
***
They were really fishing now, there was no denying it. They'd cast their lines and now sat doing nothing more than feeling the sun grow warmer on the backs of their necks. The boat was anchored, the only motion came from gentle rocking whenever Wendell's dad returned to the cooler. He tried not to think of the worm he'd been forced to crucify and then drown. They must be at the dead center of the lake, thought Wendell. He could see only water in every direction. From this position, he got a sense of how totally massive it was. And as much surface as it covered, there was still much more below. Who knew how many miles it went on for. Wendell's friend Brandon had a pet fish he kept in a tank. He'd once conveyed to him a fact that Wendell had found fascinating, but now, surrounded by lake, it seemed more disturbing to recall. He told him that a fish will grow as long as it lives, and the only thing that limits its size is its container. If that was true, then Wendell guessed there might be things the size of Escalades beneath him.
Wendell froze with fear as he felt something tug at his line. He watched his little red and white plastic bobber sink under the water. He felt his heart sink with it. Despite his best efforts, he'd hooked a fish. He could feel it jerking and struggling against the line. The end of his pole was twitching like it was bewitched. There was no way his dad wouldn't noti
ce.
“Way to go, son. You got one! Well, don't just sit there, reel the sucker in! What are you waiting for?” He was excited, half crouching in the boat, knees wobbling.
Wendell had no choice but to reel it in.
“That's good, son. Remember to keep the end of your pole up. Wow! look at it bend. You got something big, alright. I got a feeling you hooked a monster.”
Something below the surface struggle against his line as he slowly turned the reel. Big, his dad said. A monster. But how big were monsters? He imagined drawing up something roughly the size of a whale, but with razor teeth and snapping jaws. Something so big, Wendell and his dad wouldn't even make a mouthful.
Wendell's dad leaned over the side of the boat to captured it in a net. He drew it in, and Wendell stared at it in amazement. His dad had been right. It was a monster. The thing was slender, maybe twenty-two inches long, plated in thick scales with a pattern of black spots on its sides. The thing thrashed in the net, snapping its needle-like jaws, which were lined with wicked, shredding teeth. It looked like a weapon, but ancient, like a prehistoric dart. A little dinosaur, thought Wendell. Maybe it was a barracuda. Wendell's father had a strange look on his face, as if he were disappointed somehow.
“Don't touch it, son. Its fins can slice right through your hand.” Wendell's dad dropped the fish on the floor of the boat, and it landed with a fleshy thud. He produce a pair of gloves, the palms and fingers were made of rubber it looked like, and along with the gloves, a pair of pliers. He pulled them on and picked the gasping fish out of the net. “Its jaws, here,” said Wendell's dad, “are made of bone.” He picked up the pliers. “So you have to get the hook out with these.”
Wendell stared in horror as his dad wrenched and pried at the hook like a sinister dentist. Blood, as red as a person's, began to dribble out of the barracuda's mouth, and the hook came free.
Stranger Realms Page 4
