by Zack Murphy
He had been waiting for almost an hour, but was now third from the front. After a few minutes a young girl at the front of the line was called in. The massive gold and pearl doors opened and shut behind her and he moved up one more spot.
He paused for a moment when he thought that out in the distance a voice had called his name. He looked around but didn’t notice anyone, so he went back to thinking about the three questions everyone gets to ask, which usually ended with number three being: Where’s the hell’s bathroom, I really have to pee and it was a really long line!”.
On the horizon he saw a young lady waving in his general direction and as she approached he could clearly tell that she was shouting his name. As she neared he could finally focus on the face of his trumpeter. A wave of fear ran over him and quickly turned the other way trying to pretend that he wasn’t there. DANZ & C>500TP spun him around to come face to face with the person she had been searching for.
“Mr. Ryan, do you remember me?”
“Yes?” he said with abandoned meekness.
“Good. Well anyway, you got away from me before I could finish talking with you.”
“Yes?”He whimpered in a pleading attempt to stop her ill-placed discussions. He wasn’t the shoulder to cry on. Neither in the living world or here did woman look to him to be a rock in their time of despondency. It wasn’t in his demeanor to comfort the miserable, and DANZ & C>500TP was the miserable person he knew.
“So, I was watching them just a few minutes ago and you know what happened?” she went on assured he was listening even though she was too preoccupied with her own demands to notice. “I mean you couldn’t possibly guess what I saw.” She waited a half second for his response. “Oh all right guess.”
“You know, I don’t really have to meet God. I mean I’m sure he’s extremely busy and I’m very tired. I think I’ll just go.” He said attempting to sneak away while she was preoccupied with whatever it was she was yammering on about.
“She called him honey!” she exclaimed, grabbing him by the collar as so he couldn’t get away. “Can you believe it? Honey! Of all the low down, dirty, rotten things to say to someone.”
“Honey doesn’t necessarily mean a term of love; it may just be an idiom.” Michael had resigned himself to the fact he wasn’t getting away. But he wasn’t to give 110% in the advice department either.
“Don’t make me an idiot with your idioms, pal. I know what I saw.”
“Honestly, I don’t need to see God; I’m not religious anyhow.” He tried to wriggle out of the shirt she clung to. It was to no avail, he was a prisoner in an emotional kidnapping.
“Good.” She grabbed him by the arm and dragged him from the line. His heels scrapped along the painted floor leaving scuffmarks along heaven’s waiting line. “Then you can come with me.”
He clenched his jaw in woeful penitence and a small tear started to well up in his right eye. “Oh boy.”
*****
3 DAYS BEFORE THE BIRTH
The room was pitch-black, but it felt cavernous, evidenced by the echoes of footsteps bouncing from the tall concrete walls down to the cracked concrete floors. It was ice cold and with only a faint spotlight shining on the grey floor in the middle of the room made it seem like a vaudevillian stage for the soon to be guillotined.
A small man wearing a bowler and dressed in a dapper tweed suit with bulky coke bottle glasses made his way over to the light. Dust circled and scampered among the rays that beat down on his face, blinding him to the rest of the room. The small package wrapped in brown paper was getting damp from the sweat that beaded and trickled down his arms and into palms. He took his place and stood silently. His nose itched but he didn’t dare make a move to scratch it.
“Have you done it?” A deep baritone voice resonated from the darkness.
“I have.”
“We had our doubts,” said a second voice, which could have female, but again could have been male. It was nurturing with a hint of treble that boomed like a balled up fist.
“Yes?”
“You have done well for us,” said another voice, more cajoling than the previous two, helping to ease the mind of the small man wearing a bowler and dressed in a dapper tweed suit with bulky coke bottle glasses.
“I have tried to do my best.”
“We know you have, and we appreciate everything you have sacrificed for this day,” said the first voice.
“Sorry, I’m late. What did I miss?” said a fourth voice that was female in timbre.
“Nice of you to finally join us; it’s not as if this little thing we’ve all shown up on time for is of any importance,” said the first voice.
“I said I was sorry. I was indisposed.”
“Can we just get back to the subject,” said the third voice.
“I’ve forgotten what we were talking about now,” said the second voice.
“Well, if some of us would check our calendars once in a while and be to these meetings on time, we wouldn’t have these problems,” said the first voice.
“Listen, I don’t how many times I can possibly say ‘I’m sorry’” said the fourth voice. “It’s over with; let’s just get back to business,”
“That’s what we’ve been trying to do,” said the third voice.
“You don’t start in on me too, please.”
“It’s just that I can see his point; you were very late.”
“I had pressing business to take of, all right?”
“Like what?” asked the second voice.
“I had to feed Whiskers.”
“What--? The cat?” the first voice was losing what little tolerance he had left.
“Yes, the cat. I can’t let it starve.”
“How ironic!” screamed the first voice.
“Oh don’t start with me. I’m not in the mood. Can we please just get back to business; I have a very busy day planned.”
“Fine with me,” said the second voice, “Now where were we?”
“Something about feeding cats?” said the third voice.
“I think he was asking where we were with him.” Said the second, directed at the small man wearing a bowler and dressed in a dapper tweed suit with bulky coke bottle glasses.
The four looked over to the spotlight in the middle of the room, which now seemed to be curiously unoccupied by the person who was supposed to be there.
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wasn’t anyone watching him?”
“Why would anyone be doing that? It’s not as if he’s prone to wandering away. He’s never done it before.”
“Well he’s done it this time.”
“We can all see that, Ms. Obvious.”
“You don’t need to be so snippy.”
The voices bickered about the finer points of being late and the lack of consideration it brought with it. They also argued about the proper way to care for a tabby, which didn’t seem to have a point to why the man was there.
The small man wearing a bowler and dressed in a dapper tweed suit with bulky coke bottle glasses shuffled into his place in the center of room and gently coughed, trying to grab their attention.
“Where have you been?” asked the third voice.
“I had to use the little boys’ room.”
“And you didn’t bother to ask whether it was all right with us?”
“You seemed busy.”
“What are we paying you for?”
“You’re not paying me anything.”
“Are you paying us?” asked the first voice.
“No, should I be?”
“Never mind,” said the fourth voice, “Let’s just get back to the task at hand.”
“Fine with me,” said the first voice. He shook off the rattle of the argument and went back to his deep monotone way of speaking to the little man, “Have you completed your task?”
“We’ve already been over this.” Said the fourth.
“We have? Oh yes, well th
en, um, you have pleased us all. Have you brought what we asked of you?”
“I have.”
“We asked?” the first voice scoffed. “Please, we had nothing to do with it. That’s your little vanity project he’s got in that box.” He scoffed again, “We asked!”
“Okay! Fine! I asked?”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that clears that up.”
The little man was developing a sinking suspicion that all of his long hours of hard work were going to waste on people who obviously were not prepared to deal with the overall enormity of the situation that was the end of the world.
“Good, is it enlaced with the priceless jewels I had specified?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t skimp on the rubies. I like rubies.”
“I think you’ll be pleased.”
“Good. Well, you can just leave it there. Thanks for all your hard work.”
“Is that it?”
“Don’t you have other things to do?” asked the third voice.
“Yes, but--” concerned consternation filled the little man.
“You have been dismissed. We are done here.”
“Yes, but I was wondering about the book and the chosen one to whom I gave it. I’m not sure it may have been the best decision. If I may propose.”
There was silence.
“Hello?”
Silence.
“Anybody there? Anybody?”
Still more silence.
“Okay.” He said to no one there but the echoes, “I guess that was it.”
*****
The convertible pulled up to a charming little yellow house with a white picket fence and a mailbox in the shape of a cat. The lawn was meticulously cared for and freshly trimmed, a vibrant color of green usually reserved for an Adam Pynacker painting. The stained wooden shutters that outlined the windows were a rich russet brown with a small heart hand-carved in the center of each.
The house belonged in a book, preferably where a woodcutter’s family would happily live until their children wandered off into the forest, ate a house made of confectioneries, then were all sent to prison for assault with a deadly oven on an old woman whose only crime was not wanting her home destroyed by a couple of bratty kids with a sweet tooth.
Dana Plough sat in the car and stared at the house, her hand petrified by the touch of the door handle, while a half eaten licorice stick dangled from her lips.
Her other hand was firmly locked like a vice on the driver’s hand as she blocked any blood that might have wanted to flow through it. The past ebbed and flowed over her mind, the memories of childhood crashing on the shore of her adulthood.
Satan pried his mangled hand from her grasp and patted her on the knee. He wasn’t sure what the appropriate thing to do was in a situation like this. He wasn’t even sure what the situation was. Whenever he had attempted to question her about her parents, she would shove some sort edible food item, and once a packet of ketchup she found on the floor when she had been desperate and out of food into her mouth and pretend she couldn’t talk with a full mouth.
He knew what it was like having to embarrassedly walk up to your father and try to act like all that stuff you did when you were younger and rebellious had never happened. He was doing something, and he knew deep down that his dad would be very proud of him for his accomplishments and finally take him fishing like he did with his brother.
“Ready to do this?”
“No.”
“Come on, how hard can it be? They’re just people. Your parents raised a very successful, beautiful and charming woman. They’re probably beaming with pride and telling all their friends all about their big television star of a daughter.”
“You don’t know my folks at all.”
“We don’t have to go in if you don’t want to.”
“Great, let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Wait, wait.”
“No. You said we didn’t have to do it and I’m not going to do it. I’m not! I’m not! I’m not! And that’s all there is to it, you can’t me do it, I won’t.”
“I believe you just regressed to two years old.”
“I can’t help it! They make me crazy. My entire life has been one big getaway from the prison that was my youth. You can’t expect me to just turn myself in to the prison guards just like that.”
A small grey-haired woman in a pink and blue evening coat opened the door of the house and peered out into the car. Her expression went from confusion about what kind of hardened criminal would be sitting outside her house waiting for the right moment to pop out to rape and kill her in what could only be construed as an emotional cry for help, to an expression of pure unadulterated happiness.
She jumped up and down waving frantically, the flap of skin under her arm giggling and flapping in the breeze like a flag made of jelly. She ran screaming like an owl in a wood chipper into the house.
“Well, the jig is up. I think she saw us,” said Satan.
“Maybe she didn’t get a good look at me. Maybe she thought I was the mailman; old people are always anticipating the Publishers’ Clearinghouse sweepstakes in their box.”
The woman came running out of the house, feverishly dragging an old man behind her. The man was wearing a t-shirt, a pair of boxers, and black socks, and was having a hard time keeping up with her pace. His legs were skinny and pale white.
The sight to which, when he went to get the morning paper, most of his neighbors would take to keeping the window blinds shut tight until it was safe to look out on the day without losing their appetite for their morning sugary cereals.
The couple came barreling down the walkway and through the gate. They reached the car and hit it with a resounding thud. The woman was out of breath and struggling to keep her balance as the blood poured into the many appendages of her short and stubby body, but kept a broad smile as her gaze never left the woman in the passenger’s seat.
“Is it really you? Is it really her?” said the woman.
“Hi mom.” Her voice soft and had a musicality to it Satan had never heard before.
“And what am I, chopped liver?” blustered Mr. Plough, bending over the window, pants creeping down his backside, to give the neighbors a reason to nail up their storm shutters on even the sunniest of days.
“Shut up Larry.” Mrs. Plough kiddingly jabbed him in his bulging stomach that was encroaching into the car. “I just can’t believe you’re here! After all these years. I know, I know, you’re terribly busy with your career, but really, you could have picked up the phone. I tried to call you, but the number you gave me has been disconnected for the last fifteen years.”
“Whoops. Didn’t I give you my new one?” shame was also Satan had never seen from her, but she seemed to be exhibiting that also.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mrs. Plough gently patted her hand and stroked her hair with a mother’s loving touch.”What matters is that you’re here. Oh hey, I just had a crazy idea. Who’s in the mood for some carob-flavored hot cocoa?”
“Should we be?” questioned Satan who had been hypnotized up to this point by the bubbling enthusiasm of Mrs. Plough.
“Don’t be silly, we wouldn’t dare think of drinking anything else. It’s very healthy and high in sucrose. More than forty percent than regular chocolate” as if she had been kidnapped and forced to repeat advertising slogans. “It’s also rich in pectin, non-allergenic, abundant in protein, and has no oxalic acid. And if I must say, is much tastier. Yummy!”
“Well who am I to argue with a steaming cup of boiling sucrose?” agreed Satan.
“Great. Come on, come on.”
Dana Plough stepped out of the car, which broke off her mother’s talking to gaze upon on the massive bulge that protruded from beneath her daughter’s bosom. Mrs. Plough had been waiting for almost two decades to see her child again, but reconciliation with Dana Plough took a backseat to every mother’s happiest day, knowing that sh
e would be a grandmother.
“You’re pregnant!?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my lord, look at you, you’re so big. This really is a special occasion. Forget the carob; this is a celebration, we’re drinking Ovaltine!”
“Yum?” declared a worried Satan.
Mrs. Plough took her daughter’s arm and led her into the house, leaving Mr. Plough and Satan outside alone with each other.
“So you get good mileage on this thing? I’ve got the minivan over there.” Said Mr. Plough pointing out what was his pride and joy. He didn’t necessarily want nor need a minivan, but he cleverly bargained the salesman down to knock off three hundred dollars on the sticker price, even though the salesman had offered to take off five.
A man is only as good as his bartering prowess and Mr. Plough was a man who wouldn’t take no for an answer, even if he was undercutting himself in the process.
“She’s a beauty.” Satan whistled and nodded his head, trying to act impressed about the hunk of brown steel and wood paneling with the words The Beast scrolled onto its rear bumper that Mr. Plough had given a place of honor in his yard, between the hideously nightmarish pipe smoking lawn gnomes and pink flamingos that lined the driveway.
“Well we should be getting in,” Mr. Plough might not have known how to haggle, but he was a pro at knowing when a conversation had reached a dead end.
Satan entered first at the insistence of Mr. Plough, who was holding the door open for him while a gust of wind blew open the fly on his boxers, revealing something more horrific than the Prince of Darkness who was standing before him could have ever used as torture in the deepest pits of Hell [Even the devil has his limits].
As he stepped into the living room his senses were hit by a brick wall. Thousands of tiny painted eyes gazed out from thousands of Hummel figurines, piercing his very being.
The cherubic faces of the porcelain children stared a hole through his soul, with their glares fixed tight on his; they mocked everything that may have been right with the world.
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” said Mrs. Plough, glowing with the pride of a woman whose existence was run by miniature glass children.
Her life was ruled by the iron fists of a glossy white and cherry cheeked community of fiendish happy-faced characters. A town comprised of people whose very being must have been a result of someone a very dark and painful life full of the types of troubling travails that Dante would have hid under his bed for and cried like a small girl for his mommy.
