"Modern Art" by Artem Belov

Editor's Introduction: This week we bring you a sardonic and thoughtful story which explains how the future might use...

Modern Art

by Artem Belov

“Who’s next on the list?”

Fetisov fidgeted about in the passenger’s seat; he coughed and took out a piece of paper, folded in four. The years had taken their toll; Fetisov suffered from nearsightedness, but never could pick a time to go to the eye clinic. Looking down, Fetisov pressed a small button on the side of his mask. With a loud click, his lenses stuck out, helping him to read another name from the list.

“Melissa Kitch, fifty three years old, single. She lives in the fourth block of the city, in a ‘Tree of Life’ cylinder. Here’s the quote: ‘I am depressed, constantly fatigued, I see only nightmares. I am so tired of all this, so fed up, my soul demands your help! After many years of hard work, I now understand my whole life has gone down the slope. Only the Masterpiece can save me!’”

“Hmm…” Jorge grunted, carefully turning his car on the crossroads.

At least the fourth block was not so far away––only five minutes of driving. Too many people were suffering under the dead weight of their empty hopes and childish dreams. The rate of orders had kicked up sky high. Just a couple of years ago, the creative duo of Fetisov and Jorge had only two or three contracts in a week. Now they were raining down on their car, slithering through every street. Miss Kitch was the third contract in a single day! Everybody likes to see money piling up in their bank account, but this was simply too much. There had to be a moral break to this!

“What’s her occupation?” asked Jorge, the driver. But as Fetisov opened his mouth to answer, Jorge waved with his free hand, “wait, wait, let me guess. She’s a linker!”

“Right from the tip of my tongue.”

“Unbelievable, tenth linker in the last month. What a horrible profession indeed!”

“Grayness, friend. The life of a linker is one gray stain. Yet, despite the occupation, the human soul flies like a butterfly: it begs for sunlight and nectar. Which means art, obviously.”

The linkers were far from being rare in the twenty fifth century. Judging by the amount of specialists, the profession was among the popular ones… Was it worth it? The linker’s pact with the government was quite simple. In exchange for solid amounts of money, long needles drained the last crumbs of energy from each linker, transferring them through a complex network of tubes and pipes into the bodies of politicians, full of vigor. But what could a linker spend his colossal salary on? Their destiny was to hoard a fortune until one day they signed a contract with Artists, after facing their husk of a body in a mirror and realizing, at last, how dark and hollow their souls had become.

Fetisov glanced out the window furtively. The tall cylinder-hives that formed the city gazed back with boundless anguish. Some people never went outside in their entire lives, never stepped out of the ant hill they had built for themselves. What for, really? Everything is so close by: shops, schools, hospitals, malls, workplaces… Yet, those hives lack a single thing. An art gallery. The two friends had quickly realized––if people do not want to go out, but are hungry for art, why not earn a shiny coin by delivering it to them? Jorge ran his hand through his messy black hair; some years ago, when he had just teamed up with old Fetisov, working on the Masterpieces had been a grueling nightmare. The toil had drained him dry. It demanded devilish concentration, it exhausted the mind, flayed the soul, preyed upon sanity. After each workday Jorge couldn’t do anything but fall on his bed in a cramped flat, listening,  as he tried to fall asleep, to his own blood pumping in his temples. Nowadays the young man was only afraid of a boring routine. He prayed to the Gods that the Masterpieces wouldn’t turn dull, like a linker’s life.

“That’s it.”

The car stopped smoothly, flinching a little at the very end. Jorge loved that moment the most; he always told Fetisov that nothing resembles the Artist’s work better than that. Inhaling deeply, he let go of the steering wheel and smiled widely, enjoying the moment. Fetisov waited in silence for his partner to still the inspirational thirst. After all those years of hard work they knew each other from the ground up. Jorge reached for the back seat and grabbed his little bag. He took out a tablet with a bright screen.

“Don’t you believe MY list? I told you the name of our client just a couple of minutes ago!”

“Your paper is a liar. You always drop ink on it… It’s outrageous you are still using those ancient pens!” Jorge looked into the rows of letters and nodded to himself, “alright, no differences from my list this time.”

Sighing, Fetisov stepped out of the car and looked over his shoulder.

“I’ll get the decorations. Go check on our ma’am, maybe she changed her mind.”

Jorge ran through the long hallway of the “Tree of Life” cylinder. A bored security guard sat there––the likes of him were ordering the Artists almost as frequent as the linkers.

“How can I help you sir?” he said the memorized greeting phrase.

The guard probably repeated it over and over several thousand times a day.

“Good day!” waved Jorge cheerfully; unlike Fetisov, he didn’t wear a mask, preferring the clients to see his face and live emotions, “could you please tell me in which module Melissa Kitch lives?”

Sniffing, the security guard stuck his eyes in a database. He rummaged through it for some time, then raised his eyes again.

“Floor one-three-four, module AP-RO-12. If you need anything else, please, ask me. Take some advertisement flyers to your right…”

Jorge didn’t listen anymore. He took the calling device and dialed the right number.

“Hello?”

“Miss Kitch? It’s the Artists. We received your payment. Is our contract still on?”

“Sure! Come, quick!”

“Give us ten minutes to gather the decorations.”

Fetisov, puffing up, broke into the hallway with a mountain of the cardboard boxes on his shoulders. The mask distorted the sound of his breathing, making him sound like a hedgehog. His long, dark green cloak stood out against the gray citizens’ uniforms in the background. The security guard raised his eyebrows.

“So you are the famous Artist duo, aren’t you?”

“That we are,” winked Jorge, putting his hands into the pockets of his sky-blue jacket.

“You better help me, blabbermouth!” half of the boxes from Fetisov’s shoulders crashed on Jorge; his knees shook under the weight.

“How much for a Masterpiece?!” shouted the security guard, leaning over the information desk, as the two tall Artists walked away.

“Thirteen thousand Units, but you will have to wait a couple of months––we’re stacked with orders! You can buy it on our website.”

Finally, the elevator clanged and stopped on floor one-three-four; Melissa already stood in the open doors of her living module, waiting for the guests anxiously. Jorge noticed that she looked like a typical linker––lank cheeks, scanty silver hair on a spotted head, cracked lips… a walking skeleton.

“Here, please! Right here!”

Still puffing like a hedgehog, Fetisov put down the boxes. The Artists found themselves in a large guest room. It was richly decorated; countless digital paintings covered the walls––Melissa didn’t even need any paint or wallpapers.

“You have a real gallery here,” Jorge smiled, “one could right away spot a person that has a taste for art!”

‘Those digital paintings are worth nothing… I don’t even want anything anymore,’ Melissa wiped a tear that crawled down her cheek, ‘my soul can be saved only by a Masterpiece. I decided to spend my savings on it a long time ago! Can we start yet?’

“Don’t rush it,” Fetisov calmly answered, catching his breath back, “we’ll set up the decorations… We’ll make everything right. If you wish, we can send copies of the Masterpiece to your relatives.”

The friends started working. Soon a folding swing was hanging from the ceiling; Jorge stuck real roses into it, while Fetisov set tall, spiral-shaped candles across the floor. The square light-panel couldn’t compete with the smooth radiance of the candles. The dark cloth draped the walls like a curtain. Golden thread tassels gleamed against it.

“That’s… beautiful! I never had dreamed…” Melissa sat on the swing and breathed in the roses’ aroma.

“Just one more little touch…” Jorge sprinkled the flowers with water, and the drops froze on them like diamond beads.

“That’s ideal. You two are wizards!”

“Hope you’re pleased with our services,” Fetisov approached Miss Kitch and handed her a smartphone with an opened website on it, “Would you like to leave a positive comment?”

“Sure! What a miracle!”

The woman spend a minute sitting still on the swing, and then leaned back. She squinted like a cat in the sunlight, her face brightened with an expression that one could not mistake for anything else––relief, long-awaited peace.

“I’m ready.”

Fetisov put his hands in his pockets. Jorge nodded and pulled the trigger. The gunshot thundered, making the living module’s glass tremble. Melissa Kitch sat with a smile of untold happiness. A trickle of blood crawled down her forehead.

“One centimeter to the right from the center, just how you suggested… an ideal match with the crimson roses. And the swing… I must admit, my friend, the idea was brilliant. I even doubted it for a second at first!”

“Your curtain,” complimented Fetisov, “is a real cherry on the cake. It’s great we work as a team. Otherwise we would be the worst enemies on the battlefield of art.”

“Precisely,” Jorge holstered his gun and took out a camera, “the Masterpiece is outstanding this time. Melissa’s relatives will be chuffed.”

The shuffling steps sounded behind the Artists. A pale security guard stepped in, trifling with his uniform.

“I’m sorry… excuse me, I stood behind the door when I heard the gunshot. Is the Masterpiece done already? So quick?”

“Come in,” waved Fetisov welcomingly, “we can allow you to take a peek. As an exception.”

The security guard lost his breath.

“Oh, this… this… I cannot find words for it! Look how happy she is! She’s so lucky! Walked away from her job, with such a bang!”

“Solace and an unasked departure into the kingdom of the dead. Such was the idea this time,” Fetisov raised his finger.

“Hmm,” grunted Jorge, feeling his heart tightening.

Why had she decided to be a linker? What did she expect, what she was even thinking? Did she seek happiness in money? No way; no one can find happiness in a heap of gold, no matter how long one would dig it down or pile it up. Maybe Melissa always wanted to meet such end. Being a linker was the shortest path to this. Through suffering.

In the car Fetisov looked at his list again, using his lenses. A lot of unfortunate souls to snuff out, people waiting on a phone call, for Jorge’s joyful voice. A sudden car turn––and the list escaped the nearsighted Artist’s grip, fluttering out in the wind.

“Damn it!”

“Told you your paper is a liar!” Jorge burst into laughter, “A traitor, too! Here, take my tablet. Who’s next on the list?”

-The End-

Author's Biography: Artem Belov is an author based in Russia. In 2019, he self-published a collection of short stories called "On the Other Side of the Cage" in Russian. His short fiction has featured in popular Russian magazine Machines and Mechanisms and will soon feature in the horror magazine Fantomas.

Tom Jolly - "The Cereal Bowl of Indestructibility"

Editor's Introduction: An insurance claims adjuster usually has a fairly boring day, but not in this case, as Joe Parker stumbles across...

The Cereal Bowl of Indestructibility

by Tom Jolly

 Joe Parker pursed his lips and hesitated with his pen hovering above the insurance form. Though he was the claims adjuster, he’d offered to help Ralph fill out the claim forms for his trailer because Ralph was illiterate. He’d known Ralph ever since elementary school, the last stab at higher education that Ralph had attempted. Ralph and his mother had lived off Social Security while he got odd jobs here and there, then she up and died of lung cancer, leaving him nothing but the trailer he was living in, squatting on an abandoned piece of property. It was almost incredible that the trailer had been insured, but Joe looked out for Ralph like a little brother, and made sure that one way or the other, the payments had been made.

“You told me earlier that your trailer was destroyed by a hurricane,” he said to Ralph. “The problem we’re going to have with that is that there hasn’t been a hurricane recorded within two hundred miles for over six months. I can help you file the claim, but the head office will probably kick it back. What really happened?”

Ralph Borden looked small and trapped, sitting across the diner table from Joe, hands fidgeting with his coffee cup. “What really happened?” His voice was thin and reedy. “It’s a little hard to believe, Joe. Can’t we just stick with the hurricane story?”

Joe shook his head. “What really destroyed your trailer, Ralph? This is your old buddy Joe talking to you. Give it to me straight.”

Ralph let out a defeated sigh, splaying his hands out flat on the table as though trying to stabilize himself. “Well, this might sound a little crazy, but this alien gave me a bowl, and then it died, and some other aliens came to get the bowl back from me. When their space ship took off, it was too close to my home, and it sort of sucked the mobile up into the air and dropped it a bit. Just like a hurricane would.” He shook his head and couldn’t look Joe in the eyes. “I knew I shoulda installed those tiedowns like you told me.”

“Aliens?” Joe blew out a little puff of air, then leaned back and looked at the ceiling, tapping his pen slowly on the scratched and faded Formica tabletop. Ralph wasn’t the brightest bulb in the room, and perhaps he just saw something he didn’t understand. “Maybe you better start at the beginning,” Joe said.

Ralph looked out the window of the diner and pondered where he should start. After a minute of wandering around in his head, he finally said, “I was huntin’ possum along Jack’s Creek when I found the alien. There weren’t no spaceship around at all, just a big flattened area like one had landed and taken off. I figured maybe the rest of the crew had left him behind on accident, or maybe he was a criminal and they tossed him out, you know?”

Joe nodded politely, took a sip of coffee, and reluctantly motioned for him to continue.

“Okay. So, I ain’t found no possum, but instead this ugly thing lyin’ on the ground. It looked like it was reaching out to grab me and I jumped back, but this wiggly arm, a, uh…”

“A tentacle?” Joe suggested, still disbelieving Ralph’s interpretation of events. But what sort of land animal had wiggly arms?

“Yeah, this tentacule thing couldn’t reach me. The thing, it looked like it had six eyes, like black spider eyes, staring at me, and one of its leg-tentacules was missing, and it was oozing this green stuff into the dirt.”

“I get it. It was injured.” Joe winced every time Ralph butchered the word ‘tentacle’ but he had learned long ago it was useless to correct him.

“Yeah, and it had this bowl in its hand. And it was holding the bowl out to me, like it was trying to give it to me. It was trying to talk, but it sounded like goobly oobly blah blah, just alien hogwash. May as well been a dog farting, I couldn’t understand a word of it. And it smelled bad, too.” Ralph wrinkled his nose with the memory. “Anyway, it died after a while. I didn’t help it. Die, that is. And I took that bowl from its cold dead tentacule.”

Joe leaned forward, sensing a possible lead in the story that might get him closer to the truth. “Is the body still there? The alien?”

Ralph looked distraught. “Naw. I went back later to check, since I thought it might be important, but there wasn’t nothin’ there. No body, no green blood, like someone had cleaned up. It was weird, and I was a little scared, I can tell you.”

“But you have this mysterious bowl now?” Joe probed.

“Nope. I had to give that back to the other alien. But that’s later. I wondered what was so special about this bowl that the dying critter wanted to give it to me. Maybe it was some ritual thing, or it changed water into wine, or ramen into beef stew. Anyway, I messed with it a little bit,” Ralph said.

Despite his disbelief, Joe leaned forward. “And?”

“Well, the ramen was still ramen.” He shrugged sheepishly. “I ate cereal out of it a few times. But I didn’t get no special powers, that I know of, anyways. And it tasted all right, but my spoon stuck to the bottom a little bit, like there was a magnet there.”

Joe raised his eyebrows encouragingly and sipped his coffee.

“I had to drink the cereal right from the bowl so that I could get the spoon back out without makin’ a big mess. Next, I put some nuts and bolts in it, and they stuck to the bottom too. It didn’t put them together or anything. I put it on my head like a hat, and it fit pretty good, but I didn’t get any new ideas. I started thinking it was just a bowl.”

“A magnetic bowl,” Joe provided. “And a hat.”

“Well, yeah. I reckon so,” said Ralph. “Anyways, I step out of my mobile a day or two later wearing it like a hat, with my gun in hand to go looking for possum again, and there’s two men outside, maybe federal agents or something, I don’t know. But they don’t tell me to freeze or anything, one of them just pulls out a gun and shoots at me. This blue flash shows up in the air about a foot from me, the bullet drops to the ground, and then the bowl shoots out these green rays and the two guys are gone, just like that. Just a couple of greasy gray clouds where they were. Even their guns were gone, more’s the pity.”

Joe’s jaw was hanging down. He leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered, “You might have started with that! You should be talking to a lawyer, Ralph, not an insurance adjuster. What did you do then?”

“I went hunting for possum like I was gonna do,” Ralph said. “I kept the bowl on my head, though. Not like I was going to call the police, you know. No bodies to show em’ anyways. Never did see their car, either. The bowl got me curious, though, and when I got home, still with no damn possum, I decided to see what made it work. I got out a screwdriver and pried and scraped at it, but there weren’t no screws and no cracks to get any leverage. So I got a hammer and started tapping at it, but it didn’t make no marks howsoever. I tried to use the screwdriver like a chisel with the hammer, and the thing still wouldn’t crack. It was, like, impossible to break open.”

The hair on the back of Joe’s neck was standing straight up, thinking about how the bowl might have reacted to this crude attack on its integrity. “Indestructible,” he muttered.

“Yup. That’s the word. Not even a place for batteries, which you’d kind of ‘spect, seein’ it shoots death rays and such. I thought about shooting at it to get inside, but then I remembered those two agents and what happened to them, and decided not to do that.”

“Probably a wise choice,” Joe said, cringing. He imagined a monkey chiseling at a propane tank to see if there was a banana inside.

“I left the bowl on my TV then, just by accident, and when I turned on my TV to watch the news, maybe see if there was anything about an alien invasion, all I got on my screen was little spots of light with some weird letters under each one. I moved the bowl away and the news came on, and then I put it back and the little dots came back. I turned the bowl, and the dots of light—they looked kind o’ like stars—shifted around too. Really weird. One of the dots was lit up different than the others, with a lot more letters under it. I stuck a tape in the VHS and recorded it for about ten minutes. Anyways, after playin’ with it awhile, I took it off so I could watch the news.”

Joe’s breath caught. There was a star map? Was Ralph smart enough to even make this up? Of course, the recording would only work if the signal was coming in through the TV RF input, and how would the bowl know how to format the signal? But if there were any chance at all… “What did you do with the tape?”

“I kept it in the bowl, so I wouldn’t get it mixed up with my other tapes. Seemed the smart thing to do.” He smiled smugly.

Joe rubbed his forehead as a headache started to sneak in. “You put the VHS tape in the bowl with the magnet in the bottom?” he asked.

“Yup.”

“Okay.” Joe sighed. “Go on.”

“So the next day,” Ralph continued, “I hear this whiny, windy noise outside, and I look out the window. There’s this big space ship coming down in that flat meadow a few hundred yards from my mobile, you know, where all the blackberries grow next to the creek? I can’t see the space ship too good since those big walnut trees block the view.  Otherwise, I would have got a good picture of it. I hear this big ‘foop’ sound, so I go outside.

“I’d left the bowl out front, since I was trying to grow a tomato plant in it to see what would happen, so it just looked like another flower pot, disguised. Anyways, here come a couple more of those ugly aliens. One of ‘ems got a bowl tucked under his tentacule and the other one is flailing his tentacules around, and points at the bowl the dead alien gave me. He kinda swishes over to the bowl, ‘cause his legs is tentacules too, picks it up and shakes the dirt and tomato plant out with no regard for me or the plant. It stares at me for a minute and says more googly oogly blah blah again, makes no sense to me. I tell it, ‘Hey, your friend gave me that bowl as a gift. It’s mine now, so you just better put it right back where it was.’ Well, they blathered on for a while, then the one alien who was carrying a different bowl turns around and touches his bowl in a weird way using some of his tentacules, and the bowl starts unfolding into a big shape! In about fifteen seconds, it’s bigger than my trailer. It’s a spaceship! The other alien, he takes my bowl, and does the same thing, so there’s two alien spaceships parked right next to my trailer! Looked like an upscale trailer park. I was really excited, because I thought they were going to give me the spaceship and show me how it works. He says something to me in alienish, and they both get on their spaceships and close the doors.”

Joe was getting into the story for the story’s sake, whether he could rationalize the fantastic details or not. His coffee cup was empty and he waved down a waitress for more. “So we’re finally getting to the end of your shaggy-dog story where your mobile home gets destroyed?”

Ralph nodded slowly. “But there’s no dog. You know my hound dog died last year, right? And he wasn’t shaggy.”

“Just an expression, Ralph,” Joe said. “Tell me the rest of your story.”

Ralph’s forehead creased a little, but he continued. “The ships started to hum, and the ground shook, and those two ships rose into the air. When they were about twenty feet up, my mobile suddenly came off the ground and started to follow the two ships, and the sides crumpled in. The ships stopped suddenly where they were, and the mobile home fell to the ground from ten feet high. And that’s why it looks like it was caught in a hurricane.” He nodded his head and took a sip of coffee.

Joe held up one hand. “So let’s get this straight,” he touched a finger, “there was a dead alien, but he’s gone now along with his blood.” He touched a second finger. “Then there was an indestructible cereal bowl, but you don’t have it anymore.” He touched a third finger. “Aliens landed in your front yard, but you took no pictures. So we really have no proof at all that the aliens were ever here.” He didn’t bother to mention the videotape. He closed his hand, as though squeezing away any chance for a plausible story.

“That’s what I been tryin’ to tell you. I need to blame it on a hurricane. Nobody’s gonna believe the truth ‘ceptin’ maybe you.”

Joe nodded and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “We can try the hurricane story, I guess. I don’t know if it’ll fly. It feels like you’re not telling me something, though.”

Ralph blushed. “Well, it’s not the end of the story, exactly. The aliens saw that they’d destroyed my mobile on accident and they landed again. One of the aliens walked up to me, pointed at the mobile with his tentacule, and pulled a little flat, square wafer out of this vest-thing he was wearing. The alien had like a thousand of these flat squares all around his body each in a little flat pouch, like little armor plates on an armadillo. He handed it to me, then said some more alien stuff, got back on his ship, and off they went, and the trailer flopped around like a catfish out of water as they left.”

“So you still have this little metal plate?” Joe asked doubtfully.

Ralph unbuttoned a shirt pocket and pulled out a black, square wafer, almost an inch wide, about as thick as a driver’s license. He slid it over to Joe. “It’s cold,” he said.

Joe picked up the thin wafer and dropped it again almost immediately. “Damn, you mean it’s cold. Have you tried anything with it?”

“Yeah. It’s the same temperature all the time. Thirty-six degrees.” He scratched his head. “Don’t matter if I stick it in the toaster oven or a cup of coffee, I take it out and measure the temperature with a thermometer and it’s always thirty-six degrees. I poured hot water on it and it was still cold. If I stick in an icebox, it’ll sit in a little pool of water forever, ‘cause it’s a little warmer than the ice. You know?” He paused, thinking. “I used it in a beer cooler, too, and that worked pretty good. It’s like havin’ free ice forever. Not really a fair trade for my mobile, though.”

Joe picked up the wafer cautiously and dipped it in his own coffee, then pulled it out and felt it. “I’ll be rolled in breadcrumbs. Where do you think the energy is going?”

“What energy?” Ralph asked. “It’s cold.”

Joe shook his head, examining the chip. “Never mind.”

“Anyways,“ Ralph continued, “I dug some stuff out of my trailer; clothes, bathroom stuff, beer, and the video tape, and got a room at the Motel 6. When I drove by there the next day, there were cars all over the place, people goin’ through what was left of the mobile, and I didn’t stick around. Maybe they’ll think I’m dead.”

Probably not, Joe thought. The big question was how fast he could find a buyer for the alien chip before they tracked down Ralph, and how fast Ralph would be forced to give Joe up once he was questioned, friend or not. He looked out the diner window, scanning the parking lot for government cars or suspicious white vans, but didn’t see any government-issued license plates. Ralph, he knew, tended to pay for everything with cash since his credit was so bad, so that might actually delay the feds, or whoever, a few days from finding him. He’d have to give Ralph a few hundred to make sure his cash held out for a while. Maybe move him from the Motel 6 to his spare bedroom, though that would mean Martha would be cursing a blue streak at him for the whole time Ralph stayed there.

Ralph pointed at the chip. “So you think this will convince your boys that aliens destroyed my mobile? I didn’t think they’d buy that story. Will they buy me a new one? Or a house, maybe?”

Joe smiled, twiddling the cold thin chip with his fingers, thinking about an early retirement and a nice house for Ralph. Some place where the possums still ran wild. “I’m pretty sure we can work something out, my friend.”

END

Author Bio: Tom Jolly is a retired astronautical/electrical engineer who now spends his time writing SF and fantasy, designing board games, and creating obnoxious puzzles. His stories have appeared in Analog SF, Daily Science Fiction, Compelling Science Fiction, New Myths and a number of anthologies, including a collection of his short SF, "Damn the Asteroids, Full Speed Ahead"  available on Amazon. He lives in Santa Maria, California, with his wife Penny in a place where mountain lions and black bears still visit. You can discover more of his stories at www.silcom.com/~tomjolly/tomjolly2.htm. 

"Second Time Around" by John Leahy

Introduction: It's said there are no truly original ideas in story telling, but as John Leahy shows in this story, that might not be true. Here is a well-written moving tale about...

Second Time Around

by John Leahy

It punched through the smooth thing around it with its front flipper. A grainy material flooded in on top of it. Sand. Up, up, up a voice inside it prompted. Keep going. It smashed through the remainder of the shell and tunnelled through the sand, propelling itself upward. As it climbed, something flashed arrow-like through its instinct-dominated consciousness. A vision of some sort.

A picture of a woman walking down a crowded, rain-hammered street, a hard look on her face.  

It kept on digging. Whatever about the mystery that had just hit it, it was no rival to instinct. There was important work to be done. Urgent work.

Another thought struck.

            Two girls, a boy and a man playing basketball in a yard at the rear of an apartment building. One of the girls looked like a younger version of the woman in the first thought - the woman walking down the street. In New York.

It dug on, knowing that it wasn’t far from emerging from the sand. Onto the beach.

            The three kids and the man playing basketball were a family. A family that had grown up in the town of Coldwater, Michigan. A town that Carrie Sherman had always wanted to escape from.

With less than six inches to go from the surface, the memories began to flood in thick and fast, forming a life – not unlike dropping a kitchen towel over a collection of water droplets, which soak through the material and run toward each other, eventually merging:

studying in bed late at night while in high school...losing some of her deadbeat friends in her senior year because she spent her time studying and not drinking with them...grown-up Carrie Sherman walking down that street in New York again – the turtle knew it was Park Avenue now...Carrie graduating top of her class in college, smiling for her father’s camera as she posed for some photos, her teeth a little yellow from a smoking habit which had grown on her during the four gruelling years of her advertising degree...Carrie walking down Park Avenue once more, her face set and serious, eyes fixed on something – or someone, perhaps...Carrie, smiling once more for the camera in her new junior advertising executive office at Plant-Gerber, New York’s premier advertising agency, Carrie’s teeth a little yellower now, her physique carrying a little comfort weight too, in contrast to the beautiful blonde-haired woman taking her photo - her friend and burgeoning rival, Emily Schraeder...

The turtle poked through into sunlight. It didn’t pause to bask in this brightness that it had never seen before but kept on working until the remainder of its body was free from the sand. It could hear a crashing sound in the distance and knew that was where it was headed. Water. Up ahead of it the turtle saw three more hatchlings scuttling toward a lip in the sand. Two reached the lip and disappeared over it.

The turtle got moving, scooting forward as quick as its not-made-for-land body could carry it. It was aware that there were more hatchlings rushing forward at either side of it.

Carrie Sherman making her way forward on Park Avenue, her determined progress as relentless as the rain. Her eyes are set on the blonde-haired woman standing amidst a crowd of pedestrians waiting to cross the street in hectic traffic...  

As it neared the sand-lip the hatchling just up ahead of it to its right was set upon by a large hairy brown thing that appeared out of nowhere. A rat. The hatchling dashed onward, leaving its sibling to its doomed struggle. The hatchling went over the lip at speed, almost going head over heels. There were many more of its brood ahead of it on the descent to the ocean, whose powerful waves crashed against the shoreline. It saw a pale ghost-crab emerge from a hole in the sand and grab a hatchling in its pincers.

 The blonde-haired, beautiful Emily Schraeder, waiting to cross the street to her lunchtime haunt. Beautiful Emily. Maggie’s friend. But a friend who was landing all the big accounts. Charming all the gone-to-seed frat boy CEOs with her looks, her laugh and her tight little ass...

As it rushed down the incline toward the water it saw another crab flash out of a hole and grab a hatchling. The crab began to haul the kicking, flapping abductee toward its lair. Up ahead, a frigate bird dipped out of the sky and suddenly a hatchling that had been no more than a few feet from the water became airborne, gripped tightly in the bird’s talons, soon to be eviscerated in the frigate’s nest and fed in pieces to its brood. There was a commotion on the sand just behind the hatchling – it knew that yet another of its siblings had fallen victim to a predator. It powered onward as fast as it could. Only a combination of determination and luck would get it to safety.

Carrie glances sideways at the traffic. It is moving quickly and relentlessly. As she passes behind Emily she moves close to her.

There is a cry and the sound of tyres skidding in the rain. There is a thud, followed by some shocked exclamations and screams. Someone shouts at someone to call a paramedic. Carrie keeps walking, her step slowing. She stops and turns around. People are gathered around the motionless form of Emily Schraeder, which lies on the asphalt before a taxi. No-one is looking in Carrie’s direction. At that moment she knows she has gotten away with it. No-one has spotted the quick jab of her elbow, the murder she has been contemplating for over a month.

It pays off. As the weeks pass she gets most of Emily’s clients. The ones she doesn’t get initially gravitate to her over time. Her star keeps rising and in less than five years she has her own boutique firm on Eighth Avenue.

The water was less than two yards away. It could see two hatchlings floating in the hissing white of a dead wave, the thunderous surf not far behind them. These unfortunates have drowned under the brutal force of the waves – it will have to time its entry to the water well.

Carrie builds her empire, buying up rival firms as the years go by, bolting them onto her own. She marries twice, making sure she has nothing to lose by becoming a wife to men richer than her, the unions producing four children. The crutch of her youth accompanies her through the years though, taking its toll. Her smoking eventually takes her lungs and cancer kills her three years shy of her fiftieth birthday.

Paying no heed to the strange Carrie Sherman picture-show playing in its instinct-propelled mind, the hatchling makes its play, entering the water just after the destruction of a particularly fearsome wave. The wave’s dying surf strikes it, blasting the hatchling backward. The hatchling sees another dead comrade floating nearby. It begins moving forward again. When it sees another huge wave hurtling toward it, the hatchling speeds forward with all its might. It has to get under the wave before it breaks or it will join its dead compatriots.

It just makes it. The wave breaks behind the tiny swimmer. The surging churn of its crash catches the hatchling and for a few seconds it spins about helplessly, but eventually calm is restored and the hatchling re-orientates itself. It swims onward, out into the deeper water.

It has made it! The open blue stretches before it. It knows exactly where it is bound – the rich feeding grounds in the waters off eastern Brazil, over a thousand kilometres away. And so its journey begins –

The shark’s huge maw snaps shut around the hatchling.

It has eaten countless newborns that morning, but now something causes the shark’s progress through the water to slow. There are other hatchlings nearby, but for now, the shark’s keen interest in them is abated as another one of these strange…pictures swims through its appetite-driven consciousness. These…things have come to it every so often since it had been born. Images of a blonde-haired woman (her name is Emily Schraeder – the shark has no idea how it knows this) at various stages in her life – her childhood, teen years, adulthood. The shark has never focused on them much – has hardly given them any consideration whatsoever, the predator’s primary purpose in the world being, after all, to feed.

An image of the blonde-haired woman, this Emily Schraeder, lying on a wet road, a thin line of blood flowing down her cheek. Her eyes are open, unblinking. The light is slowly fading from them but while life still lingers in them her gaze remains fixed beyond the field of legs around her on a pair of pink, silver-bowed shoes on the pavement up ahead. Now the shark can see from the eyes of the dying blonde-haired woman...and can see faintly, her thoughts....the blonde-haired woman in a department store laughing with a woman who is trying on the pink shoes...it is clear they are good friends...the thought fades and the shark is once more viewing the pink shoes on the rain-hammered sidewalk, then everything is gone.

There are hatchlings swimming past the shark in abundance now, thrusting forward into the deeper water. The killer knows it should be snapping them up – tasty morsels that they are – and it is still hungry. It is always hungry, of course, it has been since its birth – but something has been sated today. Something…deeper than the need to feed. For eighteen years it has been answering the call of its gut, but at this moment it simply idles in the water, hatchlings speeding by it in droves. It has never experienced this feeling before, this strange…satisfaction.

Slowly, the sensation begins to fade, and the shark’s ancient hunger begins to assume centre stage once more, a roar that the predator knows it will be answering until the second it dies. The water is empty around it, the hatchling brood is well in the distance now, answering their own primordial call. The shark turns and gives pursuit. It will catch them quickly enough.

Time to dine once more.

END

Author's Bio: Writing on and off since he was a child, John Leahy began to take the craft more seriously after winning the Humorous Essay competition at Listowel Writers Week in 2007.

Since then he has had four novels published - Harvest, CROGIAN, Unity and The Faith. His story The Tale In The Attic attained an honorable mention in L Ron Hubbard's Writers Of The Future Contest.

His short story Singers has been included in Flame Tree Publishing's 2017 Pirates and Ghosts anthology, alongside tales by literary greats such as Homer, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, H.P. Lovecraft, and H.G. Wells.

When not writing John Leahy spends his time teaching and performing music, working out, and keeping abreast of the stock market and current affairs. He lives in Abbeyfeale, Ireland.