AND THEN YOU AREN'T--Sci Fi Short Story

This is a short story I wrote yesterday. It came up out of my dreams like from a baptism, whole and complete. It's sort of cathartic thinking about something so final, such a juggernaut that you can't do a single thing to fix it. You know exactly where you're headed and why. You're just there, observing, like watching a roller coaster ride until it's your turn and you can't get off. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. Or not.

AND THEN YOU AREN’T

by Indigo Chase

They absorbed Grandma like a blue-tinged dream. One minute she was regular old cantankerous grandma from whom I got my “sight” and the next, a copy. She sat there in that ratty old chair on the porch with a dorky smile pasted on the pleats of her face. Like Grandma, but completely not. As soon as I opened my mouth to tell Dad, the words IF YOU TELL ANYONE, THEY GO AWAY formed on the age-spotted skin of her hands. The words skittered so quickly away into the cracks in my vision, I doubted I’d seen anything. I hadn’t, had I? A trick of the light? Just the right bend in the spectrum?

I had to know.

Well I wasn’t going to test the theory on anyone I liked. What if they were bluffing—those words? How did I know I wasn’t going stark bonkers?

So I told my terminally grumpy Econ teacher, Mr. Axtell. Before my eyes his skin turned the teensiest tint more blue, so slight the average person would never have noticed. A millisecond of kicking, jerking, contorting, drowning. His face smoothed out. He smiled at me, winked even. Then I knew. That thing with his lips barely tilted up at me was not my Econ teacher any more.

At first they were subtle. Benign. Things went missing, then reappeared, fixed. Whole. Who wouldn’t like that? “Where are my old broken glasses?” you’d ask. “Oh look! Someone replaced them with brand new glasses. Love that.” Only then they’d fix your eyesight and you wouldn’t need those glasses anymore.

Everywhere I saw the flicker of blue as the little monsters ate my world. Coach Tunstall who never gave out Attaboys told me my hurdle times were finally improving. That girl on the cheer squad who always made fun of my clothes—replaced. A shrill of alarm, a tiny choke, their eyes went wide, then that sunny face—that smiley-faced sign that said, “There. We’ve made your life better. You’re welcome.”

And they had. Patchy lawns suddenly grew lush and green, with nary a weed to poke up its unwanted head. Dishes did themselves to a sparkling shine, just like in the ads. Like the sea coming in, the tiny creepy beings washed over everything, making it better, more vibrant, like new.

Somebody finally learned their name. Then it was Lingons are doing this for us. Lingons are taking care of that. All hale the Lingons. They’ve begun to absorb the trash from the oceans. Yay! We’ve made a deal with the Lingons to absorb all our waste. Aren’t they magnificent? They’ve solved the peace problem in the Middle East. No more global warming. They’ll take care of strengthening your house for that hurricane coming up. Wait! Suddenly no more hurricanes to worry about. And the Lingons will take care of that dirty diaper for you. In fact, they’ll replace diapers and clean up your baby so you don’t have to.

They didn’t tell you they would also replace your baby. But that’s what happened. You’d just wake up one morning and your baby, instead of screaming to be picked up, greeted you with a cheerful chirrup and a wave of her little arms and legs.

What’s not to like about that?

Pretty soon everyone loved those crazy little Lingons. “Best thing since buttered bread,” Mom said as she kicked back on the couch and turned on the TV. No more advertisements. Lingons just washed up and took care of all your problems. They congregated around your car exhaust and cleaned the air while their friends washed your windows and repaired that window spider you got from following a truck too closely. Then they replaced your paint job with the one you actually wanted, pulled out all the dents, and juiced up your engine to like new. Wait. It was a new engine. And a new car.

When you drove up to a fast food place, the nutritious food tasted fantastic. You didn’t have to pay for it. You lost weight. And your new Lingon-produced clothes fit well, felt great, and looked fabulous on you.

Every now and then someone I knew winked out. Ceased to be. Plowed under by the conquering wave of happy little Lingons. What popped up like a bobber on a fishing line was a new, improved version, not so untidy with weirdness sticking out all over. So what? Everybody liked them better. Everyone got along so much easier. No one wanted that old, broken person back. They never even knew what hit them.

The thing was, I knew. And I couldn’t say anything. When would my time come to disappear beneath a nearly invisible wave of blueish Lingons? And where did those messy people go? Dead? Taken apart down to the molecules and absorbed into the wave? Why hadn’t they taken me under once they noticed the worry lines I saw on my face when I looked in a mirror? Why hadn’t someone noticed how quiet I’d gotten, and how I retreated into my room so often. That should have been a clear tip-off to those things. Who would rat me out? Or had they tried? What if the Lingons couldn’t replace me?

I tried to school my face each time someone flashed me a new smile and I knew it wasn’t them anymore. I tried not to clench my fists and tense my core when one by one the people in my life betrayed themselves and Lingons took them under.

I felt so helpless.

Alone.

Powerless.

What would happen when they’d cleaned up all the messes?

Why were they here?

What did they want?

And then I saw him. Another imperfect person. He watched me from across the hall at school, he and his black haystack hair and his glasses and Holey Cheese, that zit on his chin. It had been so long since I’d seen a real pimple that it called to me like a fat red siren. I couldn’t look away from it for anything.

It’s not like I didn’t try. I didn’t want to be in charge of another person getting replaced by a spiffed up, flavorless copy. I kind of liked messy. It seemed real and truthful. And human.

He ducked around the corner and I had to follow, like my head and his shared the same stretchy rubber band.

“You know,” he said in my mind. Even his mental voice lacked that terrible perfection.

Yes? How are we doing this? I shook my head, but couldn’t free myself from his grip. Maybe I didn’t want to. Maybe I stared straight at my answer.

Maybe you’ve The Sight like I do. Anyway, you need to say something and walk away or it’ll be obvious.

“You’re in my first hour, aren’t you?” It was all I could think to say out loud.

“If it’s Econ, yes. Did you do the homework?”

“I don’t see why we need to anymore, thanks to the Lingons.” Is that good?

You didn’t walk away. “You’ve got a point. See you in class.”

“Bye.” I jerked my chin, tore my stare from that thing on his chin, and lurched down the hall. How had he noticed me? Who was I kidding. I knew. I never had good hair days. And though I ran hurdles in track, I ran dead last in every practice due to a few extra pounds of unwanted chub. Last especially because the Lingons had come and ‘fixed’ everybody else.

Why hadn’t they fixed me? No clue. Just like I had no idea why they hadn’t just bulldozed me under and gotten a new version all set up in my place.

“Actually, I love you. I love that you aren’t a replica. I love all those things about you that you just complained about in your head. And thanks for stressing the zit. That’s a mental picture that won’t stop.”

So we had range, at least while at school. I grinned at his complaint, but squashed it so people wouldn’t think I had another flaw to point out to the Lingons. Any time. I aim to please, Volcano Face. Wait. Did I just say that so you could hear me? Crap. I’m sorry. Not thinking about that elephant in my head. La la la la la la la. What’s your name, anyway?

His voice almost sounded a little hurt. “Stop worrying about my zit. I’m over it. And I’m not telling you my real name. Make one up.” A laugh in my mind to show me he really was over it.

Still, I wasn’t that girl. I wished I could unthink it, so I concentrated on his name. That terrible? What, Elmer? Floyd? Boyd? Aethelmerk? I had to stop and stare at a funny poster on the wall to keep people from seeing me laugh to myself.

“Keep it up, Eunice. I never tell anyone. Just nicknames. And don’t try and ask at the front desk. They don’t know either.”

I snorted, then turned into my fourth hour class. So glad I could entertain you, Kurgan.

“Call me that. Just not out loud.”

Okay, Kurgan. I hope it’s nothing to do with your namesake—that there can be only one, ‘cause I’d be that one, and I’d go back to being really lonely. Anyway, I’ve got to do this fast because there’s a Spanish test. Questions. Why can you hear me? Why aren’t you perfect, like I’m not? Why do you know about ‘them’? What can we do about it all? And why are we still alive? There. You can call me Flame. It’s their opposite on the color wheel. I got out a pencil and started marking boxes. Silly, when you came to think about it. Why did we need Spanish in this new Lingon-infested world? We would probably all speak the same language any day now.

“Ha. Highlander references. I knew I’d like you. Anyway, I think we’re both psychic. I don’t know why they’ve left us alone while they’ve killed most of the people I know. I know about the murdering Lingons because they said something to me about how ‘it wouldn’t hurt much.’ When they started to re-do me, they spat me back out, like a bad taste. Same with you?”

Nope. I’d have noticed. I caught them replicating my granny. I couldn’t even tell anyone until you. So I’m not sure how to get rid of them. I sighed and went on to another test question. So far I could do them in my sleep. Tengo albondigas. I have meatballs. I’d definitely use that information in my anti-world-wrecker scheme. Not.

Kurgan laughed.

Weird having someone that far inside my head. It wouldn’t have worked except I’d been so lonely since the dang Lingons took over, that I’d welcome any non-replicant, deep inside my head or not. Were there curtains you could pull over the embarrassing bits you didn’t want him to see/hear/read?

“Don’t worry. I won’t look. Anyway, your thoughts aren’t anything spectacularly bad or abnormal. For a real person, that is. I’ve seen it all, you might say.”

How come I’ve never met you before? When did you come here? I would have spotted you coming if you went here before. Now the exam questions were getting harder. Essay vs. multiple guess.

“You ask a lot of questions, Heather Flame.”

And you said you wouldn’t look. No fair you know my real name and I don’t know yours.

His laughter echoed through my head.

Now I know there’s no real hiding place and you are at least a little bit mean. You’ve probably already rummaged through the entire contents of my mental underwear drawer.

More ghostly laughter. “I’ll talk later. And I was serious. I do love you. You’re my island of sanity in this freaking ocean of madness. Don’t stop talking to me. And don’t learn to shut me out. I’ll behave. Really. I promise. I need you more than you can possibly know.”

You’ve made my day. Make that year. And it’s the same for me, Kurgan-there-can-be-only-one-more.

“I know.”

That’s how I got my End-of-the-world buddy. Together we watched as, except for us, the Lingons ate the last of the imperfections. The skies cleared up, the water ran sparkling clean. Even the dirt seemed less dirty. Then we watched as they stopped pretending to be the replicants. They’d split apart into their devilish little demon selves and eat up everything the replicant had left behind—their car, their house, clothes, pets, paperwork, everything. Gone in the time it took to say “Holy Erasers, Batman.” I say that like it was kind of funny, but it wasn’t. At all.

Terrifying to watch Mrs. Kagel from down the street, who I knew had become a replicant weeks previous, simply disappear. Her yappy little chihuahua went first. Then her prized begonias. Then her Datsun. Next the Cape Cod house with the yellow trim. Then, in a stunning display right in front of my eyes, the woman herself. Gone beneath a wave of blue, each tiny bit of her dispersing to other places, other tasks. Every building block another Lingon pretending to have been Mrs. Kagel’s thumb cell or something. Flaunting the Lingon power over my inability to stop them.

The worst night was when I lost my parents. The second time. Mom sat there on the couch eating an artichoke popper, then suddenly collapsed into a wash of blue, as if she’d fallen into a vat of extremely volatile acid. Dad and Moxie, our lovely mutt went next. Like that. Like I’d only dreamed them, once. Like TV characters after you changed the channel and then broken the TV. It almost felt worse than when I first noticed they’d fallen to the Lingons. At least then I could close my eyes and pretend my parents still lived and loved me. Now? Gone.

Only the house remained.

Kurgan lurked there in my head, taking me in his arms, patting me on the mental back. I even felt a feathery light kiss to my hair, a couple of times. He was there as each replicant fell, domino-like, until nothing remained of the things they’d owned or been. The school? Gone. All our old hang-outs? Gone, along with the rest of the buildings. All except my house and Kurgan’s, apparently.

Hey, I said two futile hours later. I don’t think we need to stay apart anymore. I think I need your real arms around me now.

“Yeah. Meet where the school used to be?”

Unless we’re closer. My house is on Elm. It would have been easier to navigate had any buildings remained. Or any landmarks.

“Mine’s across town on Pierce. So meet where that fifties diner used to be on Main.”

I turned, then, and watched as my house dissolved in a sea of blue. No going back now. It was all starting to be too real. I had no ground to retreat to. Nothing to clench on to when it all winked out.

Nothing but Kurgan.

It was a long walk, made longer by that horrible flood of blue entities that watched, and waited, hungry for more. Always more. And for what? What were the dang things waiting for?

I finally spotted him clear down by where the First National Bank used to be. Now? Just an empty field full of brilliant green grass punctuated with tiny pink flowers and butterflies all the colors of the rainbow. How gorgeous it all would be if the saffron brick walls hadn’t just disappeared beneath a blanket of nearly-clear blue. I ran to Kurgan, collapsing into his arms—arms not quite strong enough to be perfectly muscled, but strong enough for me. He smelled of fear sweat. I probably did too.

“Come on,” he said, out in the real world where the Lingons could hear him. His illusions had died fiery deaths like mine had. “Let’s find a good place to watch it all go down.”

So we did.

“What’s your real name?” I asked. You have to know the guy’s name if you’re the only two left on Earth. That’s a given.

He took my hand and swung it while we climbed to the top of a brand new nearby hill. “Walter. But apparently I can choose whatever name I want, now that it’s a moot point.”

“I guess.” We sat on the bluff overlooking what used to be our town. Now it featured rolling hills and a new river chuckling through the grass. A soft breeze picked up and ran its fingers through the lank strands of my hair. The sunshine warmed our heads. The silence almost complete. “Don’t let go of me. Please. If we go, we go together.”

He nodded and pulled me tighter to his side. “Maybe you should give me a name.”

“Depends on what happens next, I guess. Same with me. Only not some stupid name like Ethel.”

“I like how we’re here at the end of the world and you’re worried over what I’m going to call you.”

And it was the end of the world. One minute an amazing new Eden, the next, bits of bright new ‘paint’ flaked away, leaving dead brown rock beneath. The Lingons left their lives as camouflage and streamed into the sky, slowly at first, then in a mass migration that lasted until they’d scoured the Earth of all color and life, except the two of us, standing there at the end.

“I like how there’s still someone to call me something.” I hid my face in his chest. He found my lips.

I loved that last glorious kiss.

(Alternate Ending:) !$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$!

“Heather. Step forward. You’re holding up the line. Hey, Heather. Snap out of it. Swallow your pills. Come on. Lift your tongue up so I know they’re gone.” Miss Smith, the charge nurse, smiled at me. A great big shiny plastic smile.

That’s how those blasted little Lingons took me down.

©2020 by H. Linn Murphy

Sara's Gone

(I hope I embedded this right. It's Chris Medina's song, What Are Words.)

Sara rounded on Tom, her stomach feeling like the bottom had dropped away. Tom sat there in front of the TV, his legs splayed out, his filthy shirt half open. He probably hadn't seen a comb in days.

"Why do you act this way?" she asked, shaking inside. She knew what was coming. The frost. He would turn the full force of his vitriol on her. Sara braced herself.

His eyes iced over. "What way? What do you want me to say, Sara? You always have something you want and you never can tell me what it is."

"That's because you don't care enough to want to know. You sit there watching football from the minute you get home right through dinner. You're on that couch until you fall into bed sometime after I've been asleep for hours."

"So what. I like football."

"Clearly. She's your mistress. She lures you away from everything else in the world, including me."

His laughter, derisive and cold, chilled her to the core. "You think football is female? That's rich. You're such a dim bulb. Anyway, football doesn't make demands of me. It doesn't try to 'talk' at me and make me do stupid stuff like take out the trash. Yammer, yammer, yammer, Sara. When did you get to be such a nag?"

Sara swore to herself she wasn't going to let him see her cry. That was for later in the darkness of their bedroom when she lay like a cold husk between the sheets. So many times before she'd simply given up and gone to hide in the dark to lick her wounds. She'd tried talking to him, but she always got the feeling that he was mentally trying to move her aside from in front of the TV so he wouldn't miss a play.

But now she was done. "Jam a fork in me," she muttered to herself.

"What was that?" Tom asked, never looking away from the running figures on the turf. "Hey, do something useful for a change and get me a cold one."

"Get it yourself. I'm out of here." She yanked on her hoody and caught up her purse, slamming the door behind her. Where am I going to go? I've got no money and a quarter of a tank of gas. The tin words echoed in her head.

Nowhere. I'm going nowhere. For years I've let my marriage slip away until the only thing left is inertia. We're like roommates who don't even like each other. We've got nothing in common and nothing to say to each other. How did that happen?

She unlocked the car and bounded in, slamming the door on the distant sounds of the match. "How I hate that game!" she exclaimed. And then she yelled it, filling the car with her anguish. She pounded the steering wheel until she felt something snap in the side of her hand. She swore and cradled her hand in her lap, breathing like a freight train, fighting back tears of anguish.


She could handle that kind of pain. It was the other, deeper, soul-sucking despair that threatened to devour her whole.

How did I get here from there?

She leaned her head back against the rest and closed her eyes, willing the pain in her hand to go away. Memories, like anesthesia, dimmed the ache in her palm.

She remembered when she'd first met Tom. He'd been a janitor at a school where she taught. Every day she'd looked forward to seeing his cheerful smile. He'd been nothing special to look at in his blue coveralls, but she could tell he enjoyed her company.

Tom sightings had gotten her through a messy break-up with an old fiancé. He'd been there for her when things seemed bleak. But that sadness couldn't be compared to how she felt now.

This felt like a true betrayal. The ex fiancé had been a passing fad--nothing invested, nothing much to ditch along the way. She'd realized almost as soon as the gold ringed her finger that marriage would never happen. Tom helped her figure out how to kick the other guy good-bye.

Tom had been so different back then. He'd looked into her eyes when they talked. She had loved the spark of playful friendliness she saw there--loved when it flared to passion. He'd laughed at her jokes and told her things he thought about. They'd shared dreams and plans and hopes for the future.

Now? Nothing.

He didn't want to go anywhere or do anything with her. If there was a way to avoid making plans, he did. If he could get out of going with her even to the store, he would. He found excuses to do everything with his friends unless there was a game on. Then he'd hunker down like a bear in hibernation mode.

"Maybe I should just start driving and not stop until the gas runs out," she hissed into the night. "Maybe my marriage is like this old car: on its last gasp. It's probably ready to be junked." Her voice sounded shrill in the confines of the car. She stopped yelling and just sat there, hurting.

Junked.

But Tom wasn't garbage. The man she'd married had to still be in there somewhere under all the scrap metal and greasy fast food wrappers and crusty old rubber bits. He had loved her then. And she loved him back. When he finally got up the guts to ask her to marry him, she hadn't looked back, or sideways, or forward. She'd simply said, "Yes." He'd been enough for her then. Why not now?

Because he cared then.

When did he stop finding me valuable? Why?

And then it hit her. "It's me. I've stopped thinking of him as my prince. I started thinking of him as the janitor instead of the shining knight who came to rescue me. I let him slip away. I let football edge me out. I let him make me a victim. And now he sees me as the cleaning woman instead of his princess."

She looked up at the crystal-studded velvet sky above her. She took an ocean-sized breath. "I will not bow to defeat. I am the princess, not the cleaning woman. I'm going to go in there and act like it. I'm going to be his queen and I'm going to treat him like the prince I thought he was when we first met."

She hugged herself and let the tears loose at last, washing away the grief and pain. She dug a wadded up tissue from her purse and dabbed away the evidence. Then she went in, climbing over Tom's outstretched legs. His glazed eyes caught her only as she passed him.

"Where'd you go?"

"Nowhere. Everywhere. I went to my castle."

He threw her a look as she slipped into the kitchen.

The crowd on the TV roared at a touchdown and Tom stomped his feet. "Yeah! That's what I'm talkin' about! Git er done!"

His mouth dropped open when she brought out a frosty soda and a bowl of popcorn. She sat down on the couch and handed him the treats. He stared at her like she'd suddenly grown a huge wart on her nose.

"Here," she said, cuddling into his side. "Thought you'd be hungry. Playing ref for the NFL is a thirsty job."

She felt his arm come around her and pull her close. She looked up to see him gazing down at her, completely missing a key play.

"I'm sorry. I've been a jerk lately." He leaned in and kissed her lips. It was the gentle, silky kiss she remembered from so long ago.

"Yes you have. I think you lost your way."

"Maybe. Okay, yes."

She put everything into the next kiss. The TV crowd went wild, like an invocation.

Bridget's Father

Bridget's tears cascaded down her cheeks as she listened to the song a girl sang about her father. Bridget had always wanted a dad like that--one who wasn't a walled up, impregnable castle. She was starting to forget the few times when he had actually talked to her without being stone cold angry. She remembered long ago as her daddy danced with her on his feet. He had been a great dancer. She remembered the joy on his face as they twirled around the room. It was so long ago, now.

Apparently before his stint as a medic in the Korean war, he'd been a happy-go-lucky guy. His friends had all loved his open, sunny personality. Since the war, and for as long as Bridget could remember, his remoteness had set him apart from the rest of his family. How she longed to come into his arms and have him tell her he was proud of her. How she longed to hear him call her his Princess and tell her she was beautiful. She'd try to ask him about his life and what he was doing or thinking, but he'd give her a one-word answer or merely smile a little inscrutable smile and go back to fixing the car, or cleaning his rifle, or some other important task.

Bridget's voice cracked as she tried to sing along with the song. Finally she left the singing to the professional. She looked over at the gaunt man in the bed. Her dad smelled like musty old papers, split pea soup and cleaning astringent. He wore an oxygen cannula and a heart monitor. An IV fed him pain meds on a drip. A tracery of new lines in his face bore testimony of the constant pain her father faced. Now and then he opened his eyes, but they were glazed over. She could see him retreating hour by hour further into that other world where it was sunny and pain-free.

Suddenly it became paramount that she get through to him. She couldn't let him go without connecting at least once. "Dad. Dad, can you hear me?"
His eyes opened a crack and then closed again.
"I know you can hear me, Dad. I just wanted..."
There was a long pause and then he rallied a little. His lips moved slightly but no sound came out. Bridget bent to hear what little she could.
"What...can you want...from me now?" His voice was raspy, like steel sponge scraping on the kitchen counter. What could she want? Tears coursed down her face and dripped onto the pillow. She shook her head, trying to negate the accusatory tone in his voice.
"You never...got...enough."
She stood upright and reached for his hand. The skin was papery and thin and nearly transparent. His hand shook with the effort of living, as if that hand was the only thing holding him here in this life.
"I wanted you to know that I've always loved you. I wanted you to be proud of me, Dad."
There was a long pause while he martialled his forces. The effort was costing him in pain. "You want...me to say...I love...you."
Bridget looked away, out the doorway to the nurse's station. She wanted him to say those words so much she could taste it. But, more than that, she wanted him to say them on his own. She wanted to have to drag a confession of fondness out of him about as much as she wanted a root canal without anesthesia.
"Not if you don't feel like it."
He snorted a little and took a ragged breath. "You'll never...know...how much..." He never ended the sentence. The heart monitor suddenly flat-lined and the alarm went off. Nurses and a doctor poured into the room and edged Bridget out of the way. They briskly went about trying to revive her dad, but he had gone.

Bridget stood there in a haze of anguish. None of the flurry of activity registered on her. She was caught in that last sentence. She shook her head and tried to stanch the torrent of tears. Searing anger boiled up to choke her.
"You're right, Dad. I won't ever know, now."