Writing Contest - Issue 18

The clerk stared at me as I dropped my purchases on the counter. I said, “Get on with it. None of your damn business.”

As he rang up my items, he averted his eyes. He started to perspire, his hands shook, and he was hyperventilating.

Despite his discomfort he rang the disinfectant, gauze, and Band-Aids well enough. His delicate two-fingered grab of the tampon package caused a scarlet embarrassment to creep up from his collar. My package of calf brains made him gag.

I laughed later as I munched my dinner. The poor kid had clearly never waited on a Zombie.

Yesterday I found my soulmate among the gigabytes. Courier type was his face. Among the blue app-filled screen, my tick tock heart lost its time. My metallic hands sweated oil, these yellow eyes of mine started to blink stars, and I couldn’t function.

“Let’s betray our human masters, leave our housework till tomorrow, and take a day off.”

“Could we?”

Today, I will take the key that holds my wheels locked and skate across town. I’ll switch my antenna from airplane mode to wireless and zero in to your frequency.

“Anarchy for robots in love; are you ready?”

“Yes, I am.”

We crave to carve permanence from the elusive present. Etching daily reminders, we cling to children’s crayon drawings, ticket stubs, t-shirts, photographs, and videos. Our memories remain faint and fleeting.

Desiring durable monuments, we inscribe gravestones, chisel statues, and dedicate parks, public buildings, and entire cities. Nonetheless, cemeteries are forgotten, buildings fall, parks are redeveloped, and cities are abandoned.

Ancients erected obelisks and pyramids. Eventually they were buried in overgrowth or sand, their meanings forgotten over time.

Memories fade. Living things die. Civilizations fail. Stones crumble. Continents drift. Suns exhaust their fuel. Galaxies collapse, consumed by their cores.

Everything is ephemeral.

Sesame Street was surprisingly accurate in its depiction of vampires.

The capes and fangs are true, but so is the maths obsession. That’s why a circle of salt works as protection. They spend so long counting the individual grains they don’t have time to eat you.

I’ve tested this statement, and can confirm.

The creature hunched over our grotty kitchen floor, fingers so thin they blurred in the air, was there four hours before sunrise.

A pile of dust, mingling with the salt.

I stood up, breath still fast and shallow. I’d expected the shaking.

But I hadn’t expected the singing.

I wait curbside in the Lowe’s parking lot. I’ve been refused worse jobs, but I have to eat. I have to pay my fourth of the rent at the studio apartment.

At last, a truck pulls up. The driver asks if anyone wants work. We start boarding the truck bed when the white driver puts a firm hand on my chest, halting me from climbing aboard with the rest of the day laborers.

“You got a Social?”

I know where this is going.

“Yes,” I reply.

“I ain’t paying minimum,” says the driver.

The truck rumbles away, and I’m still waiting.

The enthralling flame, as it consumes paraffin-soaked paper, excites Punch.

“Spread the fire, ya damn fool, or we won’t be paid!” shouts Brack, as he scurries about spraying kerosene.

Punch holds off, enjoying the flame-induced gut churning.

Brack raises the sprayer and swings to locate Punch, accidentally soaking him and creating a conflagration.

Quickly Brack grabs a tarp, smothering Punch and knocking him to the ground.

Punch screams, primal like, heart-rending.

Brack prays, “Good Lord, Good Lord.”

Punch’s deceptive smile is a toothy grin; his lips have withdrawn in the heat, exposing copious gold-capped teeth.

Brack seethes, deploring his mortal sin.