Another Bubble Two

Uncertain,

But delusional and curious,

A path yet finished…

Five feet north of the wrench.

The runaway boy sat with his knees pulled inward, his arms wrapped around his legs, his mouth pressed between his knees, his eyes staring over them at the wrench stuck in the ground. And that’s all he did. And because that’s all he did, the world remained silent and still.

The trees didn’t hiss and the ground didn’t buzz. What he wanted to know was…

“Why?” he whispered between his knees.

He couldn’t write off what he just experienced as his imagination. Too many other things were involved. Well, that’s what he figured anyway. Wasn’t the whole town involved? Didn’t anyone else feel the quake?

He heard no car alarms. No emergency alarms for that matter. No police sirens. Nothing. Just the rumble of the earth and all was well. No big deal. Except it wasn’t. Earthquakes never happened here.

“So, why?” he whispered between his knees.

No one came running. No one found him out and called his parents. He was given time to figure out how to get that wrench out of the ground without tearing up the town. Because, yeah, the wrench had to come out of the ground, didn’t it? It had to. It could have been stuck there for days, months, years even. No one messed with it. No one remembered it. Whoever put it there, because someone had to, forgot about it. And it just stuck there, holding the town intact all this time. Maybe that’s why whoever put it there did it. But when had a town ever threatened to fall apart without a wrench holding it together? And in such a location, away from everything?

Never had he heard of some incident that would have shaken the town apart. They must have done this in secret, and because he was jumping outside the norm and running away, a decision that took him in this direction of all directions, he stumbled upon it.

Now, what was he supposed to do? He wanted to pull it out. He really really wanted to, despite the idea of the town collapsing. If that was the case then, was that why he wanted to pull it out? So the town would collapse? The town where his oblivious parents lived? Because maybe after the town was gone, they wouldn’t have to worry about keeping it together, and they would remember he was alive? Was that why?

Maybe, but that wasn’t the only reason. Mostly, he just wanted to see if pulling a wrench from the ground would really make a town fall apart.

“Yeah, right.” he whispered between his knees.

It couldn’t have been that simple. It couldn’t have been that at all. It wasn’t a wrench grabbing onto the town’s Achilles Heel. There had to be some pipe line under the ground which happened to have a leak just five feet in front of him. The wrench was a temporary solution to keep the pipe sealed shut, but all that pressure that was building up…

Yeah, that was it. The guys left not too long ago after tightening the wrench around the leak. Now they’re at the end of the pipe line about to shut the flow down all together.

He stared at the wrench.

No, that couldn’t be right. The ground around the wrench wasn’t disturbed. There was no way someone would forget about a place like this. So, if it wasn’t sealing a leak…then what was it grabbing onto?

A picture flashed through his mind, showing what it would look like if he could see a slice of the underground through a pane of glass, and from his view he could see the root system of the forests and how they tangled in all these crazy patterns. Yet, that wouldn’t be the only roots he would see. It wouldn’t be until he was able to see from this new perspective that he would find out the town itself was alive, and he was looking at one of the veins. The wrench was still sealing up a leak, but it had been sealing it for a while now. Who would dare talk about something as wild as this? If the town was alive, then it could control people’s fates.

He gasped, lifting his head, pulling his mouth from between his knees, “That’s it!”

That was why his parents were so…they were having to keep this secret!

He jumped to his feet. One of the town’s veins, and it was having to be sealed. Why? Why seal it like this? Thinking no one would notice? Surely some utility truck would come by with guys having to do some maintenance on the power lines. They would notice it, right? Or maybe, just maybe, they knew the secret of the town as well. This was the perfect spot for something like this to happen, because those who came here were those who knew and wouldn’t say anything. Save for him. He knew. What he didn’t know was: if the leak was here, what had it affected? Which way did the blood flow? Somewhere on down the line the sudden loss of blood before the leak was fixed had to have done something. Was that how buildings ended up being condemned? Loss of blood kept them from staying sturdy?

But where?

He looked down at the wrench. The only way he would be able to find out would be to cause another leak. Once the loss of blood started to take effect, he’d be able to tell which way the blood flowed and what places had withered away in the past. If he could figure this out, why, what couldn’t he do to this town? And, wouldn’t his parents like that?

This Bubble, Three

Familiar revisited,

Private getaway,

Just help yourselves…

Two and a half miles north of the wrench.

Before Andy pulled up to the coffee shop off the town’s main drag, he was scared. He usually came to the coffee shop from a back way, zigzagging through a few avenues once he pulled off the highway that brought him into town, and then into the odd shaped parking lot where there were hardly any places to park.

This time, though, he followed the highway all the way up to the four-way red light that connected it to the town’s main drag. There he turned west and headed toward the coffee shop, finding the parking lot empty…just like the rest of town.

He was afraid to roll down his windows the whole trip up here, afraid there was something in the air. Not poison. No, a feeling, or something living, which kept everyone away, everyone but Kathrin. Her little red car was the only one in the parking lot, but even if the spots closest to the coffee shop were open, she parked where she always parked, which was out in the middle.

Andy saw her before he pulled into the parking lot. She was sitting outside the coffee shop on the edge of the cement patio that started at one end of the building, wrapped around it, and then kept going down the front of the other businesses that shared this stretch of brick and mortar.

Kathrin was sitting with the coffee shop’s double doors closed at her back. She looked up long before he showed up, more than likely hearing him coming. He was the only sound in town. She watched him park directly across from her, a front row seat. How rare. She watched him as he stepped out of his car.

He was looking back at her, but he was quickly drawn to the coffee shop’s tinted windows. They were tinted because all the lights inside were off. When he looked at Kathrin again, she gave him a little smile. He smiled back, but it was only a smile of relief that she was okay. He figured her smile meant she was just glad to see another living soul. Though, she would prefer him over anyone else.

He approached and she stood up. Not a word was spoken. As soon as he reached her, they embraced and held tight. Both breathed. Both their hearts pumped. They listened, never realizing how much such little things mattered until now…in this quiet town of stillness.

Their eyes were closed. They saw nothing, but instead, felt life. Focused on one another’s life. Real life. Not the sudden mannequins built of buildings and trees and bushes. The things that wanted life. The things that watched them even now, jealous of their life but not threatening to take it from them. Just wanting their own, wondering what happened to it. Unable to ask for it despite having a voice, and that’s why everything was silent and still.

Then, Kathrin whispered, her voice sounding loud enough to reach several blocks, “Are you sure this isn’t Sunday?”

Andy opened his eyes with a chuckle, “Actually, I’m not sure what day it is.”

“But, earlier, you said…”

“Maybe I was wrong.”

Kathrin pulled away to look into his face, “But how could you be wrong? That doesn’t make any sense. It has to be some day.”

“What day does it feel like?” he asked.

She thought about it.

“Sunday?” he asked.

Her expression crinkled, and she shook her head.

“Monday?”

She hesitated, started to shake her head, but then offered a shrug.

He snickered when he offered this explanation, “Not quite Monday?”

She studied him, considering, “Is that possible?”

“I don’t know,” he said and looked up at the gray blanket. Sure, it was gloomy out, but it wasn’t night time. The sun was out and having no trouble giving the world light. He took his cell phone from his pocket and checked the time. “It’s two ten.”

Kathrin took her cell phone from her pocket, flipped it open and checked the time. She looked up at him, “Mine says the same thing.”

“Well then,” Andy said stuffing his cell phone back into his pocket. “they both can’t be wrong.”

“What day does your phone say it is?” she asked him.

He didn’t think to look at that. How silly, since that was the start of several big questions. He pulled his cell phone back out and looked. In the middle of the display the word “silent” remained there at all times. He never changed it, hating the sound of a ringing phone. Underneath would be the date, but it wasn’t there. Sometimes when he pressed a button or hung up from a call, it took a second for the date to display itself, but it wasn’t there now.

No problem. He just had to bring up the calendar with a single button. He pressed it but there was a slight delay. Or so he thought. The delay stretched out to not happening at all. His phone was old so he pressed the button again, harder. Delay or no?

Nothing. The regular display screen was fixed in place.

His brow furrowed to this. When he looked up at Kathrin, she was already punching buttons on her phone. Looked like she was pressing the same one over and over again, harder and harder and then…giving up. She looked up at him, her brow furrowed as well.

“Did yours…?” he started to ask, but she was shaking her head.

He looked up at the clouds. Storm clouds could mess up a digital T.V. signal, but cell phone signals? He wasn’t sure.

“Okay.” he said, stuffing his cell phone back into his pocket.

Kathrin did the same thing.

Andy glanced past her. “So, uh…”

Kathrin turned around, and they both looked at the dark coffee shop.

“Is it closed, too?” Andy finished.

“What else was closed?” she asked.

He gazed down the stretch of businesses, “Aside from all that?”

She didn’t look at them. She turned around to him. “What about on your way here?”

“Everything.” he said.

Kathrin lived in an apartment to the east of here, but he didn’t have to ask her what she saw on the way here. He already knew.

The town was closed.

“Are we supposed to be out here?” Kathrin asked. Then she hugged up to him.

He rested his hands on her elbows, “What could have happened?”

“You think…it’s something in the air?” she asked.

“No.” he said. “No, or else…well, you know.”

“Then why?” she asked.

He didn’t know, didn’t like being outside despite what he believed, didn’t want to drive around, didn’t want to draw any attention. From what, he didn’t know.

“Let’s just get inside.” he said.

She looked over at the coffee shop’s entrance. “In there?”

“Yeah,” he said, starting toward it, ushering her along with him.

“But it’s locked.” she said.

“Did you try it?” he asked and grabbed the handle of the door on the right.

“Well, no, I just…”

He pulled, and the door opened.

They both froze.

At first, the coffee shop looked inviting, but with the door open, the lights off inside, they were trespassing into a closed restaurant. The cameras would catch them on tape. They’d be in trouble.

So, they just stood there, staring at the gap in the entrance.

After a moment, Kathrin asked, “Should we?”

Curious, Andy inched closer, peeking inside. He glimpsed one of the cameras in the far right corner, high and pointing toward the bar along the right side of the counter at the back of the building. There were other cameras behind the counter, pointing down at the register and down at the entrance, focused on Kathrin and him. But, were they on?

Just like the interior, the cameras were nothing but shadows. Forgotten. Asleep. He figured that if they were on then he would see some sort of light shining around the lens or something like that. He saw nothing, but, as he kept staring at them, they felt as though they weren’t even there. They might have been looking with other eyes, like the eyes of the buildings and trees of this town, looking and feeling jealous…lacking their regular reasons for being. Their purposes left behind in whatever day this wasn’t. Left in the transition that hadn’t quite finished.

“Come on.” he told Kathrin and they slipped inside.

He closed the door behind them, and Kathrin folded her arms in front of her, glancing this way and that, standing in place, too timid to move. “So, now what do we do?”

Andy stepped ahead of her, stared at the counter, at the soda machine to the left, bordering the end of a smaller counter that ran parallel with the main one, holding all the silverware, napkins, sugar and such. He whipped back around to gaze at the parking lot. His car looked so out of place.

“Kind of weird.” he said. He put his hands in his pockets.

He felt Kathrin’s hand slip under his right arm. She hugged up close to him again and giggled.

“What is it?” he asked.

“‘Kind of weird’ is right.” she said. “We have the coffee shop to ourselves. This never happens.”

Andy considered. “I don’t know. There have been a couple of times when it was just me and one of the baristas. I sat at the bar, drinking coffee and reading a book.”

“At night?” she asked.

“Sometimes.” he said. “Sometimes during the afternoon.”

He glanced down at her. She was resting her head on his shoulder. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah.” she said, still smiling ever since she giggled.

They watched the outside world stand still for a few minutes, saying nothing.

“What if there’s no one else?” Kathrin asked.

“There has to be.” Andy said.

“But what if there isn’t?” she asked.

“But,” he said, “what could have happened? And why didn’t it happen to us?”

Her right shoulder bobbed up and down for a shrug, “Does it matter?”

“What?” he asked.

“Hey,” she said, “you want some coffee?”

“Coffee?”

“We’re at the coffee shop.”

“Yeah, but…”

She lifted her head and looked at him, “Let’s have some coffee.”

¥

“How do you turn it on?” Kathrin asked.

They were behind the counter staring at what they knew to be the milk steamer for their favorite lattes.

“Can we even turn it on?” Andy asked.

Sure, some traffic lights were working, but what about the rest of the town? He had this wild assumption that everything was dead. Actually, the only traffic lights he remembered working were the ones on the highway. As soon as he turned onto the main stretch and headed for the coffee shop, none of them were working.

“There might not be any electricity.” he said.

“Ah.” Kathrin said, reaching for the side of the machine. She found a small switch there and flipped it up. After the snapping sound it made, they both stared at the machine and waited.

“Guess not.” Kathrin said after a moment. She looked at Andy, “So, no coffee then?”

He shrugged, “Probably not.” He was happy about one thing, though. No electricity meant the cameras had no chance of being on.

Kathrin walked over to the other end of the counter where the bar was. There were two large coffee brewers there. She looked at them, saw the little red switches at their bottoms, and tried one of them. Sure enough, when she pressed it, the button lit up, signifying that the brewer was on.

She gasped and turned a great big smile on Andy.

He saw the glowing button and didn’t have to ask. That was a good thing, but….he looked up at the camera in the far corner looking down at the bar.

“Quick!” Kathrin said, handing him the empty coffee pot. “Put some water in it!”

Despite the camera issue, he took the pot from her and went to the sink at the other end of the counter and filled it up halfway. Meanwhile, Kathrin was searching the cabinets below the counter for the coffee grains. She found a big zip-lock full.

“I wonder what kind it is.” she said, presenting it to Andy.

“Don’t know.” he said, and twisted the hot water off. He carried the pot over to the brewer in both hands.

“I’m guessing you open the top?” Kathrin asked.

“I’ve seen it many times,” Andy said, “but can’t remember…ah.”

He lifted what looked like the edge of the brewer’s top lid, and it opened. “Guess I’ll pour it in here and hope it doesn’t start flooding out the bottom.”

“I’m sure that’s where you pour it.” Kathrin said with a wry smile.

When Andy poured, they heard the splash and then the loud filling sound. The whole coffee shop heard the sound. Possibly, the whole block of businesses heard the sound. But, when the pot was empty, the brewer remained full, nothing seeping out anywhere at the bottom.

“Good.” Kathrin said. She sat a large filter on the counter and scooped the coffee grains from the zip-lock. “How much, do you think?”

“Uummm.” Andy said. The filter was a lot bigger than the filters he used. Of course, the brewer was a lot bigger. What would be the right amount to make the coffee taste right? “Try two.”

She put in two leveled scoops of coffee grains. Andy looked at it. It looked about the same as what his looked like at home with two scoops. Funny how the scooper sort of fit the size of the filters here. Nothing was offset. That was good for coffee. Not that he was a perfectionist, he was an easy-going guy, but there was something to be said about a perfect cup of coffee.

“Let’s try it.” he said.

Kathrin put the filter in the carrier and slid it in the slot above the pot. They turned the brewer back on and waited. While they waited, Kathrin turned a grin Andy’s way.

“What happens if someone comes in?” she asked.

“Hopefully it won’t be anyone who works here.” Andy said.

“Oh!” Kathrin said, “I’ll get the cups.”

She bounced over to the espresso machine. There was a cloth that covered the top where several cups rested up-side-down. She chose two of the smaller ones and brought them over to the bar. “Next, the honey.”

Like a good couple, they kept up with whatever changes each other made. Kathrin was there for Andy’s progress from a little sugar to no sugar. He even indirectly influenced her to start using honey as a sweetener, too.

She searched the cabinets below again saying, “No,” when she didn’t find the honey, closing that door and opening another to say, “No,” again. The only container of honey Andy ever saw the coffee shop supply its customers with was a syrup bottle with the retractable opening at the top. It was placed on the smaller counter with all the other sweeteners. None of that was in place now, but he assumed the employees stored stuff like that in the cabinets under the register.

Sure enough, Kathrin brightened and reached into the next cabinet she tried, taking out the same syrup bottle, which was half full of honey.

When the coffee shop was open, the spot where Kathrin was standing, just to the far side of the espresso machine, was where the baristas finished making the cups of coffee and would hand them to the customers. Since the place was closed, none of the other things like the big containers of caramel and chocolate were up there. There were also squeeze bottles of caramel and such that were missing. And these big metal containers of whipped crème.

The honey sat alone.

Kathrin ran around the edge of the counter to the other smaller counter where the clean silverware was stacked. She grabbed a spoon and ran back behind the counter. She picked up the bottle of honey and brought it with her to the end of the counter where the baristas and customers shared the surface of the bar.

“Now,” she said, with the cups, the spoon and the honey sitting out, “we just have to wait for the coffee to finish.”

And they were silent.

The coffee pouring from the filter into the pot sounded like rain against a tin roof at first. Andy made paranoid glances outside the coffee shop, always spotting his car first, then checking what he could see of the parking lot from there. A portion of the town’s main stretch was visible as well from the wall of windows on the north side of the building. Not once did a car drive by.

Now the coffee sounded like a gurgling monster, but at the same time, it was an inviting sound. Andy loved the sound of making coffee. Made him think about late mornings. He never really had a morning, well, not for a while now, anyway. So, late morning it was. Might as well be. He didn’t really trust the time his cell phone said, despite it matching what Kathrin’s said.

Nevertheless, coffee sounded good right now.

“Ever wondered what you would do,” Kathrin broke him from his daze with a question, “if you were the only person who existed in the world? I mean, suddenly finding out that everyone else vanished?”

He looked at her, that pretty face so calm, despite their situation, and he felt the warmth the coffee usually provided for him in those late mornings. He nudged her in the side with his elbow, “Just me?”

Her smirk stretched and she glanced down at the floor in a moment of bashfulness. Then she turned toward him, and instead of bunching up to him as she often did, she leaned back against the bar, propping her elbows on the surface and tilting her head to the side as she gazed at him, “Well, and one other, I guess.”

If he was to describe his dream girl to a friend, he always had two different ones.

The first was the one who was very sweet, not soft-spoken, but cuddly, wanting protection, wanting to nuzzle, to be held, that gripped his arms when he held her close and put her face into his chest, seeking comfort and strength there. It kind of sounded cliché, but didn’t a lot of fantasies sound that way?

The other was a bit feisty but not wild. Confident, but not arrogant. Liked to play, liked to tease and joke around, liked to dance and seduce, liked to invite him to do things, not always sexual but things that caused one to be more social than usual.

But those were two different girls.

Kathrin was one girl, and she had many traits of both those personalities. Not always to either extreme, but perhaps with subtle differences, and that was alright. Yeah, even for him, who had been called a deep thinker, and not just by Kathrin either, his fantasies could have been just like “the same as the next guy’s,” but he had to admit to himself that there were times when his fantasies didn’t feel so cliché. That the traits listed were true traits, the “small things” which, of course, could have been an even deeper cliché, but at some point things came full circle, didn’t they? At the end of the day, people find they’ve arrived at the root of any given thought and rest in the fact that they have grasped something real instead of streamlined.

Yeah, Kathrin was amazing.

So, he felt alright when he approached her, arms surrounding her on both sides, sliding along the bar’s surface behind her, pressing himself against her, trapping her, but even though she was trapped and knew it, she kept smiling her cool smile. So he pressed his lips to hers.

They kissed to the sound of the gurgling coffee monster at their side. The only sound in the world.

Then the door to the coffee shop opened.

Andy heard the familiar squeak of metal and tore his lips from Kathrin’s. The guy standing there paused, eyes wide, a grin on his face. Andy’s eyes were just as wide. Kathrin was a little late in opening her eyes to look into Andy’s turned face.

“Oh, uh, well,” Buzz said scratching the back on his head, “no, I guess you can’t be the one, either.”

Kathrin jerked toward the entrance, her eyes as wide as Andy’s.

“One quick question.” Buzz said, “You guys haven’t seen a short dude with bushy brown hair, blue eyes, a short goatee, and a worried look on his face, have you?”

Andy and Kathrin regarded one another, then looked at Buzz. They shook their heads.

“Gotcha.” Buzz said, “Um, well, sorry to bother you folks.” He was raising a hand in a frozen wave as he started backing out of the coffee shop.

“Wait!” Andy called, shuffling to the other end of the counter to go after the stranger, “Wait! Excuse me! Sir!”

Buzz stopped before he released the door to close on its own. He stepped forward and peeked inside, “Yes?”

Andy stopped between the counter and the entrance, “Are you from around here?”

Buzz darted his eyes from side to side, smiling, “Um. No. I’m not.”

“Oh,” Andy’s shoulders slumped. Then his back straightened, “Wait, you’re from out of town?”

“You could say that.” Buzz said.

Andy took a step toward him, “So, when did you get here?”

“Uuhhhh,” Buzz thought about what to say, “maybe an hour ago?”

“Was there anybody around when you got here?” Andy asked.

Buzz’s cordial smile faded. “No. No there wasn’t.” Except for that one weird guy in his car, he thought, and now you two. These poor people got caught up in all this. This guy is clearly stumped, too. Doesn’t even know what else to ask.

Andy was still standing there, glancing at the floor, scratching his cheek, indeed trying to figure out what to say.

“Look,” Buzz said, “the best thing, I guess, is for you two to stay inside until this blows over.”

Andy looked up, his eyes wide again, “You know what happened?”

Oops, Buzz thought.

“Well, whatever it is, it can’t stay like this forever, right?” He hoped that worked, but felt like laughing at himself. So, he started to back out of the coffee shop’s entrance.

“Wait!” Andy said, heading for the door.

“Andy!” Kathrin called and started for the other end of the counter.

Buzz let the door close and headed to the right. The coffee shop’s wall of windows tracked him until he reached the space before the neighboring store. He was running.

Andy popped out of the coffee shop and stopped when he had a clear view of the raised sidewalk that traced the entire front of this stretch.

The guy wasn’t there.

“What?” he breathed.

He glanced out in the empty parking lot. He took a step forward and paused. He twirled around and looked at the main road, empty of cars. The world was silent once again. He twirled back around to gaze down the rest of the stretch of businesses. The guy had to go somewhere.

Who was he? He had ran off before answering any questions. Questions that mattered, because he acted like he knew something. A guy from out of town, supposedly.

Kathrin burst out of the coffee shop and stopped at his side, gazing down the stretch with him. “Where did he go?”

Andy threw his arms out and then let them slap against his sides, “I don’t know. It’s like he…”

“Disappeared?” Kathrin said in a small voice.

Andy looked at her.

“Like, all the others?” she asked.

Andy thought about it, and then shook his head, “No, no, not like all the others. He was different.”

“How do you know?” she asked.

“Well, he…he was looking for somebody.”

“Aren’t we looking for everybody?” Kathrin asked.

True, Andy thought. “Well, yeah, that’s right, but…I don’t know. Didn’t it sound like he knew what was happening?”

She gripped his arm, “I don’t know. Andy, he could have been just as lost as we are.”

“We’re not lost, though.” Andy said. “Everyone else is.”

“Hey,” she said. “You think…they all might be asleep?”

Andy was glancing about the parking lot and the main street. Then he looked at Kathrin. “Asleep?”

She nodded and shrugged.

“But…” he said, extending his arm down the stretch to indicate the missing man, the one Kathrin thought had vanished before. Like the others, she had said. Now she….was she actually scared?

“Why would they all be asleep?” he asked. “Why are we awake?”

Kathrin looked at the ground, “I don’t know, but…” She started to pull him toward the entrance, “let’s go back in, alright?”

“But…” Andy said, gazing down the empty stretch of businesses, “that guy…”

“Come on.” she said. “Let’s just go inside and think about this.”

She led him inside as he searched the parking lot, street, and everywhere else, seeing no one, hearing nothing but the squeak of the metal door. When the door closed, and Kathrin had his attention, something shot from the top of the coffee shop’s roof in an electronic blurring buzz, escaping to the sky.

Next Chapter: The Bubble