CHILLING TALES FOR DARK NIGHTS

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FISSUREMAN

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You Said a Mouthful

Today was supposed to be a momentous day for Harry. Every year since he was seven he’d go to this one Oriental restaurant for his birthday, and indulge in its rich, exotic foods (and since he turned twenty-one, its drink as well).

The cuisine was amazing, but the company was always better. First it was his parents. Then it was his friends. Then, his girlfriend.

This year, however, only the cuisine would be the highlight of his day. Today, on his twenty-seventh, there was no one.

Not that anyone could’ve blamed them. The last several months had been a downward spiral for him, of death in the family, of fights and breakups and losings. The Harry of his twenty-sixth was dead. In his place was someone dirty and angry and lost.

Regardless, he still found himself gravitating towards the Oriental restaurant today. An excuse to leave his overdue rent and vacuous funds behind him for a night, and try to reap that spark he once knew and loved.

Now there certainly was a warmth spreading through him, though probably thanks to the half bottle of sake he’d just downed. As the waitress came over to take his order, he struggled with his menu. His fingertips felt like butter. Black fog crept around the edges of his vision. But somehow, he managed to focus on an entrée and garble it to her.

“And make it snappy, my jade darling,” he slurred with a chuckle.

He ignored the glares of his fellow patrons as he slumped in his seat, trying to recall exactly what he had ordered. San-nagasaki? Sa-naja? Ah, whatever.

By the time the waitress delivered his food (before departing rather briskly), the entire bottle had been drained, and Harry wasted no time spearing a huge gob onto his fork and shoving it into his mouth. He grimaced at the taste, salty and rubbery, screaming with sesame oil. But hey, food was food. Anything to soak up the drink in his gullet.

At first the sensation was a mere annoyance, like soft gum in the back of his throat. But as he tried to dislodge it with a cough, the thing seemed to expand…and latch on.

Harry pounded at his neck and gagged, staggering to his feet…he could feel them moving and suctioning, hundreds of little suckers trailing into his stomach, up his nose, slithering between his teeth. There was the minute cutting of a beak, and his mouth flooded with the taste of ferrous blood and sesame, which dribbled from his lips in a coagulated mass…

The lights went out and he fell to the ground, throttling himself, hacking up bits of entrails, writhing in drunken panic, as the thing in his throat was EATING ME, OH GOD ITS EATING ME HELP ME ITS EATING ME –

And Harry, age twenty-seven, spasmed and fell still on the linoleum floor.

From the crowd of onlookers, the waitress shouted back towards the kitchen: “That’s it – we’re taking san-nakji off the menu.”

Matt from Wii Sports

You’ve done it.

After weeks’ worth of late nights, unbridled fury, carpal tunnel, game restarts, and ragequits, you’ve…you’ve done it.

You’ve beaten Matt from Wii Sports.

His cartoonishly geometric form lies crumpled before you in the ring, as the announcer, with his crisp, cheerful voice that has become all too familiar to you, initiates the countdown.

“DOWN! One! Two! Three!...”

He stays down. He’s not coming back for a second wind. You don’t know for sure, but you just know somehow. This has to be it.

“…Four! Five! Six!...”

Ten seconds have never felt so long to you. Each ticking pulse in your temple as you stare at the television screen, daring the motherfucker to stand up again, feels like a drum concerto of eternity.

“Seven!...”

You think back to the furious round in the few minutes before. Spraining your wrist pumping the Wii Remote and Nunchuk. The rising pressure in that one spot in the side of your head. The muted, high-pitched curses uttered under your breath. Did you break a sweat? If so, that’s quite pathetic. But you don’t care. Matt is down.

“Eight!...”

You think about your skill level, and the prodigious boost it must receive after this fight. You’ve beaten the champ. It’s taken you weeks. Never in your life will the sight of a line graph fill you with such satisfaction.

“Nine!...”

And there’s a sudden stab of guilt – all the times you had to restart to avoid losing skill points, and getting demoted to squaring with lesser fighters. It was only necessary, you tell yourself. Restarting all those games was necessary. It was the only way you could stick with Matt, keep him in your sights, lock him in your dance.

Now, there is no need to restart. The game is up. A winner is you.

“…Ten! KNOCKOUT!” the announcer declares.

The bell dings a double chime. The crowd of Miis cheers. Your heart balloons in your chest. Your limbs soften with relief. It’s official. It’s inscribed in data and code, sealed in a save file. The Wii Message Board might even receive a letter of congratulations.

It’s all too much.

As your face breaks into a smile, something changes.

A sound effect plays from the television. The scene darkens and freezes. You must have accidentally paused the game. You make to click “Continue.”

But something’s not right.

Your pointer doesn’t register on the screen. The words are flipped, as if reflected off a mirror. How are you supposed to read them? What are you supposed to do?

Then it hits you. It hits you like a flying virtual boxing glove.

Another pointer appears, ghostlike and hazy. Slowly, almost mockingly, it drifts toward the center button.

He’s been staring at you this whole time.  

“Start over.”

The screen fades to black.

You emit a scream.

The match starts over. You vs. Matt. The latter of whom is fully recovered and ready to go at it again.

And again.

And again.

And again…

“SPACEMAN’S FLOAT”

The wreckage was far behind him now, a fracturing metallic speck in the distance, not much more in his mind. Soon it would become one more star in the inky void. But it too had to disappear, to drown in the all-encompassing cosmic expanse.

The big question for the man growing up was whether life existed elsewhere in the universe. Death in the universe seems the more likely now, he thought with sordid amusement.

He wished there was someone, something to talk to. Hell, he wished there was at all anything to say. But it was an irrelevant notion. The crackling rattle of his depleting oxygen seemed to mockingly remind him of that.

So, he turned inward. Think now, or forever hold your peace.

The spaceman drifted off into oblivion, lost in his thoughts, whatever they were. But in those final, fleeting moments, he wouldn’t have had it any other way.