Insomnia and Seven More Short Stories Read online

I leapt into my leather recliner and noticed it crinkled and flexed loudly underneath my body as I adjusted. I stopped moving, hoping the noise would go away. It did. I looked around for the remote and saw it on the floor, five feet out. Damn. Then it occurred to me that most holo-stations were voice activated! We only had a remote because I had no voice, but I did now. “On, please,” I said, mimicking the words I saw Heidi speak to the holo-station in the past. “Channel Twelve news.”

  The holographic, three-dimensional images flashed into the air in the middle of the room. The news show started and the familiar images of country towns, the big city and the news anchors flashed before my eyes. But there was music, too; powerful sounds that made me feel a sense of urgency.

  I sat with rapt attention, but I burst out laughing when Heidi appeared in front of me, crystal clear, like she was sitting across from me. It wasn’t the image that brought me so much joy; it was when she spoke, “Good Afternoon, Boston. I’m Heidi Leonard, and this is the news at noon.”

  Heidi continued to speak, and I paid attention to every syllable. “Today in the war with Australia we had a stunning victory, as the First Fleet pushed the Australian forces past the southern tip of New Zealand.” Her voice was soothing...like the angel I knew her to be. I had a sudden urge to use the bathroom, but remained stuck to the chair, intent on hearing every word of Heidi’s broadcast. “On the mainland of New Zealand, the fierce fighting between the coalition of Japanese and American forces are still fighting valiantly against the entrenched Australians. We go now, live to our woman in the field, Tyler Genson.”

  The image changed to that of a grassy battlefield—the kind I had seen on the news before, since the war started six months ago. “Thank you, Heidi...” Tyler was a young lady who I’d met twice before and who always exuded confidence to me. But now I heard her voice...full of nervousness and tension, hidden behind her stoic face. She continued talking, but I no longer heard the words. High-pitched whistles zoomed through my ears. Explosions. Shouting voices. Tyler ducked as something loud and massive struck the ground nearby, launching dirt through the shot. As the vibrations from the explosion faded, the screams of men and woman boomed from the holo-station’s surround-sound speaker system. Then machine-gun fire. Screeching rockets. Pounding helicopters.

  Chaos!

  I’d seen pictures like this before, but hearing it...I began to panic. I covered my ears with my hands and shouted at the holographic image of Tyler, “Get out of there! Run! Tyler, get the hell out of there!”

  But she didn’t run, she kept right on reporting what everyone could see and hear for themselves. “Off! Now!” The holo-station blinked off. My mind swirled with a mass of confused thoughts. I needed some air.

  “Open,” I said to the window, knowing it would work. The window slid open sideways, and the cool harbor air hit me, calming me. Then the noise struck. A cacophony of grinding metal, loud engines, shouting people and squawking billboards assaulted my healed ears. The view I had enjoyed so much, the shimmering ocean, which my apartment building hovered above on tall pylons, the flying cars, which had become so popular in the past twenty years, the hundreds of skyscrapers that lined the mainland and spilled out into the harbor, like a partially sunken city...had become chaotic, tense, rushed and angry.

  My breathing began to speed. My heart pumped so fast I could hear the damn blood slamming past my ears.

  I needed...I needed something to eat.

  “Close!” The window slid shut.

  I walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge. Nothing. How long was I asleep for and why didn’t Heidi get any food? I slammed the fridge and the loud bang made me jump. I opened a cupboard and a single box of Wheat Tasties sat there. I picked it up. “Thank you for trying Wheat Tasties!” the box said.

  I dropped the Wheat Tasties on the floor and stared at the box...waiting.... Nothing happened. I moved away. “You’re not done are you? Everyone needs to eat their Wheat Tasties!”

  I jumped back.

  “Thank you for trying Wheat Tasties! And next time you’re out, pick up a box of our new Pesto Wheat Tasties. Remember, Wheat Tasties are what’s good in life!”

  I turned from the box and ran out of the apartment.

  Less than a minute later I spilled out onto the sidewalk, which was a taut wire mesh, allowing pedestrians to see the waves crash against the pylons that supported the buildings above the water. I had always wondered what those waves would sound like, but now all I could hear were the new cars zipping past overhead, the old cars roaring past on the grated streets and a chaotic cauldron of human voices that made no sense at all!

  I could make out words here and there, and I knew that this was what thousands of human voices all talking at once sounded like, but it was unbearable. I blocked my ears with my hands, which drew a few odd glances. I then noticed who everyone was talking to—no one at all. Everyone on the sidewalks had small devices attached to their cheeks...cell phones. Everyone carried on conversations, but to no one physically present.

  My mind spun. This felt unbearable. There had to be a volume control, some way to tune out the noises. But I knew otherwise. Hearing was hearing, and noise was noise. Still feeling hungry, I ducked into the small grocery store built into the outside corner of my building. Food shopping always relaxed me.

  I walked through the first aisle as usual, heading for the chocolate ice cream. That was when all hell broke loose.

  “Try Ameriwhip today!”

  “Have you had a V18 today?”

  “Do people tell you you’re overweight?”

  “Uh-oh! Somebody looks sad! You need a honey ham!”

  I began running down the aisle as every product I passed assaulted me with sales pitches and personal living tips. That’s when I heard it. “Thank you for trying Wheat Tasties!” I slid to a stop and looked at a product display of Wheat Tasties, all varieties. As though sensing I had stopped, they all sang out in unison, “Everyone needs to eat their Wheat Tasties! Buy us! C’mon! You can eat us all! We’re good for you.”

  My eyes widened while my forehead furrowed deeply. I turned and ran out of the store, having made it only fifteen feet inside.

  I covered my ears with my hands and made a beeline for the hospital, knowing that someone there would be able to help. At least it would be quieter.

  Five minutes later I arrived at the hospital and entered the first set of sliding doors. The first set of doors closed behind me as I approached the second. All I could hear was the hiss of the air conditioning vents. Better already.

  I could see through the glass of the second set of doors and the hospital waiting room looked the same as usual, busy, yet peaceful. The sun still streamed through windows and it was quiet.

  The second set of doors slid open and I nearly fell backwards when the noise flooded across the foyer. People screamed, some in pain. Doctors shouted for help. The people in line griped about the wait. “Doctor Sullivan,” a voice, like that of God Himself, boomed through the air. My mind told me it was an intercom system. “Doctor Sullivan, you’re needed in the O.R. stat. Doctor Sullivan, you are needed in the O.R. stat.”

  Chaos!

  Everything I had enjoyed, even loved before, had been perverted. Even the mundane pleasure of Wheat Tasties had become the Devil’s work! I stumbled backward, back onto the street, when a car honked loudly. A baby screamed for who knows what. A man cleared his juicy throat and spat his mucus near my feet. I ran back to the apartment, ears covered, and formulated a plan.

  I knew what I had to do.

  I entered the apartment and was immediately greeted. “Thank you for trying Wheat Tasties! And next time you’re out, pick up...a box...of...our ne—” I stomped on the box until it shut up.

  I burst into the bedroom and headed for my dresser. Two rows of underwear back and one to the right...there it was. I pulled the gun out from the drawer and checked the chamber—still loaded. Guns were severely illegal, but I didn’t feel safe without it. Not even Heidi knew I
had the thing.

  I stood nervously, holding the gun in my hand with my finger on the trigger. This was going to hurt like hell, and I’d be screwed for life if I somehow messed this up. But it was the only way to make it stop. The noise! The chaos had to end.

  As I held the cold gun against my head, listening to the silence of my apartment, I had second thoughts. But I knew I couldn’t stay hidden away inside forever. I couldn’t stop going to the store for chocolate ice cream. I couldn’t stop watching Heidi on the holo-station. I couldn’t stop enjoying the breeze, the view, the ocean smell from my window. But I could stop it all, with one or two pulls of the trigger. And no one would hear a thing. The padded walls of this apartment that kept the outside noise at bay would keep the inside noise from escaping.

  I held my breath and let my index finger squeeze.

  The last sound I heard was the loudest, most horrific bang that existed. After that, everything went black.

  Four hours later, Heidi walked in the door. “Hey, hon! How are you doing? What do you think of my voice?”

  Her excitement was tangible and for the first time, I felt bad about what I did. When I woke up the first time, I placed the gun next to my other ear, maybe an inch from my head, pointed it at my pillow and pulled the trigger again before I remembered how much it would hurt. After waking up the second time, I quickly incinerated the bloody sheet I had put beneath me, in case I bled, which turned out to be good thinking on my part. Then I incinerated my pillow, which served to slow down the bullets. After that, I put the dented cookie sheet, which actually stopped the bullets before they could put holes in the wall, in the dumpster shoot. Heidi didn’t cook anyway. She’d never miss it. Ten minutes later, my face was cleaned up and I was looking out the window, enjoying the view, smelling the air, feeling the wind on my face, and hearing absolutely nothing.

  “It’s beautiful,” I signed. “Too bad I can’t hear it.”

  She looked like she might cry, but managed to keep her reporter game face. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I signed.

  “Did you see the doctor?”

  I nodded and signed, “Nothing they can do. Something wrong with the way my mind works.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Don’t be,” I signed. “I think I’m happier this way.”

  AFTERWORD

  This story is a response to two things that have begun to annoy me, and most people—noise pollution and advertising. I wrote this story after living in Los Angles for a few years. There is more advertising and noise in LA than anywhere I’ve been or suspect I’ll ever be, until I visit Tokyo (watching Godzilla in a Tokyo theater is on my list of things to do before I die). There were times in LA, when I longed for silence, when I wished for the glut of advertising to fade. That frustration is at the core of the story.

  But the specific inspiration came from an article in Popular Science. It discussed facial-recognition software being utilized in mall advertisements. The signs could determine that the person walking past was a young man, or an old woman, and display a targeted ad. As a person who markets books all the time, I see the money-making value of the system. As a human being, I want to say, “Get out of my brain!” It’s too much. And I know it’s not the end. As TV advertisements lose their grip on people and we train ourselves to ignore Web-ads (I’m already a pro at this), people with something to sell will find new ways to attract consumers' attention. I have no doubt that targeted audio will find its way to the grocery store. It’s already hard to walk through a toy store and not have several of the toys call out to you. It’s the future baby! And when it arrives, you may wish to be deaf, too.

  Dark Seed of the Moon

  The job was simple.

  All I had to do was keep the engines running for a trip to the moon and back. Should have gone as smooth as a hairless cat.

  Should have.

  Next time I’m tempted to think something should go a certain way, I’ll remember this trip and then kick myself repeatedly until I squeal. You see, I tend to have a big mouth, and sitting alone in an engine room with nothing to irritate me other than the monotonous hum of the engines, I tend to have very few opportunities to spout off what comes to my mind. Sometimes the words come out of my mouth just as the thought that created them slams into my head. The results aren’t always pretty.

  “The port side thruster seems a little sticky. We’re drifting .005 degrees to starboard with every thrust. See if you can straighten it out.” It was the first time this captain had visited the engine room. It was the first time he had asked me to do anything at all. My response was less than professional.

  I explained that a .005 degree drift was not only insignificant, but the fact that he had come to the engine room in person to tell me about it was ridiculous.

  I was just getting warmed up.

  With a loud voice, I declared that if we were traveling to Alpha Centauri, a .005 degree drift would put us way off course, perhaps by a million miles or so, but on a trip from Earth to the moon, .005 degrees was like forgetting to trim a few hairs on a beard. No one would notice.

  When I was finally done ranting, the captain chuckled, called me some sort of name—can’t remember what it was—and then declared that I’d be lucky to find work at the San Fran Space Port. There goes another port... Only three left in the country that don’t have me on the blacklist. I must have turned bright red, because he said something insulting about my face, laughed loudly and then called me a drunk.

  I’m a loudmouth. I’ll concede that. Sometimes I can be downright obnoxious. But I’m not a drunk. My father was a drunk and a bastard, with tendency to whip children with metal objects. Even before the thought entered my mind, my body had already reacted, and I was only starting to understand what happened when I realized the captain was on the grated floor of the engine room, rubbing his jaw.

  * * *

  Been three hours since then and I’m on cleanup duty—for the rest of the trip. Glad we’re just going to the moon. One day there, one day stay and one day back. As long as nothing spills, I’ll just be sitting on my rump, just like always, only now I’m sitting in my closet-sized quarters, reading a novel and waiting for something to spill. I should slug captains more often.

  “Simon, cleanup in cargo bay 2-C,” the first-mate’s voice booms over the intercom. I nearly fall from my bunk as his shrill voice wrenches me from a graphic sex scene in which the author took an entire paragraph to describe the woman’s breasts.

  “And do a good job,” the captain adds. “Or we’ll leave you at the Dark Crater colony after we make this delivery.” Apparently, the captain is looking for me to straighten his jaw with a left hook. Probably a good thing he’s choosing to use the intercom this time.

  I work my way through the cramped, gray hallways, which smell like mildew, and slide into cargo bay 2-C. The odor hits me first, like fleshy copper. The stench is so pungent and putrid that I cup my hands over my mouth and hold down the bile rising in my throat. The room is so thick with the stuff that I can taste it…which gives me pause.

  Familiarity causes the hairs on my legs to bristle.

  My forehead wrinkles as I move forward, looking for the spill. A growing sense of dread that makes me want to hit the head before continuing, surges through my guts. But I push on, past the oxygen tanks and cargo crates filled with medical supplies.

  I freeze.

  Before taking this job I glanced at the cargo manifest and saw the first few items listed (medical supplies mostly), and then looked at the location. I saw the word “moon” and signed up. Most trips to the moon were quick, high paying and relatively easy. The captain’s words finally register in my cortex. He had said, “Dark Crater colony.” Lord knows I wouldn’t have signed up for a Dark Crater drop.

  Rumors ran high when it came to the Dark Crater colony. As one of the first colonies to be set up independently of any Earth government, the only way to visit the Dark Crater colony was by invitation or to
make cargo drops, and even then, most cargo crews were hand-picked by the colony itself—I had been a last-minute replacement.

  Damn.

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  I take a deep breath and the sour smell and taste enters my mouth again. I’m thrown into a coughing fit that burns inside my chest like my lungs are being ripped at by a feral cat. I fall to one knee and realize I need to see it for myself, confirm the fear itching at the back of my skull.

  I head toward the back of the room where a wall of barrels are stacked five deep, four high and thirty across. A puddle sits on the floor ten feet to my right, but I don’t see a leak. With my arm over my mouth and nose, I head for the spill and stop two feet away, staring at the crimson liquid.

  Following the spill to the nearest barrel, I read the label, which is written in bold text and accompanied by several warning and hazmat emblems. My chest pounds as theories race through my mind. Maybe there’s some kind of medical emergency? A disaster of some kind. The need might be high if there was a large number of injured. Walking quickly along the line of barrels, I read the labels on each one.

  All the same.

  I can hear a rushing sound behind my eardrums and I’ve all but forgotten about the smell. I rush to the computer console next to the door and access the cargo manifest, reading it in more detail this time. The first page looks normal—construction supplies, medical supplies—but no food. Most colonies have working greenhouses and interior farms that provide some food, but imported Earth food is usually the number one cargo item. I scan forward to the next page, expecting to see a long list of food items.

  After ten lines of text scroll by, my finger freezes on the keyboard and the list continues to scroll down. For a minute straight, the long list of barreled cargo scrolls past my stunned eyes. There’s no food at all…or is there?

  A few others have gone to the crater and back and told horror stories about what they saw there, the kind of folks that live there. Most are written off as jealous blue-collar workers, envious of the rich who can afford to live on a colony with a never-ending perfect view of the stars. But now I think the rumors might be true, which makes the rest of this hand-picked crew highly suspect and me a severely endangered loudmouth.