Stink

     David and Lorraine spent that Thursday morning passing each other on their way into and out of the bathroom. “I really do not feel good,” David said as he went in and Lorraine came out.

     “Don’t go in there yet,” Lorraine cautioned him. But it was too late, and David couldn’t have waited much longer anyway.

     They had been dating for just over two years, and had moved in together only three weeks before their stomach troubles caused them to give up their final secrets from each other.

     “Oh god, is this stink going to kill our romance?” David called from the loo, trying to add a bit of levity to the embarrassing situation.

     The stink seemed to have a physical presence, David mused. He even teased Lorraine about it when he stepped out, and she stepped back in, but Lorraine was not in the mood to laugh. Her stomach was boiling.

     Throughout the morning the stink increased. It grew denser with each trip to the bathroom, being contained in so small a space without any windows through which it could escape. Until they could no longer kid themselves. The stink had most certainly taken on a physical form. And it was not pretty. It was confused and hungry, an unwanted newborn in a world where it was unlikely to find sympathy or compassion.

     Lorraine was the first to be touched by the Stink. It was tentative, unsure, so light Lorraine at first thought she’d imagined it. But when the Stink applied a little more pressure, Lorraine gasped and swatted the Stink away.

     “Are you okay in there?” David asked from outside the bathroom door.

     “No,” Lorraine said.

     “No,” the Stink repeated tentatively, testing out the word in its newly formed mouth. Finding it to its liking, it repeated, “No.”

     “Lorraine, you sound weird,” David said, concerned. He was also concerned for himself, as he needed to get in there again soon. Very soon.

     “David, that wasn’t me,” Lorraine told him, turning frightened.

     “What do you mean, that wasn’t you?”

     “That wasn’t me. That was…it.”

     “No,” the Stink said again, more sure of itself.

     In the three weeks they’d been sharing the small, one-bedroom apartment, David had not once walked in on Lorraine when she was in the bathroom. And, if he were to continue to catalogue his good qualities, he also never left the seat up on the toilet or failed to let Lorraine take the first shower in the morning. But now David’s hand was on the bathroom door knob. “Lorraine, I’m coming in.”

     “No,” the Stink said again, this time in a voice loud and certain.

     David hesitated at the door, his hand still on the knob. “Honey?”

     Though frightened, Lorraine was also curious. Though alarmed, she no longer felt she was in danger. The Stink had touched her, but not hurt her. And she felt some strange affection for it, perhaps because it in part took on some likeness of David. Actually, both David and Lorraine could be detected in part in the Stink’s grotesque form. Lorraine reached out to the Stink, and found it warm to the touch. She also saw it smile as her hand brushed its form. But after a moment her hand passed through it, startling both herself and the Stink.

     “Lorraine, are you okay?” David asked. “I need to use the toilet. Now.”

     Lorraine looked to the Stink. It seemed to perk up, and Lorraine understood. She washed her hands and told David to come in. David opened the door slowly, expecting Lorraine to come out. But Lorraine remained standing by the sink.

     “You want me to poop while you’re –” David cut himself off as he saw the Stink hovering over the bath mat. “What?”

     “It’s okay, David. It won’t hurt you.” She paused for just a moment, then said what seemed too fantastic to be true, but what she intuitively knew to be so: “He needs you. He needs us. Go ahead.”

     David, after only a slight hesitation, sat down and defecated. He could not have waited longer even if Lorraine had begged him to. And the moment he did so, the Stink’s form became more solid. The Stink looked healthier, stronger, though still gross and monstrous.

     “Holy hell,” David said under his breath. What had they done? he wondered.

     Both David and Lorraine called their bosses to report they were sick, and remained at home to feed the Stink. Throughout the morning and into the afternoon, they went into the bathroom – one at a time – until they had no more to give. They were empty. David was relieved, and told Lorraine he was going to take a nap. But Lorraine was worried. She saw how weak the Stink became if even fifteen minutes passed between feedings.

     “What are we going to do?” she asked David, as he settled under the blankets. “Now that we’re feeling better, what will become of Stink?”

     At hearing Lorraine give a name to the thing, David realized now he should have let her get a cat like she’d wanted to when they moved in together. But pets weren’t allowed in the building, and David was disgusted by the idea of an animal sleeping in their bed, something cats seemed entitled to do. But that might still have been preferable to this strange creature that Lorraine had clearly taken to mothering. What if he relented now and told her to get a cat? Would that work? Would a cat even measure up now that she’d grown attached to this strange, preternatural creature?

     “We have to find it nourishment,” Lorraine stated. And David knew then that no cat could dissuade her. He knew also that he was as involved as she, and that he wasn’t going to get a nap right then.

     David sat up. “Okay.” He thought for a moment, then said, “The bus station.”

     It took a second for Lorraine to understand his meaning. “Of course. There are lots of toilets there.”

     “Yup, toilets that are rarely if ever cleaned, and a lot icky people. Stink will feel right at home.”

     At that moment, Everett was wiping the blood from his knife onto Winnie’s dress. He then stood over the newly deceased woman and felt slightly ill. Hadn’t he sworn to his mother and to Lord Hoover that he wouldn’t do this sort of thing anymore? Yes. Yes, he had. His mother was going to be very disappointed in him. Worse, Lord Hoover was likely going to beat him with his Prickly Stick and leave him in the Closet of Shame again. And no amount of crying was going to persuade him otherwise. Everett was suddenly frightened. The only course of action that seemed open to him was to flee to Aunt Lily’s place. She would shelter him, hide him, keep him from harm. Keep him from Lord Hoover’s Prickly Stick. Aunt Lily loved him, and promised she always would.

     Everett opened Winnie’s purse. There was enough money there for him to purchase a bus ticket. Soon he would be with Lily. Soon he would be safe.

     But when Everett reached the bus station, he felt a mighty sickness come over him. He thought he saw Lord Hoover peering at him from the windows of several parked buses. Lord Hoover had eyes in every street lamp and fence post and garbage can. Angry eyes that saw all and promised punishment and torment. Everett began to sweat and to shake. He rushed into the bus station bathroom and found an empty stall.

     “You’re going in with it, right?” Lorraine asked David. Her tone told him that yes, he would be going into the bathroom with Stink. It was the same tone she’d used when she said, twenty minutes earlier, “We’re taking your car, right?” And David knew he had hours of scrubbing ahead of him before the car would be anything close to clean again. Stink needed David’s help anyway getting into the men’s bathroom, as it was weak from hunger, parts of it disappearing before David’s eyes.

     “I’ll wait here,” Lorraine said at the bathroom door. Her voice was so full of concern that David suddenly – and for the first time – hoped that this would work, that Stink would pull through. He just didn’t want him back in his car.

     The moment David and Stink entered the bathroom, Stink began to regain its strength. David was happy to note that Stink’s shape recovered its solidity almost immediately. Lorraine would be pleased. The odor in the room was tremendous, even worse than David has expected. One man, David couldn’t help but notice, was struggling with some personal demons that made his own earlier suffering seem like a mild distraction. It sounded like the man was losing everything he’d ever consumed, all at once. Stink was drawn toward that stall, and for a moment David thought it was going to join the poor wretch in his most private torment. But Stink didn’t need to go into the stall. Being outside the door was enough for it to soak up everything that man was offering.

     David remained just inside the bathroom door, not wanting to get any closer than necessary, but it wasn’t long that – even at that distance – he began to see something was wrong. Stink was changing complexion, changing even its shape, and it was turning uglier. A deep crimson came over much of its form, and its size increased. It no longer looked toward David for comfort. It no longer looked at him at all, so focused was it on partaking of the grotesque feast the suffering man in the stall was inadvertently providing.

     Then suddenly the stall door opened and Everett stumbled out, nearly running into Stink, but stopping just short of its hulking form. Frozen Everett was to his spot, as David was to his.

     “Lord Hoover,” Everett stuttered, cowering, defeated. “I am sorry.”

     “No,” Stink told him.

     Everett, surprised, looked up at it, and for a moment the two seemed – to David – to be the same being. Then Stink turned and rushed past David out the door. David looked to Everett, who hesitated only a moment before running out of the bathroom himself.

     David stepped out of the bathroom a moment later, and found Lorraine staring off toward the benches of the waiting area. David followed her gaze to the body of a young woman on the floor, her dress torn, her legs in an unlikely position, blood beginning to collect in a pool by her head. An employee rushed over to her as David and Lorraine watched.

     David didn’t need to hear it to know, but Lorraine said it anyway: “Stink.” He put his arms around her, as they watched the employee looking for signs of life in the woman and not finding any.

     At that moment, Everett’s bus began to pull out of the station. He would soon be safe with Aunt Lily. She would make everything right. Everett began to relax. Even his stomach relaxed. And so he was not prepared when the driver halted the bus just before it turned onto the street. “Sorry, folks,” the driver said. “There’s been an incident and I’m being told to back up. No buses are allowed to leave now.” He added, in an effort to placate the understandably upset passengers, “I hope it won’t be long.”

     Everett looked out through the bus window and he saw Lord Hoover staring back at him from the face of a security guard. “It’s me,” he said in the direction of the driver. “Tell Aunt Lily it’s me.”


(Copyright 2019 Michael Doherty)

(NOTE: I wrote this story while at work on January 17, 2019, then made a few small changes on January 19th and January 22nd.)

Participants

     When Dobson accepted his new position at the factory, he believed the world had finally smiled at him. But the world never smiled at Isaac Dobson. It occasionally smirked at him. But a genuine smile? No. Never. But for a time – a short time – Dobson was convinced things were going his way. And so he did something he had never really allowed himself to do before. Dobson began to dream.

     At first they were tiny, insignificant dreams. Dreams of walking to the corner store without stepping in dog droppings, dreams of his bus arriving at the scheduled time, dreams of eating a nice meal without getting heartburn. And then Dobson began to have bigger dreams. Dreams of being respected at work. Dreams of being recognized by the bartender when he walked into his favorite pub. And dreams of love. He dreamed of finding someone who would be seen with him in public without his making a significant contribution toward her rent. Of finding someone who would let him kiss her and perhaps even do that thing he’d read about so often in the books left by the previous tenant of his tiny apartment, that thing he was afraid to ask even the woman who ate into his paycheck every month. And it was this dream that took over his consciousness, his thoughts, his soul, as he believed that it was now possible. He might finally have the opportunity to waltz with a lady.

     At work he began humming waltzes to himself, and tapping out the rhythm on his clipboard with the pen that was attached to it by a short plastic cord. This did not make his co-workers respect him, and poorly drawn caricatures of Dobson waltzing began appearing on the bathroom walls. But Dobson didn’t see them. He did not use the toilet at work. His body refused to function in public places, even now with his new position. It was the first position – and would be his only position – that required the use of a clipboard, and he got a minor thrill just from holding it, from carrying it, which he did with both hands, something else his co-workers found worthy of ridicule. Perhaps the most accomplished drawing now adorning the bathroom wall was of Dobson waltzing romantically with his clipboard, a look of unabashed elation (some saw it as sexual excitement) on his face. That piece was the contribution of Stan Hollis, a disturbed but somewhat talented young man who had a dream of his own.

     Dobson’s attention went rather quickly from the hypothetical dance partner to an actual woman who worked in the accounting department. Her name was Tara Morgan, and she was a woman of average height and average weight, and of average appeal to the opposite sex. She liked old blues records, horses and slightly dirty jokes, and on Fridays she played poker with a group of other women. They played for money, and Tara won approximately the same amount that she lost. Her one striking feature was her stare, which some found off-putting and some found alluring. Dobson fell firmly into the latter group. In fact, he read a lot more into her stare than anyone else ever did. But all he read there was wrong.

     Tara was aware of Dobson only as a name on a paycheck. Perhaps she was dimly aware of his slightly upgraded position, because of the slight change in the amount on the paycheck. But that was the extent of her knowledge of – and her interest in – Isaac Dobson. And her stare? It was something that Tara perfected in her school days, a look that teachers read as rapt attention when what it really meant was that her thoughts were elsewhere. Her focus was inward, not outward. Her dreams played a more prominent role in her life than did Dobson’s in his, and always had. But Dobson saw her looking in his direction one Thursday afternoon and felt a sudden sharp sting of excitement unlike anything he’d felt before. A woman was seeing him for the first time. And he thought everything was falling into place. After all, his bus had been only two minutes late that day.

     Stan Hollis was eight years old when his dreams took an unexpected turn toward the macabre. Not long after that, his pet gerbil was buried. And in the succeeding years he became quite keen on human anatomy, reading every book on the subject he could obtain, and making sketches of organs and the circulatory system. During high school he managed to steal first a doctor’s coat and then surgical scrubs from the local hospital while visiting his sister. His sister didn’t survive, but Hollis felt that to be the time when his life began to truly take the shape it was meant to. He was making progress toward realizing his dream.

     It was late Friday afternoon when Dobson decided to make his own big dream come true. He did a little research on dance halls and found one he believed would meet his needs, and called to make reservations for two. He then went straight to Tara’s office, clipboard firmly in hands. He walked excitedly, almost proudly. That’s how one co-worker would later describe it to the police. But when he reached her door, Dobson saw that Tara was busy. She was in what he assumed was an important work-related conversation with two colleagues. That, however, did not cause him to give up, just to adjust his tactics. He turned over the top form on his clipboard to its blank side and began to compose a brief letter. “Dear Tara,” his letter began. Surely this was the best use he’d found for his clipboard so far. When he completed the letter, he slipped it into the clear plastic box outside her door. And as he walked back to his regular spot at work, in his mind he ran through the scenario as he assumed it would play out, beginning with the look of surprise, and even joy, on Tara’s face as she read his note inviting her to be his waltz partner that night. Dobson felt so certain of the world – a completely new sensation – that he didn’t even leave his phone number, just the time he planned to be at the club. He did not dream that she would turn him down. The world was smiling at Dobson, and Dobson was smiling back. Several co-workers would remark on his spacey, lofty smile when interviewed by the police later. That’s how they would remember him. Stan Hollis would remember him differently. Tara wouldn’t remember him at all. She never read Dobson’s letter.

     Something cracked in Stan Hollis long ago, but he had hidden the fissure for years. He’d done so by not putting his grand dream into action. But that Friday when he woke he knew it was the day when all would come true, and he’d reach what he believed was his highest self. Stan Hollis was nothing short of ecstatic as he packed his doctor’s coat and surgical scrubs into his backpack. He just needed to decide who would help him in his most important endeavor. The world was smiling at Stan Hollis. And when Isaac Dobson smiled at him too, he knew he’d found the perfect participant to fulfill his dream.

     As Tara was leaving her office, she reached into the box for the few accumulated papers within. But Laurie Fowler, one of the two poker buddies who had come to collect her, stopped her hand. “That can wait until Monday,” she told Tara. Tara agreed and didn’t give it another thought. By Monday, the letter would be in the hands of the police. That night Tara came out ahead, something that had not happened before. She won the first three rounds. And as she remarked that she was having the best night, Stan Hollis made the first incision in Isaac Dobson’s chest. At the precise moment when Isaac Dobson ceased dreaming forever, Tara laid out a royal flush.

(Copyright 2019 Michael Doherty)

(Note: The bulk of this short story was written while at work on January 9, 2019, with just some minor changes made at home on January 16th.)

Alternative Fact: January 1, 2019

Today's alternative fact (to help you get through the day): Donald Trump has agreed to visit thirteen major U.S. cities on his way to prison, to give citizens a chance to pelt him with rotten fruit and rocks. A number of lucky voters at each stop on the tour will get the opportunity to smack Donald Trump once across the face. "It is part of his plea bargain," insane faux attorney Rudy Giuliani explained. "This special tour knocks two decades off his eighty-year sentence."