That's what happened to me last week. The only writing I got done was a piece of work regarding the history and doctrine of 'Cidvec', a Gilesian religious figure mentioned in my book Sanctuary.
So the sequel is still moving forward, although the process is very slow-going.
So I thought I would lighten things up this week with an unrelated sci-fi story of my own making, with material heartily and unashamedly borrowed from a very old story called 'The Day Time Stopped Moving' by the illustrious Bradner Buckner, whom I've never heard of before.
So enjoy my version of 'The Day Time Stopped Moving', which I've rechristened 'Full Stop'.
***
Full Stop
A Short Story by Dianna Zaragoza
Based on 'The Day Time Stopped Moving' by Bradner Buckner
Joe Viga would never have done something like this in his
right mind. No one would have expected it of him. He wasn’t the sort of guy to
end up on the news the next day, when you hear of such things.
But Joe was drunk – more so than he’d ever been in his life
– and the cold barrel of his father’s 44 Magnum pressed against his temple cooled
the fever in his brain.
The morning light of day sprung from the ground like glowing
red grass in the distance. He could see it through the curtains of the frosty
kitchen windows. He dropped the gun back down to his side and turned back to
his phone, a blue light on the gray kitchen counter tiles.
The email from his wife was still there.
He'd pulled up Emily’s email fifteen minutes ago, as he’d
staggered through the front door, called her name and heard only silence. He
thought it was a quarter to five or so. He’d come home late before, from work,
from the store. She’d threatened to do it at times, but until tonight, she’d never
not been there.
Not until now.
He picked up his phone again, and scrolled back to the top.
His return message still sat on the screen, the ‘reply’ button awaiting his
touch –
“This is why"
He scrolled back down to read it again, in case he was
imagining things. Her message was also still there, with few words, but lots of
heartbreak between each line, interwoven throughout the whitespace –
“Money never mattered to me, Joseph. You know that. Business goes bad sometimes – it happens. But you never let
me help you. You never trusted me. What else can I do? I even miss the fighting
sometimes now, but I can't live married to a stone. My lawyer will be in touch.”
His gun in his hand seemed to rise by itself to kiss his
sweating temple again. He’d show her all the help she’d been – her nagging, her
sermonizing every time he felt like putting a bet down – it was all for her,
and she couldn’t see that. All he wanted was for her to be happy. What man
doesn’t want that for his wife? Could she blame him for taking a drink, if it
kept him going from day to day, running a restaurant that wasn’t much more than
a sinking ship at this point?
He stiffened in anger, and tightened his finger on the
trigger.
Stupid, spoiled woman.
But he had one moment of illumination right before the
hammer cocked.
Emily was right. He’d never trusted her, or anyone. He was a
coward. She’d been more loyal to him than he really deserved, and this was how
he treated her.
He could have taken some marketing classes, instead of
swilling Johnny Walker. He could have taken the time to try and understand his
customers’ and vendors’ needs better, instead of snapping at them for his own
satisfaction through his morning hangovers. And he knew, deep down, no one ever
actually makes money on the lottery or the online gambling sites. He knew it
deep down.
But somehow gambling and drinking had wound its way around
his business; so now, here he was, full of alcohol and irrational anger, with a
gun to his head.
Another fresh wave of anger swept through his brain,
clearing away any remnants of reason. He threw up his chin and gripped the gun
tightly.
“She could have made me a sandwich before she left….”
The hammer fell.
He heard a buzzer, and the white noise of the televisions. The
most familiar sounds in the world.
He was standing behind the host desk at his restaurant, facing
a stack of menus splattered with drops of buffalo sauce, and the buzzer calling
the next customer forward. People stood all around him. He saw one of the
waitresses, Jessica, chatting up her girlfriend at the bar while on duty. Again.
“What the…I’m so sorry, sir. Welcome to Sal’s Pizzeria - uh “
He scrambled to take
care of his customers despite still feeling the haze of his last bender. What
did the bartender put in his drink anyway? It tasted fairly rank, but that wasn’t
anything strange. Was he hallucinating? His heart raced beneath his uniform. He
was this close to yelling at Jessica in front of everyone to stopping hitting on the patrons and get
over there and help him.
“Have you been waiting long? What’s your…name again?”
It was the look in the man’s eyes that shocked him enough to
stop talking. He stood there, holding a buzzing pager Joe typically handed out
to the people in line, but the man’s eyes did not blink. His face looked like a
store mannequin. A small smile on his lips. Lifeless.
Joe glanced quickly around at the other patrons waiting. A
pregnant Hispanic lady with a small dark-haired girl. A heavy African-American
man, a regular customer, who looked like he might not get through the door
today. A blonde lady standing next to a bearded man in glasses wearing
boardshorts and a button-up shirt. All deathly still.
He noticed something else now – the white noise of the
television. No talking. Only a static stream.
His head came up to look at the main dining room. The people
on the television were as still as everyone in the restaurant.
His eyes turned with difficulty to the bar. The waitress Jessica
stood very close to the girl on the bar stool, her broad smile frozen. The girl
on the stool sat mid-laugh, her head thrown back, her mouth open. She held a
drink between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand.
Joe’s hair stiffened like iron shavings drawn to a magnet. Something
was very, very wrong here.
With fear rippling down his spine, Joe reached out a finger
and touched the cheek of the man facing him. The skin felt warm, but hard as
wood. He pushed a little hard with his finger, then with his hand, then he
shoved at the man. But he might as well have tried to shove a Redwood tree –
the man didn’t budge. His expression remained the same.
A claustrophobic panic rose in his throat that had to be
expressed.
“Jessica! Jessica! Hey!”
He could see her, but she didn’t move a muscle.
He tried to make his way through the iron bodies packed
around him, but they were too tightly packed, and the front door was almost
entirely blocked by the regular customer. He turned to the window behind him,
and kicked it out. The entire pane of glass fell and landed with a dull clunk,
but it didn’t shatter. He crawled his way through and out the empty window.
This was no hallucination or hangover.
His first thought was to head home to Emily. She would know
what to do. He would look in her gray eyes, she would listen to him, and nod
her head thoughtfully. Even just the thought of her calmness gave him a sense
of great relief. She would know what to do.
***Next part tomorrow...be sure and come back!
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