short stories

The day the universe stood iffy: ∞.

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“One more thing?! I just saved the universe single-handedly–“

The crow cawed.

“Well, nearly single-handedly and there’s more?”

“Well, only in a cosmic balance kind of way,” Alex said, the tone clipped with maybe a dollop of hurt.

“What does that mean?” As Taryn watched, her apartment building reinflated itself like a bouncy house, complete with a now fully-formed Gerald on the step, looking at nothing where Catalog had been. The sky and the clouds and the sun followed, the grass and the butterflies and the flowers. The squirrels returned to squirreling.

“If ever you should need us,” said Sam quickly, “We will help. We must help, or we could destroy the fabric of spacetime.”

“Again?”

“Technically it wasn’t spacetime, it was a collapsing of all the dimensions which rendered us relatively powerless–“

“Not the point at the moment,” said Sam, “And you won’t be able to hear us anymore soon. But because we exist in more dimensions than you can understand, it gives us an edge, if you should need one.”

“But if I won’t be able to hear you–“

“Caw caw,” the crow said gently, hopping to land on the fence right next to Taryn. In its beak, it held a slightly flattened bead with a tiny intricate design. It nodded its beak in her direction, and she opened her hand, the bead landing heavily in her palm.

“A bead?” she said, the internal lines complicated and fascinating.

“An octeract,” Alex’s tone grew upbeat with the correction. “A simple object from our dimension, but immensely powerful in yours. If, some day, you find yourself in another situation, that’s all you’ll need to reach us.”

“This?” Taryn held the octeract up to the light, and it scattered colors like a disco ball.

“That,” said Sam. “We’re almost fully back to normal, our communications are ending, at least for you.”

“I don’t understand–“

“Always the same Taryn,” Alex said. “I wouldn’t expect you would. Take care of the octeract, Catalog has been scattered throughout infinite dimensions, but there are far more forms of trouble in this universe than you can comprehend.”

“Great to know, nice parting thought,” Taryn said. “Well, then I guess this is goodbye.” She tucked the octeract into a small zippered pocket of her purse.

Sam and Alex did not respond. The crow gave her one last slow blink, and with a final caw, flew up and off until she couldn’t see it anymore.

Holding her coffee once again, the bag in her other hand now only a bag, the sugar packet merely sugar, Taryn trudged up the steps past Gerald.

“Hello again,” she said.

“Nine,” he said, and she froze where she was.

“I’m sorry? What did you say?”

“Nine minutes this time. That your laundry was done and you didn’t take it out of the machine.”

“Oh,” she said. “Sorry.” And as she opened the door, she mumbled to herself, “you’re welcome for saving your life and stuff.”

“What was that? he said.

“Nothing,” she said, patting her purse for the bead. “Nothing at at all.”

The End…until next time?

The day the universe stood iffy: 1.

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“I’m glad you like the question,” said Taryn, dodging Catalog as it darted at her and retreated, all in no space at all, “but what is the answer?”

Silence.

Below her, nothing but a single line, a tightrope made of the entirety of the rest of the universe. The crow sighed.

“One,” it said.

“You wouldn’t happen to know what should be doing here, do you?” It tilted its head at her, its shiny black eye yielding nothing. “Of course not,” she said, still zigging and zagging to the sharp pages snarling at her.

She didn’t have anything with her, her purse had melded with everything else along with the bag and the sugar packet. What else could she do? And who would have thought a talking crow would be of so little help?

“I’m only partially in here with you,” said the crow. “It’s complicated.”

“Did you just hear me think? Wait, never mind, that can wait. No, no, it can’t.” In a quick little jig, Taryn danced around the space, shooing away pages with her hands.

“Where I’m from your thoughts aren’t technically ‘inside’ your head. I told you, it’s complicated. And I’m mostly there, only sort of here. As an observer.”

“Well that’s fantastic,” said Taryn, and, in annoyance, instead of swatting Catalog’s page, she grabbed it and yanked.

As the page tore, streaks of all colors that could be and many that couldn’t leaked from the ripped edges, filling the bubble, pushing on its walls.

“Oh,” Taryn said. “Oh,” and then it was she who lunged, grasping for the glossy sheets, pulling them apart at the binding, shredding them by hand into tiny pieces. Catalog bellowed, but the cheap binding glue could only hold so well.

The line expanded and broadened, back to flat again, and now the crow fluttered its wings, diving and grabbing at the paper. The bubble, awash with the streaks that became shapes that became objects, expanded at a rate she could almost hear.

Now Catalog was nothing more than a front cover and a back one, the bits that had been parts of pages moments before dissolving and disappearing, reforming into vast regions she couldn’t see.

“Ahem,” she heard as she took what was left of Catalog and tore that up too. “You can stop now.”

Alex.

“Right. Since there’s nothing left. So we’re done, right?”

“Just one more thing.”

Until next time…

The day the universe stood iffy: 2.

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Soon, it wasn’t only Gerald, who now looked like he was drawn onto a flat picture of a small apartment building.

As Catalog vacuumed up the space between,  inside, the puffiness of it all, the flowers, the trees, the man and the dog, the jogger,  the bag, all of them compressed together, flatter and flatter and flatter.

The bag with the sugar packet inside left Taryn’s hand, yet she didn’t drop it. It just melded with the rest.

All but Catalog. And the crow.

“See?” said Alex. The voice now was tinny, like an old-fashioned recording. “See?”

Taryn patted herself down, feeling remarkably plump. “I’m still normal?” she asked, standing atop all that had been there a moment before, like the pop-up of a pop-up book. “Why am I not flat?”

“Two,” came vaguely from somewhere below her, indistinct and depressed.

“Because it’s you,” Sam said. At least she thought it was Sam. It was getting harder to tell.

“Two.” Taryn could have sworn that time it was the apartment building.

“Is this some ‘chosen one’ scenario? Fate and destiny and I don’t know my true origins kind of thing?”

A flat sound wafted up from the squashed scene below. A squished laugh.

“Uh no.” Definitely Alex. “I mean if we could do that, we would have chosen an astrophysicist or something, not a…you.”

“Well I seem to be fine so you can handle this yourselves.” Taryn turned to storm off but found nowhere to go. Only Catalog and the crow no matter where she faced, with the sheet of everything else below.

“Two?” Even more nondescript.

“No, don’t leave,” Sam said.

“How could she?”

“But still.” Sam said to Alex. And then to Taryn: “You’re fine because you saw the sign.”

“Because I saw the sign? What does that mean?”

“The ten. It entangled you, quantumly speaking, with the tenth dimension. But since you are not in that dimension and you only have three, it and all the lower dimensions are insulating you.”

“Like bubble wrap?”

There was a silence, and Alex sighed a very Alex sigh. “Fine. Yes. Like bubble wrap.”

Catalog rattled its pages at her much like a catalog would lick its lips if it had lips to lick.

“Because I saw it?”

“The universe is far more complex than you can imagine. Or it was, at this rate. It’s getting simpler every second.”

Catalog lunged at her, flipping it’s pages at her like glossy knives. The crow cawed at it as Catalog’s pages bent against an invisible barrier.

“Huh,” the syllable slow and deliberate. “How do we defeat it?”

“Finally, a good question.”

Until next time…

The day the earth stood iffy: 3.

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“Three!” Screamed the trees. As Taryn watched, Gerald, still looking at the catalog, stood motionless as his face flattened like a deflating balloon.

“I don’t get what you’re saying. Gerald is my neighbor. Who are you talking about?”

“Three,” the crow said. “Three,” with sad emphasis.

“I’m confused, which is a difficult thing to do to an eight dimensional being.” Alex sounded stressed.

“Gerald is the human person. The thing,” Taryn said slowly, making a meal of knowing something Alex and Sam didn’t, “is called a catalog.”

“Well Catalog is in the process of stealing Gerarald’s dimensions, so unless you’d like him to be zero–“

“Three,” said a jogger.

“Not Catalog, like a name, it’s a thing, an object.”

“Exactly.”

“You didn’t know that, don’t act like you knew it.”

“That’s sort of, almost true,” Sam said, “but it’s getting pretty tight in here we’re five dimensions down already.”

On the stoop, the distance between Gerald’s shoulders disappeared to nothing.

“In your dimension, Catalog looks like a thing. Like us.”

“You’re objects?”

“Sugar packet,” said Alex.

“Bag,” said Sam. “Any being more than four dimensions and that’s the best we can do in yours.”

Taryn wondered if she was imagining hearing their voices coming from the direction of her hand.

“Can you understand faster, we’re running out of time. And dimensions. We’re down to–.”

“Three,” a crumpled can offered.

“Oh hi Bob!” said Sam.

“Four dimensions, and you can be a crow, but four dimensions exactly,” said the crow, which wasn’t nearly as strange as what came next.

Until next time…

The day the universe stood iffy: 4.

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“Back up a second,” said Taryn, “what do you mean, ‘three?’ And are you talking about Gerald?”

“What’s a ‘Gerald?'”

“Him,” Taryn pointed with a half-nod at the neighbor who was still looking at the tool catalog.

“Four,” came in a high, thin voice from a passing butterfly.

“‘Him’ is an unusual way to describe a multidimensional being intent on destroying the universe but if that helps…”

“You haven’t told me what you mean by ‘three.'”

“This is frustrating.  Dimensional, obviously. “

“How is that obvious?!”

A pointed silence settled around her, which was then punctuated by a chorus of daffodils who weren’t quite open, so it was a slightly muffled “four.”

“Anyway,” said Alex, “the universe is going to be ripped apart by ‘Gerald’ or whatever you called it, and you are the only one who can save it.”

“The universe.”

“Yes,” Sam said.

“Because I’m three dimensional?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I’m supposed to save everything that ever existed?”

“Unfortunately.”

“How many dimensions are you?”

“Eight.”

“But…how?”

“Do you want to know or do you want to prevent the end of the universe?”

“I want to know.”

“Wrong answer,” Alex said, “and it’s already looking too late, because it seems to me Gerald is eating your neighbor’s face.”

Until next time…

The day the universe stood iffy: 5.

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“It’s not what we want, but what we need.”

“And that is?”

“Well, um…do threes have names?” It was the first one, who, along with each confirmation of the statements of the other, became more deferential.

“Of course we have names.”

“Such that they are.”

“It’s Taryn.”

“See?”

“Fine, what are your names if they’re so great?”

And then the first one said something so beautiful and grand and important yet true that Taryn couldn’t breathe for the pure perfection.

“OK, that’s pretty great. I’ll never ve able to say it but it’s great.”

“You think so? It’s kind of plain. You can call us Alex and Sam. Can you pronounce that?”

“Yeah I can swing it. Can I keep walking? Because people are starting to stare.”

“Walking? Is that what that peculiar motion is called? Feel free, we’ll talk as we go.”

Taryn took a huge swig of her coffee, now on the warm side of hot, covering the rest of the distance to her building while trying to ignore the random “fives” coming at her. The crow kept pace, apparently eager to see how it all played out.

“You didn’t say what you needed me for,” she said, the donut bag rustling as she walked.

“Nothing huge,” said the second one, the one who’d chosen Sam. “You just need to save all that ever was, is, and will be.”

She froze as her neighbor wandered out of the building and back to the mailbox,  lest he heard her. “Yeah, sure, right. Everything evewhere–“

“And when,” Alex offered helpfully.

“Fine, I’ll bite. From what?”

“From him.”

Until next time…

The day the universe stood iffy: 6

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The thing about threes,” the voice continued, “is they cannot see intite, obdite, or transcite.”

“Who are you?” She twirled around, face cast upward, a ring around the rosy of one. The crow’s eye remained fixed on something or somewhere beyond her vision.

“Six,” it proclaimed, but not unkindly.

“Oh I see,” the first voice said, a slender ribbon of superiority weaving its way through the words. “No wonder they make such a fuss about…what is it they call it? Right. Gender.”

The other laughed, the sound as though it was all places at once. “Yes. Threes.”

Taryn fought the urge to just sit down on the sidewalk as a car drove slowly by, mindful of the speedbump, with a license plate of 51X.

It took her a second, or perhaps a bit longer. She’d only had a few sips of coffee.

“Fine,” she said, “what do you guys want?”

A man walking a fluffy poof of a dog paused as the dog did what dogs do, and then enthusiastically pawed at the ground. “Me?” he asked.

“No,” said Taryn, but let me guess, six?”

Saying nothing to her and walking a wide arc to avoid her, he tugged at the dog’s leash. When all the fluffiness cleared, there, in the dirt, she saw it.

The dog had scratched a perfect six.

“Seriously, what do you want?”

Until next time…

The day the universe stood iffy: 7.

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“OK,” said Taryn, “I don’t know who this is or how you’re doing it, but ha ha, hilarious, joke over, no thank you.”

“She can’t see us?” It was the first voice again, one she thought seemed a little friendlier.

“Of course she can’t.” The other one seethed with impatience, clear even while invisible.

“Seven,” said the squirrel in a voice Taryn didn’t expect a squirrel to have.

“Seven,” echoed a sparrow, in exactly the voice Taryn expected it to have.

“She’s only a three. She can’t even conceive of us.”

“Are you talking about me? Because I’m right here. No need to be rude.”

“See?” Impatience morphed to smugness.

A crow glided down from a branch, landing gracefully atop a chainlink fence by the sidewalk. It looked at her with one bright black eye, and then tilted its head as though studying something above and slightly behind her.

“Seven,” it said as if it was introducing Masterpiece Theater, and then it pointedly glanced back at the air, then her, then the air.

“We should have tried a crow,” the exasperated one said, “at least then the universe would stand a chance.”

Until next time…

The day the universe stood iffy: 8.

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Is that her?” she heard, though no one around her said it.

No one else noticed it, either, judging by the lack of reaction. Then again, they were all chanting “nine” a moment ago, so maybe they didn’t know what weird was.

Anything was possible. Apparently.

“She doesn’t seem to be right, though,” said a second disembodied voice.

“Did you hear someone say something?” she asked a woman staring forlornly at a blank page and a blinking cursor.

“Huh?” The word echoed as though from very far away.

“Taryn?” said the barista, nodding toward the paper cup on the counter, handing her a crinnky bag with the donnut.

“Thanks,” she said and shouldered her way out of the door.

She was about half a block toward home when there was a sigh from everywhere and nowhere at all. Not a soul ahead, not a hint of a person  behind, just a brazen city squirrel scattering husks on the sidewalk.

“I suppose,” that second voice said, words heavy with resignation, “she will have to do.”

Until next time…

The Day the universe stood iffy: 9.

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9.

It’s difficult to know what to do when a giant ghostly numeral invades your home, but in Taryn’s case, she decided to pretend it didn’t exist and, instead, went to bed, hoping in the morning, like so many things, the problem would solve itself.

Perhaps not the most rational way to cope, but it’s not as if the city had a number you could call. So it was with relief she saw, as she peeked around the corner from the hallway from the bedroom, that the ten was gone, if ever it was. She was tired. Things happen.
Well not that kind of thing but it was gone so…whatever.

She passed her neighbor from two floors down on the stoop as she headed out, the air that fresh only an early Spring morning can deliver. He was paging through a stack of mail.

“Morning,” she said, her tone even. If she was honest, he seemed a little odd, though he also probably hadn’t had a giant ten in his living room so who was calling who odd.

He nodded, not looking away from the stack in the tell-tale colors and gloss of junk. “Nine,” he said.

She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned to look back at him. “Sorry?”

“What?” He tore himself away from some kind of tool catalog.

“Did you just say—“

“I didn’t say anything,” he said, and yanked the glass door open, then strode through it leaving it slightly ajar.

Yes, odd.

But she wanted coffee and no one would let a little weirdness get in the way of coffee. After a quick walk, Taryn got in line at her newly favorite little place, all the tables already staked out.

“Hey Avery,” she said to the person at the register, “I’ll take the vanilla latte today.”

“Nine,” Avery said, eyes a little more glazed than the usual.

“Nine dollars?” said Taryn.

“No, $6.50, you’re getting the donut, right?”

“Uh huh.”

Moving off to the side, Taryn leaned against the wall, waiting for the barista to get to her order, listening to the soothing whir and swish of the foaming milk. Only it wasn’t so soothing.

If she listened to it, tuning out all the other sounds, she heard it. “Nine. Nine. Nine.”

She swore all the people staring at their computers, their tablets, their phones, spread out but one to a table, soon joined in. “Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine.” Not one of them looked at her. Not one of them looked at each other.

And then things got really weird.

Until next time…