The Glacier (7 page)

***

Dust particulates floating in a stream of bright sunlight.

Sunlight on Simone's hands.

Simone stands at a large window on the upper mezzanine in the lobby of the Convention Center. She is a lone, organic figure within an otherwise cubist and off-worldly architecture. Golden afternoon light spills over her. She closes her eyes like a cat in the window, basking in the warm, much-needed sunlight.

***

A gorgeous oak tree stands alone at the center of an empty winter cornfield. Bare black branches extend like gnarled fingers from the thick, centenary trunk of the tree.

Jonah, Gunner, and Sue emerge from the woods and stand at the edge of the field as though taking in a vista. They look out across the field, faces awash in the magic light of an early dusk. Sue breaches the moment.

SUE

All right, let's just set up somewhere here. We can tag this one and then get outta here.

GUNNER

What are they gonna build here?

SUE

Oh, I dunno… Let's see…

He flips back a couple pages of his clipboard.

SUE

Event Horizon…
A Convention Center.

GUNNER

Huh.

Gunner continues watching the tree.

SUE

(to Jonah)

Well you know what to do. Head on out there.

(to Gunner)

Gunner, let's see if we can get this in one shot. Then we can all go home.

Jonah starts off into the field.

Gunner then momentarily sees the tree and the entire field completely inverted and upside down.

GUNNER

(stopping Jonah)

Actually, I think I'd like to call it a day.

SUE

Just one more run. Then we'll call it.

GUNNER

Nah, it's getting cold and I'm hungry.

SUE

Me too but we're all the way out here and I'm sure you got it in you to take one more shot.

GUNNER

Nope. I don't think so.

JONAH

I can do it, if we have to.

GUNNER

You stay where you are.

SUE

Oh come on, Gunner. Don't be ridiculous. Help me out here.

GUNNER

I'm pretty sure I've made up my mind.

SUE

Don't make me pull rank here, Gunner.

GUNNER

Do what you have to do.

SUE

Well then I will.

GUNNER

I've got the keys to the truck.

Sue glares.

SUE

Gunner, now I've just about reached the end of my rope with you. If you're not gonna take this shot then I'll pace out the distance and mark it myself.

He allows for a response but he gets none. He marches off toward the tree with his can of surveyor's spray paint, counting out the paces passive-aggressively.

Gunner's eyes turn wild and set and he calls out to Sue.

GUNNER

I'm gonna have to ask you not to do that.

SUE

(shouting over his shoulder)

And if you leave me out here, then you can just forget it.

Gunner begins moving toward Sue as they shout at each other.

GUNNER

Put the paint down, Sue.

SUE

What is the goddamn matter with you?

GUNNER

I said, put the paint can down.

Sue keeps walking.

GUNNER

Sue!

Gunner runs at Sue. Sue takes off and Gunner chases him across the field. He catches up and tackles Sue to the ground. Sue struggles and kicks but he is no match for Gunner and Gunner wrestles the can of spray paint away from him.

SUE

Gunner?!?!

GUNNER

I said, put the goddamn paint can down! Now how do you like it?!

Gunner holds him down and sprays orange paint all over him as Sue tries to shield himself. Then Gunner sprays paint into the air until the can is empty.

GUNNER

It's time to go home and there's nothing we can do about it!

He hurls the empty paint can across the field and grabs Sue by the collar, pulling him up close and eyeing his partner with ferocious intimacy.

GUNNER

It's coming, Sue. It's coming.

Gunner drops him and walks away. Utterly bewildered, Sue watches him go.

Gunner marches aggressively toward Jonah. Jonah nervously steps aside as Gunner plows right by him, disappearing into the trees.

Out in the field, Sue gets on his feet, like a plucked chicken, ridiculously covered in orange paint.

The old lonely tree stands above him in the field.

***

Gunner walks alone, methodically moving through the trees as if pulled by some force.

Somewhere off behind him, Jonah and Sue haul their gear, stomping through the underbrush. The forest is dimming and quiet but for the sounds of the men pushing through the branches and brambles.

Gunner speeds on ahead, urgently heading toward the truck, huffing, sniffing, and crashing, branches whipping at his face and thighs until he breaks out into a dead run and is running for his life.

***

Simone is curled up on the mezzanine floor, asleep in the warm, diminishing pool of light. Curled up like a cat, dreaming.

***

Gunner is sprinting through the trees with complete terror-stricken abandon.

He careens down a slope, spills out of the woods, and stumbles into the middle of the road. He folds over and braces himself on his knees, panting and heaving, alone in the road.

Shortly, Jonah and Sue emerge from the trees, catching him in his moment of desperate recovery. They load up their gear while he stands in the center of the road catching his breath.

When they're finished loading, Jonah and Sue get into the truck and wait.

Gunner stands in the road looking at the truck for an odd extra minute. Then he climbs into the driver's seat, starts the truck, and drives away.

Gunner drives, Sue rides shotgun, Jonah sits in the backseat. The men are silent as the truck cruises down the wooded winter road.

Sue finally breaks the ice as they pass a deer-crossing sign.

SUE

Gunner. Well, I'm just sorry that things have come to this—

A deer suddenly leaps in front of the vehicle. Gunner slams on the brakes, but the truck hits the buck head-on. The deer flips onto the hood and careens toward the windshield—

Nothing but white light and a high-pitched chord, like wine glasses feeding back—

***

Long banquet tables are covered in white tablecloths. Jonah is sitting alone at a table, hunched over his notebook, writing. He is wearing a cater-waiter's tuxedo uniform.

Simone is sitting a few tables away. She is looking at him. Oddly, both of their faces are covered in Kabuki-style white face paint.

Jonah looks up from his notebook and sees her—

***

The engine is idling. Thick, foul exhaust steams from the tailpipe. The Chevy Suburban sits in the middle of the road.

Jonah stumbles out of the truck and staggers on the blacktop.

The prize buck is dead.

And so are Gunner and Sue. The buck is lying across the hood. Its head has gone through the driver-side of the windshield and pinned Gunner to the seat. His arms are hung up in the antlers and one eye has been gored. His jugular has been fatally lacerated.

Sue has been thrown over the dash and smashed through the passenger side of the windshield. His head is mounted like a wild boar on a wall of shattered glass, face splattered with orange paint, eyes wide to eternity.

A pool of blood runs across the hood of the vehicle and drips to the cold, cold road. Jonah wavers on his feet, absorbing the shock of the grotesque still-life. He manages to check his watch. It is still ticking.

Gunner suddenly spasms into a burning, primal grimace. He rages against the dead animal and the void, clenching its antlers in a terminal grapple. Then he surrenders, seeing it, and blasting out his last long breath like a blown steam valve. His foot slides off the brake pedal.

The truck rolls, creeping by Jonah like a ghost ship.

As the truck passes, a strange figure is revealed. A white mud man is standing on the other side of the road. Jonah gazes at the primitive apparition of himself.

The truck crawls down the road and rolls into the ditch.

Jonah is held in place, magnetized and paralyzed, fighting to run, but unable. There is nowhere to go, and he faces himself, the mud man, painfully, slowly collapsing. He sinks to the ground, brought to his knees.

The two figures sit on opposite sides of the road, gazing into the ghostly, mirrored images of each other.

Jonah quivers and shakes, fighting something mean.

Blood running from their noses.

Staring it down.

 

The sun goes down on the Ohio countryside.

Bare winter cornfields are ablaze in the magic light of dusk. Flocks of black crows shout across the fields. Black treetops silhouette against the horizon-sky.

Remote radio towers, high-tension power lines, and drifting streams of jet-wash cut across the atmosphere swirling in cobalt and lava.

Robert takes an evening walk, alone on the sidewalks. Streetlights are fading on, but the houses are dark. Yards and streets deserted. Driveways empty. Windows blank.

He crosses a street and turns a corner. He walks an arc along the perfect curve of a curb. Is someone following him? Is someone watching from inside these gloomy windows? No, probably not. Not even from the strange spaces between the houses, or from the black trees beyond. Robert is alone at the center of the hive. He stops in the middle of an intersection and waits for a car to come. Nothing. Does anyone else live here? He waits, scanning the neighborhood from the center of the street. No motion at all.

The world is in a coma.

***

The monstrous Main Hall of the Convention Center careens with space like the interior of an enormous insect carcass. The hall is filled with round tables covered with white tablecloths. 500 white-clothed tables lying in wait like a field of eggs in an off-world hatchery.

A door opens on the far side and Simone enters the room pushing a metal cart full of clanking silverware. She makes her way across the space. Alone, she is a singular form crossing a lunar landscape.

She pushes her cart to the center of the room. She pulls on a pair of soft white polishing mitts and begins setting the tables. A simple yet monumental task, she shines dinner knives with a dish rag and sets them in their proper place at each table. 500 tables. 10 chairs per table. 5000 dinner knives.

Each shiny knife goes just so. A place for every knife, every knife in its place. Simone completes a table and moves on to the next. But she is surprised to find that the next table has already been set.

Unable to explain this, she ponders the table arranged with glistening silver knives, and wonders if she has misplaced a memory in the sequence. She runs a finger along the arced edge of the table.

She looks over her shoulder and up the long row of tables that she had been following. She scans the giant room, looking to see if anyone else has been helping her and she calls out across the hall.

SIMONE

Hello?

From the far perimeter of the room, Simone is just a tiny figure in a sea of white tables, alone in the great hall.

But a small childlike voice replies.

SIMONE

Hi.

***

The light is almost gone. An incomplete street-stub extends out into a field beyond the houses.

Robert approaches the dead-end and stands in the glow of the last streetlight. He gazes out into the field. The black field, beyond the ring of light. Beyond civilization. He shudders against the cold, alone, looking into the question stretched out before him.

He steps out over the end of the street and stands in the dirt at the perimeter of visibility. He reaches out, extending his arm into the black night, probing to touch the void with his fingers. His hand disappears entirely in the black and then he quickly withdraws it, caressing it to make sure that it's still there.

Robert cautiously takes a step forward, moving closer to the black void. He leans into it, peering, courageously for a moment, the front side of his upper torso disappearing—