Untitled Short Story
This is a first draft, I just wrote it in like half an hour... I lost sense of time and my tenses are all wonky, but other than that I think it's pretty sound.
All it needs now is a title. Pretty pretty please read and leave me suggestions for a name?
When Helen Robertson was 23 years old, she found a piece of paper at the very bottom of a box full of antique glassware that had once belonged to someone in her mother’s family. It was one of the few things that had made the move to Queens with her when she left Rob after two fairly nice years and four unbearable ones.
The apartment in Queens was smaller than the one Rob’s parents had paid for when he finished law school all those years ago, but Helen didn’t mind getting rid of everything she owned if it came down to that. She planned on having flowers in the garden, and herbs in the windowbox. She thought she might paint a mural on the blank wall in the living room, behind the sofa. No one was paying for the place but her, after all. No one could tell her not to.
While she unpacked the glasses, she was thinking of an ocean scene. Blue sky, green sea, white sailboats. She was thinking of putting glitter on the crests of the waves. She certainly wasn’t thinking that the glasses she was painstakingly lining up in her empty cabinets might be hiding an ancient and powerful curse, but that was what they were doing. Trying, in the quiet and unobtrusive manner of most inanimate objects, to tell her what was about to happen. But Helen was lost in thoughts of mixed blues and whites, sponges and brushes and gaffer tape. Even if she was the sort of person inclined to listen to inanimate objects, she wouldn’t have heard them just then.
It was a shame, the glasses agreed. They had liked Helen, even if she never took them out often enough. Still, they hummed quietly in the dark at the back of the cabinet, everyone comes to their time eventually.
So when Helen found the yellowed paper at the bottom of the box, and slowly began to unfold it, the glasses did nothing to stop her.
Instead, they watched in silent rows as her eyes widened. Pupils expand quite suddenly, leaving only a thin rim of blue.
The soft intake of a shallow breath.
The glasses, of course, had seen this happen many times before. To Helen’s great aunt Dierdre, most recently, and her mother before her, and her mother before that. They were used to it. Lived for it, in fact, biding time in shelves and cupboards until the paper showed itself.
Helen’s hands were shaking. The symbols on the page were like nothing she had ever seen, arranged in a chart of some kind… it made sense, she knew it did, it must, if she could only see it…
She moved away from the cabinet to stand under the light.
It’s starting, the glasses told one another knowingly. It’s begun.
It might be a language, Helen thought, or some kind of shorthand maybe… she squinted, bringing the chart closer to her face.
What could it mean?
It wasn’t like any language she had ever seen. The same symbol never seemed to appear twice, and the chart they formed looked half like a spiral and half … well, half like chaos. Total, disorganized chaos. But there was a pattern to it, there had to be. The more she looked at it, the more convinced she became that the chart had some meaning she had to uncover. In fact, she was becoming more certain every minute that she was the only one who could uncover it. It was her mission.
Helen’s eyes roamed over the chart again and again, waiting for the meaning to come to her. She turned it from side to side, upside down, rightside up. She looked at it in the mirror, under the light, vertical, horizontal, and sideways.
The phone rang. And rang. She let it go. The chart was more important, she knew it, but she didn’t think she could explain to anyone else. She could call them back once she had it. She just had to find out what it meant.
She had to know.
The sun went down, and then after a while it came up again. Helen was no closer to an answer. The glasses, silent on their shelf, were laughing.
Helen’s eyes shone sickly, pupils blown wide, as she stared at the chart. Her hands had stilled, she’d stopped trying to read it, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away. Those symbols… they meant something. Not just some general message either, something vital, something just for Helen. Something true.
And the longer she went without knowing it, the more convinced she became that she couldn’t live without whatever secret the chart was hiding. She had to know it. It would come to her.
The phone rang four more times before the sun set again.
In the lamplight, Helen’s wide-open eyes took in the chart without really seeing it. It would talk to her if she waited long enough. It would cave first, she was sure, and then its secrets would be hers. It couldn’t hide from her forever, after all. It was her. She was it.
She could be very patient. She waited four years for Rob before she finally left, after all. What was two days in the scheme of things? Or had it been three… soon it wouldn’t matter anyway. Soon, once she came to understand.
The sun rose. Dust was starting to settle on the boxes Helen had never unpacked. The wall behind the sofa was dull and white, the garden was nothing but dirt and stone.
Soon, she thought, soon it will give up its secrets.
Helen couldn’t feel the hungry growling of her stomach, but the glasses could hear it. Could see the feverish light in her eyes, sense the slow trancelike rhythm of her breaths. They were watching her closely now. It was almost time.
This time the phone rang seven times before the sun went down again. Helen still hadn’t moved. She felt on the verge of something. There was some kind of deeper knowledge, some shining truth just beyond her reach, and she would get to it if it killed her.
There we go, the glasses murmur soundlessly. Now it happens.
A catch in Helen’s breath. A pause, the air anticipating the next exhale.
The silence draws on endlessly.
Yes, the glasses whisper, intent. Yes.
Silence still. The blue at the edges of Helen’s eyes shrinks away slowly, narrowing to a tiny sliver.
The only sound is the excitement of the glasses, a not-sound, a high-pitched hum that Helen can’t hear.
She hears instead a sound that isn’t a sound, isn’t a not-sound, isn’t like anything else. It sounds like a terrible scream about to happen. A pre-echo. She can almost make it out. Her lungs burn, but she can’t bring herself to drown out this almost-hint of something she’s sure she’s about to hear, and so the breath stays held. It’s the chart she’s almost-hearing, she knows it. The answer wants to tell itself to her. She’s so close now.
Just a little bit longer, the glasses hiss, Just a little bit more….
The room goes dark.
No!!! the glasses scream.
Helen’s breath leaves her in a rush.
No!!!
Slowly, she inhales deep. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale again.
Be still, the glasses are begging now. Frustrated. Desperate.
In the dark, Helen blinks once, twice. The chart falls from her hands.
Silence from the cabinet. Dread. Dread. This has never happened before.
Helen’s legs stir. Pins and needles shoot up her every nerve, and she hisses sharply. Shaking out her arms and legs, she stands. Steps forwards.
There is a rustling as her foot comes to rest on the paper, face down on the half-carpeted floor. Helen ignores it. She walks shakily across the room to the cabinet.
What’s happening??? The glasses ask in nervous whispers.
She closes the cabinet.
In the blackness, the glasses shiver. This is new.
Helen leans heavily against the cabinet, shaking first one leg and then the other until she can feel every inch of nerve-deadened skin again. Her breaths are slow and erratic. She thinks of nothing.
Watching her warily, the lamp slowly relaxes its guard. She seems safe for now. Carefully, using its dimmer switch so as not to disturb her delicate eyes, the lamp turns itself on again, shedding light on the room.
Sluggishly, Helen’s pupils shrink back down. The lamp watches anxiously, fearing it may have acted too late.
Tense silence in the tiny apartment.
After a long minute, Helen gets up. Looks around. Shakes her head. She has the strangest feeling there’s something she’s forgetting, but she couldn’t say what it was for the life of her.
As Helen crosses the room to check the messages on her phone, she fails to notice the clean spot on the grey carpet, exactly the size and shape of the yellowed paper that had sat there a moment ago.
Behind the closed door of the cabinet, the neat rows of glasses are graveyard quiet.
.
All it needs now is a title. Pretty pretty please read and leave me suggestions for a name?
When Helen Robertson was 23 years old, she found a piece of paper at the very bottom of a box full of antique glassware that had once belonged to someone in her mother’s family. It was one of the few things that had made the move to Queens with her when she left Rob after two fairly nice years and four unbearable ones.
The apartment in Queens was smaller than the one Rob’s parents had paid for when he finished law school all those years ago, but Helen didn’t mind getting rid of everything she owned if it came down to that. She planned on having flowers in the garden, and herbs in the windowbox. She thought she might paint a mural on the blank wall in the living room, behind the sofa. No one was paying for the place but her, after all. No one could tell her not to.
While she unpacked the glasses, she was thinking of an ocean scene. Blue sky, green sea, white sailboats. She was thinking of putting glitter on the crests of the waves. She certainly wasn’t thinking that the glasses she was painstakingly lining up in her empty cabinets might be hiding an ancient and powerful curse, but that was what they were doing. Trying, in the quiet and unobtrusive manner of most inanimate objects, to tell her what was about to happen. But Helen was lost in thoughts of mixed blues and whites, sponges and brushes and gaffer tape. Even if she was the sort of person inclined to listen to inanimate objects, she wouldn’t have heard them just then.
It was a shame, the glasses agreed. They had liked Helen, even if she never took them out often enough. Still, they hummed quietly in the dark at the back of the cabinet, everyone comes to their time eventually.
So when Helen found the yellowed paper at the bottom of the box, and slowly began to unfold it, the glasses did nothing to stop her.
Instead, they watched in silent rows as her eyes widened. Pupils expand quite suddenly, leaving only a thin rim of blue.
The soft intake of a shallow breath.
The glasses, of course, had seen this happen many times before. To Helen’s great aunt Dierdre, most recently, and her mother before her, and her mother before that. They were used to it. Lived for it, in fact, biding time in shelves and cupboards until the paper showed itself.
Helen’s hands were shaking. The symbols on the page were like nothing she had ever seen, arranged in a chart of some kind… it made sense, she knew it did, it must, if she could only see it…
She moved away from the cabinet to stand under the light.
It’s starting, the glasses told one another knowingly. It’s begun.
It might be a language, Helen thought, or some kind of shorthand maybe… she squinted, bringing the chart closer to her face.
What could it mean?
It wasn’t like any language she had ever seen. The same symbol never seemed to appear twice, and the chart they formed looked half like a spiral and half … well, half like chaos. Total, disorganized chaos. But there was a pattern to it, there had to be. The more she looked at it, the more convinced she became that the chart had some meaning she had to uncover. In fact, she was becoming more certain every minute that she was the only one who could uncover it. It was her mission.
Helen’s eyes roamed over the chart again and again, waiting for the meaning to come to her. She turned it from side to side, upside down, rightside up. She looked at it in the mirror, under the light, vertical, horizontal, and sideways.
The phone rang. And rang. She let it go. The chart was more important, she knew it, but she didn’t think she could explain to anyone else. She could call them back once she had it. She just had to find out what it meant.
She had to know.
The sun went down, and then after a while it came up again. Helen was no closer to an answer. The glasses, silent on their shelf, were laughing.
Helen’s eyes shone sickly, pupils blown wide, as she stared at the chart. Her hands had stilled, she’d stopped trying to read it, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away. Those symbols… they meant something. Not just some general message either, something vital, something just for Helen. Something true.
And the longer she went without knowing it, the more convinced she became that she couldn’t live without whatever secret the chart was hiding. She had to know it. It would come to her.
The phone rang four more times before the sun set again.
In the lamplight, Helen’s wide-open eyes took in the chart without really seeing it. It would talk to her if she waited long enough. It would cave first, she was sure, and then its secrets would be hers. It couldn’t hide from her forever, after all. It was her. She was it.
She could be very patient. She waited four years for Rob before she finally left, after all. What was two days in the scheme of things? Or had it been three… soon it wouldn’t matter anyway. Soon, once she came to understand.
The sun rose. Dust was starting to settle on the boxes Helen had never unpacked. The wall behind the sofa was dull and white, the garden was nothing but dirt and stone.
Soon, she thought, soon it will give up its secrets.
Helen couldn’t feel the hungry growling of her stomach, but the glasses could hear it. Could see the feverish light in her eyes, sense the slow trancelike rhythm of her breaths. They were watching her closely now. It was almost time.
This time the phone rang seven times before the sun went down again. Helen still hadn’t moved. She felt on the verge of something. There was some kind of deeper knowledge, some shining truth just beyond her reach, and she would get to it if it killed her.
There we go, the glasses murmur soundlessly. Now it happens.
A catch in Helen’s breath. A pause, the air anticipating the next exhale.
The silence draws on endlessly.
Yes, the glasses whisper, intent. Yes.
Silence still. The blue at the edges of Helen’s eyes shrinks away slowly, narrowing to a tiny sliver.
The only sound is the excitement of the glasses, a not-sound, a high-pitched hum that Helen can’t hear.
She hears instead a sound that isn’t a sound, isn’t a not-sound, isn’t like anything else. It sounds like a terrible scream about to happen. A pre-echo. She can almost make it out. Her lungs burn, but she can’t bring herself to drown out this almost-hint of something she’s sure she’s about to hear, and so the breath stays held. It’s the chart she’s almost-hearing, she knows it. The answer wants to tell itself to her. She’s so close now.
Just a little bit longer, the glasses hiss, Just a little bit more….
The room goes dark.
No!!! the glasses scream.
Helen’s breath leaves her in a rush.
No!!!
Slowly, she inhales deep. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale again.
Be still, the glasses are begging now. Frustrated. Desperate.
In the dark, Helen blinks once, twice. The chart falls from her hands.
Silence from the cabinet. Dread. Dread. This has never happened before.
Helen’s legs stir. Pins and needles shoot up her every nerve, and she hisses sharply. Shaking out her arms and legs, she stands. Steps forwards.
There is a rustling as her foot comes to rest on the paper, face down on the half-carpeted floor. Helen ignores it. She walks shakily across the room to the cabinet.
What’s happening??? The glasses ask in nervous whispers.
She closes the cabinet.
In the blackness, the glasses shiver. This is new.
Helen leans heavily against the cabinet, shaking first one leg and then the other until she can feel every inch of nerve-deadened skin again. Her breaths are slow and erratic. She thinks of nothing.
Watching her warily, the lamp slowly relaxes its guard. She seems safe for now. Carefully, using its dimmer switch so as not to disturb her delicate eyes, the lamp turns itself on again, shedding light on the room.
Sluggishly, Helen’s pupils shrink back down. The lamp watches anxiously, fearing it may have acted too late.
Tense silence in the tiny apartment.
After a long minute, Helen gets up. Looks around. Shakes her head. She has the strangest feeling there’s something she’s forgetting, but she couldn’t say what it was for the life of her.
As Helen crosses the room to check the messages on her phone, she fails to notice the clean spot on the grey carpet, exactly the size and shape of the yellowed paper that had sat there a moment ago.
Behind the closed door of the cabinet, the neat rows of glasses are graveyard quiet.
.