The Offer

#Coarse language, grief#

She liked it when he lifted her in the air. It made her giggle, but she didn’t like to do it all the time, just every morning and evening, at least twice each time. He didn’t mind, he would have driven to her pre-school and lifted her on his lunch break, if she would have wanted.

His wife felt he indulged her every wish, but she didn’t blame him, she did too.

-

Everything looked so different. Where once was a house was now a hole, a big empty thing with pipes and wires twisted at funny angles.

Natural gas gets trapped, sparks occur, disaster ensues.

“They were likely dead before the explosion. Probably suffocated,” the young fireman said before his partner with the brown walrus mustache smacked him.

They let him dig through the destruction and he came across a few sentimental items. He held the leg of his daughter’s doll, just for a second, before it passed through his fingers onto the dirt.

“Nothing.”

“What did you say, Mister? You can’t find nothing? We can help you look.”

The two firemen walked towards him.

“No, sorry. I’m saying I want nothing. I can’t do anything with the stuff that’s here, can you please just ask them to take it all away?”

“Uh, I’ll have to…” the young fireman stumbled.

“Sure buddy, we’ll take care of it.” Finished his partner.

-

“I can’t believe he came in!”

“I know, I would have taken a month, or maybe two. He’s nuts to be back here.”

“Shh! Quiet you idiots, noise travels.”

“I’m sure he didn’t hear anything.”

He was tired of the hotel. Tired of looking at the same beige walls, tired of watching television with commercials (people still pay for cable?), just tired of it all. That’s why he came into work. For a change of scenery. Beige for gray.

Mr. Duvan sidled awkwardly up to his desk, he turned a pencil in his hands with nervous twists.

“Listen, Charlie, I feel for your situation. Deeply. I want you to know, you could take some time, hell, take a lot of time, weeks, months. We’ll understand, and your job will be waiting here for you when you get back.”

“No, it won’t.”

Duvan took refuge in the wooden chair in front of Charlie’s desk and sagged his thin shoulders which poked through his cardigan, his small strand of combover slipped down to his eyebrows,

“No, no you’re right, it won’t be. Hell, I probably won’t even be here. But look, either way man, you should take as many paid weeks off as you can, and then I’ll try to swing it so you’re a layoff and not a fuck off.”

Charlie stared out the window.

“I think I will take time.”

“Good man. Maybe take your personal items with you, save a trip?”

He dropped his box in the dumpster on the way to his car.

As he drove off, he clipped the bumper of the Porsche that was parked lopsided across two spots. Then he backed up into the door, twice, before driving off.

-

He sat on the edge of the hotel bed and turned the silicon ring on his finger.

He should have looked for his wedding band, at least. He had this stupid silicon ring, he always wore it when he traveled for work, but he should have looked for his gold ring.

I’d give anything for that ring back.

A breeze swept through the part in the sliding glass doors and the curtains went along for the ride. A portly figure, roughly six foot, dressed in a crisp light purple suit with black striped trousers, appeared before his eyes.

“That, my dear boy, can be arranged.”

-

In college he had an emergency appendectomy. The previous week he had gotten very sick, but then he recovered, so he decided to ignore it, and now it was coming back for revenge. When the doctor removed his appendix, his response to “How was it?” was “Gross”.

The night after the surgery he woke to noise and a flashing blue light. A code was announced over the intercom. Doctors were being called to a room. He still felt groggy from the drugs, but his sudden rousing corresponded with a full bladder, so he slowly walked around his bed on the way to the bathroom in his nice single room.

The bathroom light was on and a figure’s shadow projected against the wall. It looked like an old man, bent back, slow moving. He felt no fear, but instead wanted to help the man.

“Hello? Sir? I think you may have the wrong room.”

When he made it to the bathroom door, after a long journey of five feet, the area around the sink and the toilet were unoccupied. Thinking the old man must have gone into the shower, he lifted back the curtain gently, so as not to frighten him. The shower sat empty.

Hmm, he thought to himself. That was odd.

-

“I can offer you exactly what you want. Exactly that, and then some.”

He considered the man. He was pleasant looking, devilish, obviously, but overall benign.

“So, if you’re here, then that means heaven and hell are real. Where are they?”

“There is no heaven, nor hell, I’m sorry to report. There is only boredom and long, long lifetimes that produce things such as I, travelers, who have to dip into dimensions such as yours, for a sort of sowing of wild oats. Now I’m here to offer you your dreams, y’know, your heart’s desire.”

“And what is my heart’s desire?”

“Why, to have your family back, is it not?”

-

Charlie spent a lot of time alone as a child.

At first, it was home, and then later it was the orphanage.

When Marsha came along, it was the first time in his life he felt like he was a part of something.

Every once in a while, she would come by and just hover around him. Usually when he was reading in his chair, his head tilted down. She would run her fingers through his hair and read over his shoulder. His neck bristled from her touch.

When Jane was born, she was a snuggly baby. As soon as she could control her head, she’d nuzzle in and the world would melt away. When she got a little older, she would wrap her little arms around his neck and her little fingers would twirl the hair on the back of his head.

He never told either of them how much he loved that.

-

“What would you trade for them, Charlie? What price would you pay?”

“What would you have me do?”

“A simple thing. Nothing really, nothing to you. Your ring is the key, the very ring on your finger.”

He looked down and saw the gold band on his finger. The same tight fit, the same scratches in the gold. He squeezed it between his fingers.

“Thank you.”

“Why, you’re welcome, my dear boy, quite welcome. So what I want you to do is this; take your ring, and go to this address, just a bank, a normal bank, and pick up a package for me.”

“Ok.”

“Oh my, I thought I would have to convince you, to bring you around, so to speak.”

“If you break your promise to me, you’ll have to use your convincing words. Save them.”

-

The task was simple, he completed it before he sat down for a full lunch.

He considered the situation; he’d said yes in a hurry earlier, but he wasn’t a fool. Magic trick aside, how did he know he could trust this...traveler? Was he telling the truth? Or like his appearance suggested, was he a trickster?

He kept coming back to how it just didn’t matter. What difference did it make? And if there was a chance it would work, wouldn’t that be worth it?

-

When he returned to his hotel room, the man was asleep. Only not on his bed, but floating in the air on a little cloud. Charlie roused him by swatting his hand through the cloud, which caused the man to tumble to the ground, stopping himself right as the tip of his nose came in contact with the carpet.

“What’s the big idea you ignoramus? Oh, it’s you.”

“Yeah, it’s me. Here’s your package.”

Charlie handed the parcel over to the now standing traveler.

“Where is my family?”

“Why, they’ve been with you this whole time.”

The man indicated Charlie’s finger and his hand went to the ring.

“What do you mean?”

“Go home, Charlie. You’ll see. I’ll come with you, if you like.”

-

The newly formed companions crossed Charlie’s front lawn and walked up to where the front door used to be. The man’s outfit sparkled in the moonlight.

“Hold your hand aloft, high, high as you can. The effort is part of it.”

Charlie did as he was told and a miracle happened. Where there was nothing, his home suddenly appeared. It looked just as welcoming as always. He turned the doorknob, eager to discover more.

“Just remember, Charlie, keep that hand high!”

Charlie rushed through the house, room to room, searching for his family.

He could hear them, but he couldn’t quite make out where they were. When he hit the kitchen, he finally realized they were in the basement, so he opened the door and went down the stairs.

Standing at the washing machine was Marsha, laughing as she turned back over her shoulder to watch Jane twirl around as her record played. She spotted her husband.

“Oh Char, you’re gonna love this, she just saw it on tv.”

Charlie ran to her and wrapped his arms around her, kissing her neck and burying his face in her hair.

“Aww, I missed you too, such a long trip to the kitchen.”

He picked Jane up and brought her back over to Marsha, hugging and kissing them both.

“What’s gotten into you? I’m not complaining, but this is like a week’s worth of attention.”

“Just happy.”

Jane’s record played on as the dirt fell from the ceiling, burying the entire basement.

Heavy equipment sounded its presence in loud beeps and the grinding of gears. The demolition was quick, done as a favor for a fireman buddy of the construction company owner. They had to do it in the dead of the night, but since they didn’t have to preserve anything, it went quickly.

High up in the sky, the man in the purple suit sat on a particularly fluffy cloud and stared down at the work. A similarly attired figure, his colors of choice a canary yellow with orange striped trousers, floated deftly and landed next to the purple suited man.

“Cruel, just cruel. You have the mind of a villain, Bartholomew.”

“I disagree, Roland. This was a charity. He had everything he wanted. What better way is there to go?”

“Why not restore them? To true life?”

“When was the last time you did that, Roland? I’m sure not for many millennia. They come back wild, my dear, cannibalistic. Their minds are so twisted by the experience, there is no hope for them.”

“Hmm, yes you’re right, it has been a while. Well, let’s go grab a drink in Alpha Centauri, what do you say?”

“Sounds wonderful.”

The two figures zipped off through the sky, faster than a human eye could see.

-