Understanding Volcanoes

Another morning, same old routine. The alarm blares shrilly, too early in Samantha’s bleary-eyed estimation. Scowling, she shuts it off and stumbles downstairs to make coffee for herself, her husband, and her teenage children. Tossing back her morning medication and slowly awakening to the reality of another unrelenting day, she packs everyone’s lunches, unloads the dishwasher from last night, refills the pitcher of filtered water, and heads back upstairs to wake everyone up. Again. She grits her teeth to keep from yelling at them, feeling the pressure build in her chest and behind her eyes. Pushing it aside for the moment, Samantha orders everyone out of bed. Detecting the edge in her voice, they comply, albeit with spiteful attitudes.

Resisting the urge to hurl her coffee mug at the wall, Samantha returns downstairs for a fresh cup and a muffin while she waits for the shower to free up. She stares absentmindedly at the half-done kitchen cabinets that her husband started working on a year ago and listens to the sound of her children fighting upstairs. Her eye begins to twitch. Something rises in her again, at once primal and ferocious but also hard and unbreakable, like the fury of Mother Earth preparing to blow apart a mountain. The savagery of it frightens her. Every member of her family, having completed their morning routines and on the verge of being late, rushes downstairs, grabs their bags and coffee, and heads out the door without so much as a thank you or goodbye. As the door slams shut, Samantha spikes her mug onto the kitchen floor and screams into an empty house. As she sobs over the spilled coffee and broken shards of mug, something glowing lava red with streaks of black leaks from the corner of her eye and slips away to a dark corner of the house.

###

The drive to work is no better. Traffic is bumper to bumper for no apparent reason. No accidents or construction can be seen, just too many people on the road. Samantha seems to end up behind all the people talking on their cell phones and not paying attention to driving. She’s going to be late, again. The last straw is the man in the pickup truck who cuts her off because he wants to change lanes at the last minute. Slamming on her brakes, Samantha just manages to avoid him hitting her. She honks her horn at him to let him know about the near collision, but he flips her off and slams on his brakes to nearly cause another collision with her.

Samantha’s eyes flash red, and she completely loses herself. All rational thought gone and acting like a feral beast, she begins honking her horn repeatedly and riding on the man’s bumper, gesturing wildly. He tries to flee from her, and she follows him at high speed, weaving in and out of traffic. Finally, he pulls over and gets out of his truck. Samantha rolls down her window and begins screaming at him like a banshee, the red substance pouring from her eyes at this point.

“You want some? Come at me. Jackass! You nearly hit me, twice!”

 Gesticulating wildly and cursing like a sailor, Samantha looks completely insane. The man thinks twice about interacting with her, retreats to his truck, and drives off. Smirking, Samantha turns back to her steering wheel.

 Coward! I win.

Her chest heaving as if she’d just been in a prize fight, Samantha catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Pieces of hair have fallen from her updo. Her brows are still deeply furrowed, and her face is tight, cheeks flushed and eyes red. She looks miles away from her usual professional demeanor. Slowly coming back to herself, the anger fades, and a sense of terror sets in.

What was that? I had no control over myself, almost like I was possessed or something.

Frightened at how easily her normal, controlled persona had been pushed aside by the raging, reckless force that had nearly gotten her in over her head, Samantha tries to pull herself back together. Still, it is a matter of disrespect. Samantha is tired of being disrespected. The anger flares again, slightly, and the lava-like substance begins to congeal behind her into a human-like form.

###

   A notification flashes insistently on her computer - 10 am, a meeting with Stan about environmental reporting. Samantha groans at her calendar.

Seriously? Not today.

Samantha is a chemical engineer and a damn good one. Educated at the top engineering school in the state and a published author on the environmental impacts of manufacturing chemicals, her company hired her because she is an expert. Stan is a middle manager, a paper pusher. He’s also an incorrigible know it all.

Entering her office precisely at 10, Stan grabs the current draft of her latest research paper off her desk, Bioaccumulation and Toxicity of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances.

“Doing a little studying up for our meeting, I see. Well done.”

“Stan, that’s my paper. I’m submitting it to Environmental Science & Technology next week.”

“Of course, you are. Now, can we talk about this PFAS report for Minnesota? Seems like we have to report on our toothpaste line, you know because of the fluoride.”

  Samantha fights with her eyes to keep them from rolling. She’s had this conversation with Stan before. More than once. PFAS, which is the subject of her paper, includes fluorine not fluoride. Fluoride is an inorganic mineral and not a PFAS chemical. Fluorine is a highly reactive toxic chemical that, when combined with carbon, creates forever chemicals now known to environmental scientists and the world as PFAS chemicals. Stan can’t seem to get the difference through his thick skull.

 “Stan, I’ve told you before. Our toothpaste is fi—”

 “I’ve started filling out the spreadsheet, can you add the chemical information relating to our toothpaste, please?”

“Stan, stop talking and listen. Fluoride is not the problem. Fluorine is the problem.”

“Fluorine, fluoride, it’s all the same thing, isn’t it?”

“No, Stan, it isn’t. Fluoride is fine. I’ve told you this before. Fluoride is not a P--.”

“How can you be sure, Samantha? These regulations are very confusing. PFAS has ‘fluoro’ in the name. That could be either.”

Samantha presses her thumbs to her temples and steeples her hands over her eyes. She stares at her master’s degree in chemical engineering and doctorate degrees in organic chemistry and environmental science hanging behind his head while Stan tries to explain to her what PFAS is. As he drones on and on with his misguided explanations, Samantha presses her thumbs into the corners of her eyes and rubs them up under her brows to alleviate the growing pressure in her head. Finally, she can take no more.

“God dammit, Stan,” Samantha snaps. “Flouride is not a PFAS chemical. Our toothpaste is FINE. Our dental floss, however, has a problem because there are PFAS chemicals in the non-stick, slippery coating on the floss.”

 Stan sits back, dumbfounded. No one, especially not Samantha, has ever spoken to him that way before. He opens his mouth as if to say something else when he sees something red in Samantha’s eyes and thinks better of it.

“I will take care of the report,” she says, “but only on the items that are ACTUALLY PFAS, are we clear?”

“Crystal,” says Stan and he scurries quickly from her office.

###

Samantha stays late to finish Stan’s report. Pounding furiously on her keyboard, she enters in each chemical formulation line by line on the spreadsheet. Samantha knows she sent this information to Stan before, but none of it is in the report. The only listed items are the fluoride toothpastes. Stan is a complete idiot and not even the useful sort. Translating complicated organic chemical compounds into language a state regulator would understand takes hours. Frustrated, Samantha feels the anger rising again, and she curses Stan under her breath.

“I hope something ruins his evening like he ruined mine.”

Meanwhile, Stan stops off at a bar on his way home to have a few beers with the guys from the office. He complains about Samantha.

“That bitch and all her degrees. Like it means anything at all. I’ve been here, worked my way up to where I am. I know this company better than she does. She actually yelled at me today, can you believe it? At least she’s finally doing my damn report.”

His buddies prop up his wounded ego, but Stan can’t shake the feeling that someone is staring at him. He looks around the bar uneasily but doesn’t recognize anyone. Samantha isn’t there and the rest of the patrons look like regulars. Maybe he’s just paranoid. It was a weird day. Samantha never loses her cool with anyone.

The guys settle the tab with the bar, and Stan makes his way unsteadily to his car in the parking deck. It’s dark out, and the lights on his floor of the deck are flickering in a rhythm that makes him feel slightly ill. Stan stumbles and bends forward, smelling the biting, pungent odor of sulfur, like a freshly lit match. While vomiting on his own shoes, Stan is struck viciously over the head from behind. He catches a glimpse of a lava red glow before he collapses on the concrete.

###

    Driving home, Samantha hears on the news that a man was attacked and killed in a parking garage near Stan’s favorite bar.

“Police say the man was attacked from behind as he returned to his car from a round of drinks after work. Our reporter on the scene has an exclusive interview with one of the victim’s friends.”

 Astonished to hear Mark from purchasing speaking, Samantha turns up the volume and listens carefully.

 “Stan was such a great guy. We all had a few beers, were talking shit about work, you know. The usual. I can’t believe he’s gone.”

  Oh my god, Stan?

  “Do you know what happened to Stan?”

  “They say someone attacked him as he was walking to his car. My car was on a different floor, so I didn’t see anything. I heard him screaming, though. He was yelling something about lava. It was very odd.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell us?”

  “Yes, it was too late when I reached him, but there was a burning, sulfurous smell in the area. I also saw a strange red-black stone near his head. It didn’t look like it belonged in the parking garage, but I’m not sure if any of that had anything to do with what happened to him.”

  Unnerved and with a growing headache, Samantha snaps off the radio and drives the rest of the way home in silence.

###

     Pulling up at her house, Samantha forgets about Stan for a moment as the scene in her driveway appears in her headlights - three cars parked haphazardly, forcing her to park on the street. She exits her vehicle, shooing away the moths under the streetlight and grabbing her work gear from the back seat. Tiptoeing through the narrow spaces between the vehicles, she lugs her bags up to her front door. No one left the light on. Again. Fuming and fumbling for her keys in the dark, Samantha drops her lunch bag and hears the glass bowl inside shatter. She clenches her jaw to keep from crying out.

  Dammit! I bet they haven’t left me any dinner either.

  When she finally makes her way inside, it is as she feared. Her husband is asleep on the couch; her children are playing video games over an empty pizza box; the sink is full of dishes; and homework has most certainly not been done. The only food she can find in the house is a stale bag of chips and some carrot sticks. There are no clean glasses, and the filtered water pitcher sits empty on the kitchen counter next to the tap.

  Her head throbbing now, Samantha sinks to the floor of the kitchen, fists clinched so tightly that her nails cut into her palms. She can’t take much more of this. Something has to break or she will, shattering like her glass lunch bowl on the front stairs. Head in hands again, Samantha doesn’t know whether to scream or to cry. Or maybe both.

  Suddenly, strangled, frightened cries echo from the living room. Samantha jumps to her feet and rushes in to see her children huddled in a corner while a tall humanoid figure glowing like burning coal lifts her husband off the floor by his neck. The room smells acrid like lit black powder, and as her husband struggles, little red-black chunks fall off the figure to the floor and harden into stone.

  “Stop it! Stop it! Put him down! You’re hurting him!” Samantha screeches.

  The figure doesn’t listen to her. Feral, it does what it pleases. Suddenly, it drags her husband into the kitchen, and forcibly shows him the mess, the lack of food for Samantha, and the broken dish in her lunch bag. His eyes widen as the figure lifts him higher and then throws him to the floor. Wheeling around, the figure turns on the children. It throws the pizza box like a missile at their heads. They duck, screaming, behind the couch.

  “Don’t you touch my babies. Don’t you dare touch my babies!”

  Samantha throws herself between the figure and her children. Facing the figure, she scrutinizes what should be its face, trying to understand what it is and where it came from. It seems so very familiar to her. The figure is still, as if waiting for a cue from her. Ever the scientist, Samantha wants to investigate, to get a closer look. She steps closer to the figure.

  “Mom, don’t!” her children cry in unison, the first thing they’ve agreed on in a decade.

  The figure reaches out its hand, and she takes it, unable to help herself. Her husband and children begin to shout incoherently, but she can focus on nothing else but the figure. It glows incandescently and steps toward her. She feels the familiar warmth of her rage as the figure enters her body. Every slight, every insult, every moment of disrespect, all the failures, the frustrations, the underappreciation from every person in her life, and the misogyny, oh the misogyny … it all adds up to a toxic molten sludge, building up pressure until it explodes. Samantha falls to the floor as the figure disappears, and the room goes dark.

  “I think I understand volcanos now,” Samantha murmurs, as her family rushes to her, the most attentive they’ve been in years.

  “Mom … honey … are you alright? What was that … that … thing?”

  Samantha sits up and takes a moment to collect her thoughts before speaking.

  “I will be fine, but we need to change some things around here.”