Fred Aiken Writing

Category: Short Story

November 6, 2022

Anticipation

The smell hit before I laid eyes on it. I knew from the olfactory sensation it would be something special, something that would surpass my wildest imaginations.

It had felt like a lifetime ago, decades worth of anticipation and waiting. I never thought this day would come. I’m still in a bit of shock that it’s actually here now. If I weren’t alone, I’d probably have someone pinch me…though there would be no real point in that.

Pinch me, I must be dreaming. 

I’m certainly not one of those sorts of individuals that enjoy physical pain being inflicted upon me in order to tell whether or not I’m conscious. I will perhaps never be the smartest person in the room, even when alone, but I feel as if I would be able to tell, you know, whether or not I were conscious. Maybe not if I was in a simulation, at least not a realistic one. But thank goodness virtual reality was so visually decrepit during my time.

The idea came about as a bit of a spark of inspiration years ago. But it wasn’t until I met my business partner, Dave, a few months back that things started to click and take off. This day seemed like it would never come.

Yet here Dave and I stood, at the precipice, waiting. I hope I didn’t build it up too much to the point that it would inevitably disappoint.

I feel like no matter what, I might be disappointed. Ever the pessimist. Ever the naysayer. 

Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all. 

Maybe Dave and I should cut our losses and pack it up and go home. All for naught. 

But it was much too late to back out of this now. We were committed. The curtains revealed…

November 4, 2022

Green Shoes

“Do you have these in green?”

    “No.”

    “But you didn’t check.”

    “I don’t need to. I’m confident that during my last inventory check that there were no green pairs of those shoes.”

    “But how can you be certain?”

    “Because I know this store….a helluva lot better than you.”

    “What?”

    “Nothing. Is there any other pair you’d like to try? I’m certain we’ve gone through every single pair of shoes in this store, but if there’s a pair that you’d like to retry, then I’d be happy to go in the back—”

    “You only go in the back for a cigarette break.”

    “That’s not true. I’m looking for the item that you requested.”

    “But then you always come back up smelling like an ashtray.”

    “That’s Hubert, another one of my esteemed colleagues. He takes his breaks back there. All of them. Especially his smoke breaks. There’s no way to get the smell out of the store.”

    “So essentially you’re saying that you don’t have these shoes in the color green, and you’re not going to go into the back to check?”

    “Affirmative.”

    He had the defensive body stance of someone in retail that had worked far too long with far too little patience. I could tell he wanted to yell, scream, and kick me, maybe in that order, but then again I shouldn’t pretend to know another person’s creative process.

    I knew they didn’t have any green shoes. I knew it before I walked into the store. Truthfully, I don’t think I would enjoy green shoes. I wouldn’t be able to tell if they were dirty from mowing the lawn. I feel like I might be the type of shoe wearer that would get a particular color shoe, and then experience a series of unfortunate, yet unavoidable, messes that would ruin the shoe’s color.

    But if I’m being perfectly honest…I saw Bob’s suicide note. I knew he was on the verge of something that he would regret. Or at least I assumed he’d regret. Can a corpse regret anything? Perhaps the soul can.

    Either way, I took in on as my duty to ensure Bob didn’t go through with his plans to commit suicide. Even if that meant spending all day asking him dumb questions about green shoes.

    “Would you guys be able to custom order these shoes in the color green?”

November 1, 2022

Posthumous

The light flickered.

I noticed my dirty fingernails.

I noticed my stance.

I noticed I lack grace.

I noticed there’s nothing I could do at that point. I’m committed.

A silhouette cast in penumbra snaked across the floor. There is no sound. The walls vibrate. Every muscle in my body tightens until it hurts. I’m reeled over in pain.

I’m certain I’m bleeding. I need to be taken to the hospital, I tell no one. I don’t say a word. I can’t say a word. At one point in my life I could speak five languages, but none of them come to mind at that very moment.

No one could hear me, either way.

The silhouette reaches out. It grabs, and I can feel its tendrils tighten. I can feel a squeeze pulsating through my veins.

I shout.

But I don’t. 

Small cuts erase the pieces of my body I thought would always be protected.

I stood up for the first time since I could remember. I become painfully aware. I collapsed. I stepped over the body and walked out into the night.