Ripple
by Eleonora Bruttini
by Eleonora Bruttini
Maggie would never normally buy chocolate puddings. It was not that she disliked them — actually, they were her favorite food — but they were calorie bombs and she was flabby, pure and simple. But hey, in that moment she could not have cared less about the gross pounds she would have put on. She had just broken up with Gerry. She deserved that damn chocolate pudding.
She untied her apron and rolled it up into a cream-colored ball to toss into the shabby duffel bag at her feet, then she turned her back to the register. The filthy, buzzing relic that her boss called a “refrigerator” was almost empty. She winced, then she grabbed her chocolate pudding, dropped one dollar into the tip jar and took her leave of the Waffle House with her blue bag slung over her shoulder. A few moments later, her head rested on the driver seat of her car as her hand rummaged in the pocket of her sloppy sweater for her phone. Maggie opened one eye to check it, then she thrusted it back into the pocket.
“Go to hell, Gerry…”
It had been a long week. A long, wretched week during which she had managed to fail an interview for a nice job and to call her best friend a bitch because… well, because she used to sleep around a little too much. And then there was the icing on the cake: she had broken up with Gerry because his bed was the one Aileen had slept in one time too many. Maggie’s tongue prodded the piercing on her lower lip. She could drown her sorrows in the good, old Noxac, after all. Just two pills a day to stop her from scratching her thighs when she felt like a sickening fatso. Two pills a day to swallow down the bitterness of that college course she didn’t finish and the watery black coffee she poured at the Waffle House every day. Two pills a day to make her crummy existence worth living. And at what cost? Just two more pills a day, until she had an overdose. Or she was found dead in her tub. Or she smashed her head in an accident. Whatever the setting, the facts did not change: she would die young. She had always known it.
Maggie flung the duffel bag in the back seat and started the car. She took a peep at the rearview mirror and met her own brown eyes. No. She had promised herself she would not resort to Noxac ever again. She had had enough of being tamed, enough of being turned into a vegetable because… how did Dr. Sullivan put it? Oh, right; her nature was “too frail” and her depression “too overwhelming” to handle life’s difficulties successfully. Like hell she was too frail.
She changed gear and grinned. She would prove Dr. Smartypants wrong. She would show her parents that they were wrong. She would prove to them all that she wasn’t an idiot. This time she wanted to be free from her past. She closed her eyes and drew a deep, resolute breath. Then she used the blinker, checked left-right-left, and watched the city lane turn into a less congested country road.
It was on that route that Maggie spotted him.
She untied her apron and rolled it up into a cream-colored ball to toss into the shabby duffel bag at her feet, then she turned her back to the register. The filthy, buzzing relic that her boss called a “refrigerator” was almost empty. She winced, then she grabbed her chocolate pudding, dropped one dollar into the tip jar and took her leave of the Waffle House with her blue bag slung over her shoulder. A few moments later, her head rested on the driver seat of her car as her hand rummaged in the pocket of her sloppy sweater for her phone. Maggie opened one eye to check it, then she thrusted it back into the pocket.
“Go to hell, Gerry…”
It had been a long week. A long, wretched week during which she had managed to fail an interview for a nice job and to call her best friend a bitch because… well, because she used to sleep around a little too much. And then there was the icing on the cake: she had broken up with Gerry because his bed was the one Aileen had slept in one time too many. Maggie’s tongue prodded the piercing on her lower lip. She could drown her sorrows in the good, old Noxac, after all. Just two pills a day to stop her from scratching her thighs when she felt like a sickening fatso. Two pills a day to swallow down the bitterness of that college course she didn’t finish and the watery black coffee she poured at the Waffle House every day. Two pills a day to make her crummy existence worth living. And at what cost? Just two more pills a day, until she had an overdose. Or she was found dead in her tub. Or she smashed her head in an accident. Whatever the setting, the facts did not change: she would die young. She had always known it.
Maggie flung the duffel bag in the back seat and started the car. She took a peep at the rearview mirror and met her own brown eyes. No. She had promised herself she would not resort to Noxac ever again. She had had enough of being tamed, enough of being turned into a vegetable because… how did Dr. Sullivan put it? Oh, right; her nature was “too frail” and her depression “too overwhelming” to handle life’s difficulties successfully. Like hell she was too frail.
She changed gear and grinned. She would prove Dr. Smartypants wrong. She would show her parents that they were wrong. She would prove to them all that she wasn’t an idiot. This time she wanted to be free from her past. She closed her eyes and drew a deep, resolute breath. Then she used the blinker, checked left-right-left, and watched the city lane turn into a less congested country road.
It was on that route that Maggie spotted him.
#
He was walking clumsily by the roadside, one foot placed haphazardly in front of the other to follow the white line. At first, Maggie thought he was hunchbacked, then she brought into focus the black haversack the man was carrying on his back. It must be hefty, she thought when the man stumbled and resumed his stooped posture. Maggie raised her eyebrows, changed down and stopped alongside the man.
“You alright?”
She lowered the window, which offered her an unimpeded glimpse of the nasty look the man had in store for her. She shuddered. Something in his anemic look and icy blue eyes made Maggie’s blood run cold. He gazed at her as if he were trying to open a window on her forehead and rummage inside it. Then he turned his face towards the direction she was coming from and surveyed the road pensively. It was right when it occurred to Maggie that the man perhaps did not speak English that he grinned like a Cheshire cat, moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue and replied in a surprisingly warm voice:
“I’m fine, thanks. Though… I could be better”. The man leaned on the car door, rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers and sniggered. “My car left me high and dry. I was trying to get to the gas station…”
Maggie read an unexpressed request in his simpering tone. She stared at the man. Sure enough, the sickle-shaped scar on his cheekbone did not contribute to a reassuring impression. But even so, if she had a penny for every time people had slammed doors in her face because of her appearance, she would not be working in a diner now.
“You need a lift?”
“It’d be very much appreciated…”
A few moments later, the man took his seat next to her. He placed his haversack between his feet and turned to face Maggie with a grin.
“A nice day, isn’t it?”
While he was saying so, his fingers reached the door and pushed the safety lock down.
#
A sudden heavy raindrop crashed into the windshield, breaking the deadly silence that lingered in the car. Maggie started, then she heaved a sigh and peeked at the man at her side. Constant, for that had turned out to be his name, was gazing at the wipers. Maggie glimpsed a playful light in his eyes and smiled in turn. She was just being too apprehensive. Her stomach had been in knots ever since the moment the guy had locked her car, but then all he had done was hunch and stare out of the windshield. She shook her head. If anything, Constant looked more withdrawn than menacing. She glanced at him once again and gripped the wheel to muster up the courage to start a conversation. Just as she was about to speak, Constant’s fingertips started drumming on the window.
“The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the waterspout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out…” The man turned and grinned at the ghastly pallor of Maggie’s face. “Do you like spiders, Maggie?”
It was as if somebody had suddenly slapped her neck with a cold, wet blanket. That dissonant, strident song had triggered her fight-or-flight instinct again. While her heart throbbed loudly in her chest, she tried to conceal her shivers by nodding. Constant aped her gesture with a smirk.
“There used to be many where I lived. Once I found one of the little dudes in my cap. He was trying to steal my money, you know? And I was going to squash it…” Constant raised his hand as if to emphasize his point, then a dart of bewilderment flickered in his eyes. He exchanged a flummoxed look with his reflection in the wing mirror and lowered his hand to touch the scar on his cheek. “But I didn’t. Despite my appearance, I’m not a monster. I thought, hey, this little dude here is just trying to make a living, right? And aren’t you trying to make an honest living too, Constant? So I let him live. It seemed most unfair to steal his life in revenge for one dollar”.
Maggie had started nibbling at her hangnails ashamedly. The unexpected note of pity in Constant’s voice had tugged at her heartstrings. Oh, she was so pathetic. Once more, she had confused naivety with menace. Interfering with Noxac had transformed her into a bundle of nerves. Seriously, she thought, wasn’t she able to hold a conversation without trembling like a leaf and feel the impulse to swallow the whole bottle down? Didn’t she want to be free of antidepressants? Free to live her life without cowering? She gritted her teeth and shrugged her disquietude off, then she peeked at Constant. Alright, his cold eyes creeped her out and he smelled like weed, but he wasn’t that bad after all. And she was single now, wasn’t she? What a better way to start a brave new life than with a foolish act?
“So… how come you keep your money in a cap?”
“I’m a mime.” A pleased smile hovered on Constant’s lips. “But I’m heading North. There’s money to be made there and… the chicks, well…”
“Well, maybe you don’t need to look too far to find one…”
It was exactly the moment that Maggie thought her coquettish smile had successfully kick-started a playful exchange that the black car appeared in the rearview mirror.
#
She could not say for sure how long the SUV had been following them. She only knew that the first time she had noticed it, she had not paid much attention to it. But then she had spotted it again at the crossroad. And again when she was convinced it had turned. And again, at an unsettling distance from her Chrysler. Maggie adjusted the rearview mirror to check the number plate but she couldn’t read the number on it. Instead, the silvery letters “NOPH” winked at her.
“Hey, man. Is it me, or is that SUV followin’ us?”
She didn’t receive any reply. When she checked on Constant, he was rubbing his cheek and staring at the wing mirror. Suddenly, he covered his mouth with his hand and started swaying. His fingers frenziedly reached for his haversack, then they scratched his cheek before going back to check the haversack once more.
“Y-you ok, man?”
He did not reply, but kept on swaying, his eyes as incensed as those of a hunted animal.
“Speed up…”, he mumbled after a while.
“What? What’s going on?!”
“SPEED UP!”
Her eyes wide open, Maggie obeyed. A crossfire of panic, nausea and overwhelming sense of inadequacy drilled at her spine, and she experienced an increasing need to call Dr. Sullivan, apologize and have him prescribe her Noxac till the end of her days. Just as she was about to reach for her phone, Constant spoke.
“You know, Maggie… I haven’t been entirely honest with you…”
She jerked. Constant’ s icy blue eyes, the left one diverted outward, were boring into her.
“They’re here for me.”
“Wha—?”
“They’re trying to kill me, Maggie. I’m their guinea pig.”
Constant rolled up the sleeve of his dusty sweater and displayed uncountable black-and-blue marks on his forearm. Maggie’s teeth began to chatter, her eyes desperately roved across the road to find an escape.
“W-who are ‘they’?”
“Nox Pharmaceuticals. They, they told me they would pay me handsomely, you know? All I had to do was lie still and let them inject Prosmec,Vortax, Noxac… All that shit. Just to see how it worked, right? But then they didn’t let me go. They said nobody would trust a tramp. They fastened me to a table, injected more of that stuff and scribbled on their damn folders every time I shouted, or hallucinated, or vomited, or… I don’t even know what the hell they were testing!”
Maggie was about to faint. She couldn’t believe it. Nox Pharmaceuticals produced the antidepressant she had ingested for over six years! Suddenly, she felt her strength failing her. Her foot released the gas pedal as a shrill hiss pierced her ears.
“Don’t let them take me! SPEED UP!”
Constant jerked the wheel and the car skidded on the wet road. Maggie screamed as her old Chrysler crashed into a huge oak tree.
#
Beep.
Beep.
“Conditions are stable. She’s back!”
Maggie opened her eyes abruptly. It was like reemerging from frosty, dark water to catch the air again. She blinked and the many faces in surgery masks around her came slowly into focus. She tried to move her arm but an I.V. confined her to the bed. As for her legs, she wasn’t receiving any feedback from them. What was happening? She gawked at the blood coming out of her arm to climb up the I.V.. Blood. Injections. Constant…
Suddenly, Maggie started screaming.
“Where’s he?! Where’s Constant?!”
“Miss Smithson, calm down. You had an accid—”
“You took him! Where are you keeping him?!”
“There was nobody but you, Miss Smithson, as per usual. Please, calm down. The doctor will be here in a few minutes…”
Doctor Sullivan? He had taken Constant! Oh, she knew it was him. He had been trying to tame her with his damned Noxac ever since Cody had died in that accident, ever since she had started spotting her brother everywhere: in her bedroom, on the street, in the hallway of their high school. She knew he was still alive, but Dr. Sullivan had tried to bury the whole thing. He said she was “just having nightmares” and that she needed to “sleep more than five hours per night”. Then he had given Maggie his magic pills, just to reduce her to a dull-witted, unreliable dolly whose words nobody would ever trust.
And now? Was Dr. Sullivan testing his drugs on Maggie too? She wriggled breathlessly. Oh, no. She would find Constant. She would help him to escape and they would start a new life together in the North. Before she could begin to articulate her thoughts, a throbbing pain in her guts made her faint once more.
#
When she opened her eyes, the crowd around her had dissolved. The only noise in the room was the draining pip of her electrocardiography and a steady drumming of fingers on metal. Maggie turned her head slowly. She discerned the white coat of a doctor. He was regulating a machinery.
“W-who are you?”, she muttered.
As if her words had hit him like darts to his back, the man turned and bent over the examination table. Maggie opened her mouth in horror when an icy blue diverted eye met her petrified glance.
“I-it can’t be… You were bleeding! I saw your head bleeding on my dashboard!”
The doctor did not reply. Instead, he grinned from ear to ear and placed the sedation mask inexorably on her mouth.
The End
Copyright © 2015 by Eleonora Bruttini
All rights reserved. This short story or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the author
except for the use of brief quotations in reviews.
All rights reserved. This short story or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the author
except for the use of brief quotations in reviews.
