This is an excerpt from a short story I'm working on for the Machine of Death anthology. (Premise here: http://machineofdeath.net/about).
WHO CARES
Natalie Watson, 2011
The air was thick with a silent tension. Three girls sat at a cluttered table, surrounded by the muted chaos of a mid-Saturday food court of the mall.
“You got taller again,” Olivia observed sourly.
“Didn’t. It’s the heels.” Anna moved her foot from under the table to show them off. Claire wondered how many pay checks her friend had wasted on them, but declined to ask.
“You’re sitting — it’s not the heels.”
Anna ignored her attempts at small talk and asked the question that was on everyone’s mind: “Do you think she forgot?”
Claire fidgeted in her chair. “Maddie wouldn’t forget.”
“It’s been half an hour,” Olivia pointed out. “She has our phone numbers. She hasn’t called.”
“She’ll be here.” She had to. Claire knew it in her bones.
All three girls were pointedly ignoring the battered machine in the corner sitting next to the iconic photo booth and the mall’s two arcade games. Claire felt her attention wander toward the machine again (again, again, again) and dutifully pulled her focus back to her companions. She couldn’t take much more of this.
A cell phone vibrated, and all three girls flinched.
“It’s Maddie,” Olivia announced, almost surprised.
“So pick it up.”
Olivia pushed back her chair and walked a few feet away from the table, trying to find somewhere quiet enough to hear what was being said.
“You think she’ll cancel?” Anna mused.
Claire considered it for a moment, then shook her head. She tried not to notice the nervous knot tightening in her stomach. Her fingers fiddled with the keys in her pocket. They still felt foreign there, like she was playing dress-up in someone else’s clothes. They helped her remember that she was an adult now, not the distant little girl who had made that ill-considered promise in Hawthorne Cabin all those years ago. It had seemed like such a good idea when they were kids with their fingers still sticky from s'mores. Getting their machine readings together when they were eighteen had seemed like an adventure -- one last hurrah before the real world swept them away. Now it felt like a slowly-tightening noose around her neck.
Olivia sat down with a sigh and rolled her eyes. “Speeding ticket on the way here. She’s trying to find a place to park.”
Anna grinned conspiratorially. “Maddie the speed demon. Who would have guessed mousey Maddie would grow up to be a lead-foot?”
And who would have guessed pushy Anna would be a model, and giggling Olivia would be booking shows with her indie band? Claire didn’t bother to say it aloud. That would lead to the inevitable question: “What are you doing these days, Claire?” If she could get through this reunion without admitting that she hadn't even found a boring cashier job, she could salvage a bit of dignity.
And god, she needed some dignity today.
“There she is!” Olivia waved frantically at a petite young woman walking through the doors. It took Claire a moment to recognize Maddie.
“Pixie cut?” Claire finally asked. Maddie had always been so vain about her hair.
“Spending the summer at my dad’s place,” Maddie explained. At the blank looks, she added, “Texas. It gets hot. I leave next week”
Understanding nods all around. Silence. No one stood to hug her -- it wasn't that kind of reunion.
“So, do you guys want to grab a bite to eat first, or...”
Olivia tried to smile apologetically. It looked more like a grimace. “We ate while we waited.”
“Oh.” Maddie stared at the table. “I guess we should go ahead.”
Anna made a point of catching each girl’s gaze. “If anyone wants to back out, this is the time for it.”
“Not me,” Olivia said, too quickly.
Maddie closed her eyes briefly — in prayer? — and said, “Let’s do this.”
Claire tempted herself for the hundredth time that day. It’s not Truth or Dare anymore, she reasoned. This is serious. Do they know that this is serious?
Of course they knew. She felt their eyes on her, the last undecided. She swallowed, nodded. “Who’s first?”
---
They stopped at the photo booth first for one last memory. It was difficult to cram four girls into the two-person booth, but the silly pictures were worth it.
One last taste of innocence. That was all Claire could think. One last smile with her childhood friends, so distant from her real life. One last chance to back out, the cowardice reminded her. She stifled the thought.
Anna went first, but that was no surprise. She was always the brave one. She sauntered up to the machine like it was no different from the photo booth. Claire tried not to envy her friend’s composure.
Anna made it look easy. She placed her hand on the small panel and barely even winced when the lancet danced into her finger and out again.
“Place the sample on the test strip.” The machine’s voice was eerily cheerful. “Place the sample on the— Sample accepted. Processing.”
The moment stretched out longer than it had any right to. Claire felt like a wind-up doll whose springs were about to snap, and this wasn’t even her card yet. This is just Anna’s death, she reassured herself, then felt guilty that the thought was reassuring.
But it was.
After what seemed like eternity, the machine spat a small slip of paper toward Anna, the size of a business card. Claire was slightly pleased to notice her confident friend’s fingers trembling as they grasped the paper.
She read the words in stunned silence. Then a small smile started to play at the corner of her lips.
“What does it say?” Olivia insisted, but she didn’t reach to take the paper. There was no room for levity here.
Anna showed them the card. In neat block letters, it read "POLITICAL ASSASSINATION."
Olivia grinned. “You’re going to be famous enough to be assassinated?”
“Apparently! Martin said he had another modeling gig set up for me, but this settles it. There’s a pre-law internship at Vance and Pierson’s. I might as well apply, right?” Her eyes were shining, but Claire couldn’t determine if it was unshed tears or a trick of the light. She gave her friend the benefit of the doubt and assumed the latter.
“Who’s next?” Anna could afford to be cheerful — she had seen the worst, and it told her she was going to be famous.
“I’ll go.” Maddie stepped forward hesitantly. “Might as well get it over with.”
She approached the machine with a stiff spine, head held high as if she was marching to her death already instead of simply reading her prediction. Claire couldn’t say that she disagreed.
The wait was shorter this time, or maybe Anna’s result had simply dissipated some of the tension in the air.
“Well?”
Color came back into Maddie’s cheeks as she held the slip out to the group. “Man o' War,” she gloated. When the other three didn’t seem to share her enthusiasm, she explained, “It’s a type of jellyfish.” Her fingers toyed with the sea turtle charm on her bracelet. Claire belatedly remembered an offhanded comment that Maddie had made about growing up to be the new Steve Irwin.
Maddie's enthusiasm was contagious. Olivia stepped forward next, a jaunty smile on her face. “My turn.”
Claire didn’t watch as Olivia approached the machine. Her eyes were trained on her battered sneakers. There was a part of her that almost hoped Olivia would get a less positive prediction. Anna and Maddie had both had their ambitions confirmed by their deaths. What if Claire got something stupid, like CAR ACCIDENT or HEART ATTACK? What if it was something embarrassing? SYPHILIS. SUICIDE.
“No. Way.”
Claire shook off her lingering malaise and looked back at Olivia, who was staring at her slip of paper like it was made of gold.
“What’s it say?” she asked woodenly, already resenting the answer.
In response, Olivia handed her the card. In neat block letters were the words RABID FANGIRL. Claire passed the slip to Anna, who passed it to Maddie.
“I don’t get it,” Maddie said, puzzled.
“Olivia has a band now,” Anna explained. “She’s going to be famous too!”
Which, of course, set off a series of girling shrieks and giggles as the three girls celebrated their good fortunes.
Claire stared at the machine as if it was going to eat her.
“Your turn, Claire.”
She wished they didn’t sound so excited about it.
One halting step after the other, she approached the machine. So impersonal. So phony-looking. She glanced at the fortune-telling machine next to it, and the photo booth on the other side. So unassuming. But no matter how silly it seemed, the science supported it: no one had ever managed to prove the machine wrong. If it said you would die by ELEPHANT PISS, the world would find a way to make it happen. Period.
“Just do it,” Maddie whispered, patting her on the shoulder.
Claire tried to feel comforted, but the knot in her stomach just clenched tighter. She shoved her hand onto the panel and pressed the button quickly. The needle pierced her fingertip. Just like my glucose meter, she thought with false cheer. Just checking my blood sugar.
HEART ATTACK. CAR ACCIDENT. SYPHILIS. SUICIDE.
“Place the sample on the test strip,” chirped the machine. Claire obliged. “Sample accepted. Processing.”
It had taken an eternity when Anna’s slip was processing, but it felt like no time at all before Claire was grabbing the sheet from the printer area.
Her eyes scanned the sheet several times before her brain managed to register the words. Her fingers didn’t tremble. The blood didn’t drain from her face. She just stared, uncomprehending, at the card in her hands.
“What does it say?” Olivia asked.
And Claire lied. “Heart attack.” She crumpled the paper and tossed it into the waste bin. She tried to summon a smile. “Statistically, it would have to be one of us, right?”
But in her mind, the words were still repeating:
WHO CARES. WHO CARES. WHO CARES.
---
Claire never saw the other three again. Not for lack of effort on their part. They still sent her letters, even called her from time to time. But as the years passed, their lives slowly eroded that easy friendship as each woman was swept along toward her fate.
When she was feeling particularly maudlin, Claire would play Olivia’s newest CD. She rarely listened to them, but she had dutifully purchased each one the day it came out. Twelve in total, a neat dozen lined up on her shelf. Prolific. Successful. All the things that Claire could never be.
She spent her college fund on a year’s rent for a small apartment in Alaska. Her parents had been concerned, but Claire wouldn’t hear any objections. There was no point in getting a degree. Before the machine, she had fantasized about writing screenplays.
But no playwright dies of WHO CARES.
---
It took a year for Claire to get bored with Alaska. She had stopped calling her family except for holidays. She found it hard to listen to their comforting words. Love. Love, she reasoned, was a lot like caring. Where would her family be when she died?
Didn’t matter. She knew they wouldn’t care. Maybe they would be dead already. Maybe she was being unfair. But those doubts weren’t enough to make her pick up the phone.
Solitude is a strange thing. The more you have it, the less you want it and, counterintuitively, the more fiercely you defend it. Her neighbors learned that their overtures of friendship would be rebuffed. They stopped trying. Her coworkers at the firm still asked her to come to the office parties, but it was only a courtesy. Claire Philips was the town’s curmudgeonly hermit. Age: 19 years.
---
Claire found Remy by accident. It was autumn in Alaska, whatever that means. To her Virginia-native body, it was bitterly cold. She went out to the road to collect her mail — nothing personal, understand, just business mail. Bills. A new book she had ordered. Nothing personal. And standing beside her mail box, rail-thin and half frozen, was a dog.
She checked the fraying collar for tags and found nothing. For a moment, she had the presence of mind to worry about taking in an unvaccinated dog. Then she laughed at herself. What could he do to her? She wasn’t scheduled to die of distemper.
“Just one night,” she warned him as she led him into the house. “We’ll see if the town vet has seen you. We’ll put up ‘found dog’ signs.”
The dog simply sighed and crept over to the hearth. He stared at her.
“I guess you want food.”
He whined.
And Claire Philips had a dog.
---
No matter how hard she tried to live privately, people found a way to care about her. It made her angry. The McPherson’s brought over “just a bit of food” at Thanksgiving. The Chandlers and the Blackwells offered to bring her some books from the library. “Just when we’re in the area,” they assured her. But their eyes were full of sympathy.
Claire wondered what stories they told themselves about her. Was she a local legend? Did they tell each other, “How sad, how sad!” as they looked for explanations as to why such a normal girl would work so hard to cloister herself?
But then she would shake herself out of it. Of course they didn’t wonder.
Wondering was a lot like caring.
---
She started going to church by accident, too. First it was strictly utilitarian. She had borrowed a hymnal from Pastor Simmons. She had promised to return it. It was easiest to find the pastor at the church. Practical. She knew he would be there at a certain time.
But after she returned the book, she stayed for the service. She couldn’t explain why, not that anyone asked. The congregation was large enough that no one questioned a sallow-looking woman bundled up in her winter gear, sitting in the corner of the room.
They didn’t question her the next Sunday, either. Or the following. Once word got around that the quiet addition was the hermit from the little yellow house on Cedar Street, people were careful to give her space. Claire appreciated that, in a peripheral sort of way. She reasoned that if she never spoke to them, they couldn’t care. She would build no expectations from her community. She would make no friends. The church as a group wouldn’t care when she died. She just had to make sure that she didn’t get attached to any of the other members.
So Claire found religion again.
---
Remy died on Claire’s 25th birthday. It was high summer — July 21st. She came home from the market with a bag full of groceries and almost stepped on his still form.
“Brought you a surprise, lazy bones,” she informed him. “It’s my birthday. We’re going to celebrate.”
He didn’t move.
She bustled into the kitchen area and started to put away the food. Remy didn’t follow.
Remy always followed when there were groceries involved.
“Rems?” she asked, panic mounting in her mind. She pushed the groceries aside and rushed back to the doorway. “Remy?”
His breath was labored but quiet. In. Out. She watched his chest heaving upward, as if each breath took a monumental effort. His tail thumped slowly against the ground. Not even a full wag.
She felt nausea clawing its way up her throat, but she refused it. “I’ll call Dr. Parson,” she told Remy, her cold fingers fumbling for the cell phone in her pocket. “The roads are clear. He’ll be here in just a minute.”
By the time the vet arrived, Remy had died in her arms.
Dr. Parson helped her bury him. It took over an hour to dig the hole. Even in high summer, the ground was stiff and unyielding. But Remy deserved it, she told herself. He was the only companion Claire had. She said a silent prayer over the grave. She didn’t know how long Dr. Parson waited beside her in silence as she prayed. Peripherally, she heard his beeper vibrate in his pocket. Eventually, he left.
She sat beside the remains of her only friend, and she still couldn’t find the tears.
“Who cares,” she told herself fiercely. “It had to be this way. It had to be this way because he cared.”
---
Six months later, Claire Philips lost her religion. It was Christmas time. The local elementary school was putting on a nativity play. Pastor Simmons had offered to loan the school the decorations, since the art budget was so tight this year. Claire had volunteered to pick up some of the costumes after the performance.
The little girl playing Mary was in the audience, taking full advantage of the attention that her starring role had bought her. Claire smiled. The girl’s self-assured bearing was almost like Anna’s, when she was that age. She had heard that Anna was almost done with law school by now. Her latest letter had mentioned that she was thinking about running for mayor in some backwater town in Iowa. Claire hadn’t replied to the letter, but she had wished her old friend well.
Mary’s social meandering brought her in front of Claire.
“How are you, Ms. Philips?” she asked. She was missing her front tooth. The very epitome of innocence.
“I’m doing well. I hear you get to play Mary.”
The girl nodded, solemn. “Because I’m oldest,” she confided.
“Is tonight your first play?”
She shook her head. “We did it yesterday, too. Today is the last one.”
“I bet it will be the best, then.” She resisted the urge to ruffle the girl’s hair, then wondered where the impulse had come from. Ms. Philips didn’t touch anyone. That was a hold-over from Claire, the girl she remembered less and less as the years passed. It was easier to be Ms. Philips.
Mary smiled, her tongue faintly visible in the gap where her front tooth should have been. “Thank you, Ms. Philips. Jesus loves you.”
Claire froze. “What did you say?”
Mary tilted her head. “Jesus loves you. Didn’t you know that? He loves everyone.” She made an encompassing gesture, as if she would hug the whole world. She squinted. “Don’t you go to church?”
Numbly, Claire forced a smile to her lips. “Good luck with the play tonight,” she said thickly, and walked out the door.
---
This time, the hole was smaller. She dug it right next to Remy’s grave, as close as she could get without feeling like she was disturbing him. Was she still allowed to think about disturbing his rest? Did atheists worry about things like that? She didn’t know. She had never tried to be an atheist before.
The hole was the size of her fist, not even a full load of the shovel. The shovel was for getting through the snow. This time of year, it was all but impossible to move the dirt. It didn’t matter. If it still bothered her after the thaw, she’d try to bury it a little deeper.
Claire pulled the necklace chain over her head and dropped the tiny crucifix into the dent in the ice. There was no word of prayer this time, no silent mourning. She was getting better at letting go. If she tried hard enough, she could have been completely isolated. She scuffed the snow into the hole and walked away.
((Not done, obviously.))
