FLASH! Super Short Sci-Fi - Volume 2

A Minor Thaw (But Still Not Enough)

I should have known something was wrong the moment I entered the clinic.

John is the sixty-year-old security guard at the front desk who can still bench three hundred and whose mile time is better than mine. Whenever I come in - which isn't as often as I'd like, now that I'm working three jobs to pay for the loans - he and I take five minutes to chat about sports before I head on up. That day, he barely even looked at me. Eyes down on the screen in front of him, looking like he was concentrating real hard even though I knew he hated the glow and much preferred the pages of the paperback he always kept in the front drawer of his desk.

"Heya John," I said, swiping my card over the reader.

"Billy," he grunted. The access light turned from red to green and the gate opened. I stepped through it to the elevator bank. Pressing the UP button, I watched the guard out of the corner of my eye as I waited for the brushed metal doors to open up for me. He had a blank web page open - literally just a new tab, a bright virgin white nothingness - and he was staring at it as closely as if he was looking for crucial details in a security tape.

It was strange, but I brushed it off. Maybe the guy was having a bad day, maybe he was just waiting for his email to load up, who knew. I stepped into the elevator and forgot all about John by the time the car started on its upward journey.

It was only when I stepped out onto my floor that I realized it wasn't just John. The whole place had a somber feel to it. I mean, it's always reverent up there. It's not like I was expecting a party or anything, but the nurses always did such a great job of maintaining an air of quiet optimism. But that day...everything was off.

Marlene looked up from the reception desk as I left the elevator. She caught my eye, then quickly lowered her gaze to her computer. My heartbeat picked up a few paces. Between John downstairs and now Marlene - who always had a smile and a harmlessly flirty comment to make (she wasn't old enough to be my mother, but certainly old enough to be a young aunt) - I knew that something was going on.

And I knew it had to do with Autumn.

"Good morning, Marlene," I said, putting on a brave smile as I crossed the reception area. I leaned on her desk, trying to emulate my normal, nonchalant manner and failing miserably. I felt stiff. Nervous. My heart rate had gone up even further. What was happening? Was everything okay? Where were the doctors, were they in the middle of rounds, was there a reason that they hadn't called me?

"Everything..." I fought the urge to swallow the lump in my throat. "...going okay today?"

Marlene finally forced herself to look up from her monitor. Her lips were stretched tight in a thin, awkward smile.

"She has a visitor," the receptionist said. A trap door opened up in my chest and my heart plunged down into darkness. A peculiar, buzzing sensation crawled over my skin and set my teeth on edge. This was a day I had been imagining, fearing, desiring, dreading, and hoping for.

"Uhh," I said, to nobody in particular. I took two steps towards the end of the hall, then four steps back towards the elevators. Then I turned around again to face to the neat line of rooms that seemed to stretch off into forever.

"Uhh. I don't. Um..." I turned to Marlene, who was giving me a sympathetic look. I only partially realized that my hands were buried in my hair, the fingers grasping tightly at the roots and pulling slightly.

"What do I do?"

"I think you need to take a deep, deep breath, and go on in there."

"Uh huh," I said, nodding and wide-eyed. I wanted to both hug and scream at Marlene at the same time. Slowly, I fixed my gaze on the door. Slowly, I let loose a long, drawn out swear. Marlene's cheeks pinkened, and the light twinkled on the cross around her neck. I'd apologize to her later, but now...

I took a step towards the door...and all too soon, I was right there in front of it. My hand slowly raised up to grab the handle, while inside my head I screamed at myself to run, RUN, the elevators are right there, the car's right downstairs, the highway's two minutes away, state lines are an hour out, and the border into Canada is only a few more from there, dear God RUN!

My body was braver than I was. It opened the door, then took me inside and past the pale curtain blocking the view into the room.

She stood at the foot of the cryochamber, tall like I remember her, but with her hair cut and dyed in an unfamiliar style. Of course, the shock of the hair was nothing compared to the very obvious baby bump beneath a comfortable tanktop that I hadn't seen in about eight years.

My hopes and my fears died when I saw her little tummy, pregnant with new life, a slap in the face if there ever was one. Anger rose up in me like a violent flame and I wanted to scream at her to get out, to get the hell out, but my rage was short-lived. It consumed my heart in a flash, leaving nothing but a smoking rock in my chest that flaked away into ash as all of my emotions just stopped.

She turned towards me, giving me a sad smile that I had imagined so many times over the past four years.

"Billy," she said. She looked like she was going to give me a hug "hello", but I'm pretty sure whatever expression was on my face was what stopped her.

"Hey," I said quietly. There were a billion questions that I wanted to ask, and like always, she was able to figure out the most relevant one and answer it before I could say it.

"I came to see our baby," she said. Her lower lip started trembling. She bit down on it, hard, and turned back towards the big glass and plastic tube extending out from the wall into the middle of the room. It took a few minutes of awkward silence before I did anything, but finally I shuffled up next to her and turned to look as well.

"We really made a beautiful baby," she said, her voice thick with tears.

"Uh huh," I said. It was all I could say. I hadn't been this close to her since she found out that I had forged her signature on the clinic entry papers. In fact, I hadn't even spoken to her since then. All communication had been done through lawyers.

There were so many things to say now. Like, "How could you have just given up on her?", and, "How could you have just given up on us?", and "Why did it take you so long to come and see her?", and "How dare you move on with your life when she's not even dead, she's not dead no matter what you say or think or-"

I'd said hundreds of thousands of things to her in absentia since then, but now that she was actually standing next to me, I...

"Can you-" a sob interrupted her, and she pressed a hand over her mouth. A minute later, she continued. "Can you talk about her third birthday party?"

It was difficult to speak, but after a little bit the words started to flow more easily. I reminded her about the kid who threw up all over our couch. The other kid who had an "accident" in the wading pool. The cake that wouldn't bake. How the birthday girl had told one of the partygoers that she hated her present.

She laughed here and there in between her tears, and I told her more stories of our short time as a family. At some point, she took my hand and I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time. Something real that wasn't painful for once. It was only a tiny shift inside of me, but it was something, it was something for the love of God, something that didn't hurt. I haven't felt it since, but I still remember that it was there.

We stood in that room for a long time, watching our frozen Autumn together, waiting for the world to find a cure, and remembering all that was while mourning what could have been.