A Small Gray Dot

We were to be married in three days. Her gown was waiting at her maid-of-honor’s place so I wouldn’t run up on it in our tiny apartment and see it before our big day. My tux was waiting for me at the rental company. I was supposed to pick it up at three. Her parents and sister were due to arrive from Baltimore the next day for the wedding. Everything was ready. We were ready.

Feeling numb and brittle, as if I might break if I moved too quickly, I began to carefully strip out of my blood-stiffened clothes. As I lurched my way to the bathroom on legs I could barely feel, the lights in the apartment came on. I ignored them. That the power was back was a minor point at the moment. I wanted to wash everything away, make it be last night or any time before now but all I could do was wash away the blood.

My fractured mind began to try and function while I was showering, and it occurred to me to wonder how she’d gotten back to the apartment without my seeing her, but I drew a blank and so I let it go. It didn’t matter. Knowing wouldn’t bring her back to me. When I was done, I got into jeans and a tee shirt, and staring at my blood spattered sneakers, I put on my other pair.

I stumbled into the livingroom where I found my cellphone on the couch. The clock on it announced it was nine forty-three a.m., and I checked to see if it was working now. There was a signal. Hoping to find out what the hell was going on, I cleared my rusty throat and croaked, “911”. The phone didn’t respond to my voice command, so I punched the emergency fast button and listened to it ring as I glanced towards the window. The fog had dissipated and the sun shone brightly over the tops of the uptown towers.

The phone quit ringing and a recorded message came on telling me that due to a citywide crisis all emergency personnel were busy but if I stayed on the line someone would help me. I wasn’t surprised. I shuffled over to the window and looked down. In the bright, cheerful rays of the sun, I saw people in the side parking lot. Some were alive, others, not. I watched with dull eyes for a moment before turning away.

I waited for an answer, and when the message began to repeat, I clicked off 911, and not bothering with voice command since that seemed not to be working, I went to my contacts and tapped the number for my parents’ landline.

The answering service kicked in and my dad’s voice that still carried a slight Jamaican accent, said, “Greetings, family and friends. You missed us this time but leave a message and we’ll call you back. If this is a solicitation, forget it. We don’t want any.” Giggling in the background, my mom’s voice said, “Stop being silly, James!”

It beeped and I rasped out, “Mom! Dad! Pick up!”

Neither did. I shivered and hung up. They were both home. One of them should’ve answered.

I lowered myself to the couch trying to further clear the shock and confusion from my mind. I tried not to think of Zoni wrapped in sheets and lying in the bedroom. I needed to find out what happened, and I needed to talk to my parents.

I switched on the TV. At first, nothing came in except that “no signal” message gotten when the set doesn’t synchronize right off, then the screen flashed and pixilated before clearing. The sheet white face of a channel nine news reporter stared out. He looked as dazed as I felt as he informed me that whatever this… thing… was, it was citywide and there were a number of casualties, but our emergency services were handling it.

His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed and continued. “We have no data on exactly what caused the, ah, the event that occurred this morning but government authorities are advising everyone to stay in their homes and—” the picture and sound cut out.

Event. It sounded so tame, like a concert or a ball game. The word seemed so… so… inadequate. But then so did “disaster”, or “catastrophe”, or any other such terminology. There should have been a different word, a bigger, more important word for the thing that killed my Zoni.

I sat a few more minutes watching the “no signal” message bounce around the blank screen, then I turned it off.

I tried 911 again but got the same recording. I hung up and called my parents again. Maybe they’d been outside and hadn’t heard the phone. This time I tapped my mom’s cellphone number. There was no answer, and it was the same with my dad’s phone. Then, the phone signal disappeared again and I was back to getting no reception. I looked towards the bedroom. I had to go check on my parents. I didn’t want to go back in there but I couldn’t leave Zoni like that.