Story 1

The Hum

By K.K

Edited A.K

Ellen Campton didn’t flinch when she heard the staccato flick of the light switch. She replied to the friendly pop of the toaster with a tired smile. She considered the coffee pot’s grumblings downright arousing. Ellen ate her toast sitting atop the counter staring at the black liquid drip into the glass reservoir. Steam surged out of the top when the coffee finished brewing, the light flashed red, the machine beeped, and Mrs. Campton poured greedily into her gargantuan mug.

Ellen’s husband sat on the couch, his stubbled face illuminated by the light of the tiny screen of his cell phone. His wife brought him a cup of coffee and a piece of burnt toast dotted with tiny globules of fake butter. The kitchen table was useless, except that it occasionally acted as a pedestal for Mrs. Campton to place things, take pictures of those things, and post them on various social media sites. Sometimes she posted pictures of meals she cooked from scratch or a rare bottle of wine she recently purchased, but mostly the pictures consisted of her purebred Angora cat in various outfits and poses.

Ellen popped open her laptop on the coffee table and made her morning rounds. She clicked and scrolled and clicked again for nearly three hours. The Camptons rarely saw any of their friends or family. They preferred to engage with their nearest and dearest from a safe distance.

“Did you see that it’s your nephew Ben’s birthday?” Ellen asked her husband.

“Yeah, I did. I liked it on his page,” her husband responded. 

“Isn’t that nice.”

 In this manner the Camptons avoided driving, which they detested. They also avoided eating food they didn’t like, conversations they often found awkward, and they never had to master the difficult art of gracefully leaving a party.

Ellen did a few chores around the house. She loaded the dishwasher and started it swishing. She was about to transfer a load of laundry from the washer to the dryer, but realized the clothes had been sitting in the machine for nearly a week. They were crusty and mildewed. Soap was added back into the load, the dial turned, and the washer jumped again to its task. Ellen’s husband put down his phone long enough to begin a few projects. Ellen’s husband was big on beginnings. Six months prior he had cut a giant hole in the ceiling to fix a leaky pipe. He’d get to the leak eventually. He prided himself on being a family man, however. The leak could wait while he watched episode after episode of some smash bang television show with his wife.

The Camptons never just watched television. Each divided their attention between the gore and gonads on the screen and whatever urgently demanded their attention online. Ellen plugged in calories consumed and burned throughout the day on a weight management app, but she couldn’t tell you why. The only person who saw Ellen on a regular basis was more interested in achievements earned on casual games than how his wife’s butt looked in the sweatpants that had become her uniform. The cat preferred Ellen a little on the heavy side. She loved to knead Ellen’s paunchy stomach while her humans basked in the glow of their many screens.

Ellen went to sleep every night by nine o’clock. This particular Saturday night was cold, even for January in Minnesota. Not only was it twenty degrees below zero, the wind pushed up against the McMansions in the Campton neighborhood at 70 miles per hour. Ellen woke up to her husband shaking her shoulders. Ellen’s eyes flew to her alarm clock, but there was only darkness.  “Ellen, the power is out!” Ellen’s husband held his phone out in front of him like a lantern. The world slowly came into focus.

“What time is it?” Ellen asked.

“2:32.” Ellen’s husband was too desperate to consider how rude it was to wake his wife up after she had gone to bed. He had already shared his misfortune with the world by posting about the power outage online, but no one was awake to “like” it. As a final resort to validate his experience, he went up to the bedroom and poked and prodded his wife until she stirred.

“When did the power go out?” Ellen asked.

“About an hour ago. It’s getting cold.”

 Ellen swung her legs over the side of the bed and fumbled around for her slippers. It was cold, but the quiet of the house was more of a shock to her system. Ellen got out of bed, draped a chenille blanket over her shoulders, and descended the staircase to the main floor. There were no blinking blue, green, or red lights. There were no fans running on the ceiling or in their computers. There were no beeps or dings or digital chatter. There was silence; or, there was something nearer to silence than Ellen ever remembered not hearing. Ellen walked to the window overlooking the backyard which they rarely enjoyed. In the moonlight, Ellen saw three deer bedding down amidst the trees. The fog from their breath spilled from their muzzles like sulfur from a volcano. Calm washed over Ellen. Ellen’s husband snapped a picture with his smartphone.

“Damn. It’s fuzzy.”

 “I’m going to get a fire going,” Ellen said. The Camptons had never made use of their hearth. It was one of the older homes in the association and one of the few that contained a wood burning fireplace. They had no firewood, but Ellen disassembled an IKEA chair with a hex key and stacked the legs on the grate. She needed kindling. There was very little paper in the house. When the Camptons did read, they skimmed short articles on the internet but savored the vulgar snark in the comments.  

It did not matter; Ellen had loads of combustible rubbish. The Campton’s foyer was like a battlefield. Empty cardboard boxes, remnants of their many Amazon purchases, lie like corpses haphazardly thrown against one another, their foam and bubble wrap innards festooning the entryway. Ellen brought up a few boxes, tore them to bits, and fed them into the fire until the flames danced a bolero. Ellen curled into the couch’s elbow. Time slowed to a sensuous crawl, dripping like honey instead of rushing sand through the hourglass. Under a pile of blankets, awash in firelight, and submerged in quiet, Ellen fell into the happiest sleep of her life. Across the room, a panicked look crept into Ellen’s husband’s eyes as his phone’s battery steadily dwindled.

Ellen awoke to chaos. The power restored, the Campton’s furnace roared to life working hard to return the 5,000 square foot house to its usual 72 degrees. The furnace growled loudly, lights turned on in every room, and there seemed to be more rings and whistles whizzing through the house than at the State Fair. Ellen emerged frantically from her nest. Ellen’s husband was jolly. “The power is back on,” he sighed in relief. Ellen was anything but relieved. Ellen walked through the house with a newborn’s eyes and ears. Everything was too bright and she startled at the sound of the coffee maker, the toaster, and the pings of message updates.

“Turn it off,” Ellen screamed.

“Turn what off?”

The once warm and familiar hum of the house now sounded like a soulless metallic choir sounding one, continuous cacophonic chord. Ellen whimpered and covered her ears. “The power! Turn it off! For God’s sake, turn it all off!”

“Why would we want to do that? Anyway, I read somewhere that if the pipes freeze the house could blow up. You’re just disoriented. You slept like the dead last night, see?” Ellen’s husband pushed his mobile into his wife’s face. He played for her the five minute video he recorded and posted of her sleeping. “Let me get you a nice cup of coffee and bring you your laptop.”

“I’m getting out of here,” Ellen said grabbing her car keys.

“Okay, Dear. Update your status when you get there.”

“I don’t know where I’m going.”

“An adventure! People love adventures. I bet you’ll get a lot of likes for that.” Ellen’s husband didn’t look up as his wife put on her coat and headed out the door.

Ellen headed north seeking quiet among the pines and waist high snowdrifts. She hadn’t driven without her GPS in a decade, and because she couldn’t bring herself to begin her pilgrimage with more technology than was absolutely necessary, she missed the I-35 exit twice.  Two hours into her journey, Ellen stopped to stretch her legs. Without her morning cup of coffee, Ellen’s head pounded; she hoped to clear her head and lift her spirits with a short jaunt along the shores of a tree lined lake.

Ellen pulled on her Italian leather gloves, which were very chic, but grossly insufficient to keep her hands warm in the subzero temperatures. The rest of Ellen’s ensemble was similarly inappropriate. She wore her favorite designer sweatpants, a matching pink hooded sweatshirt, faux fur fake leather boots, and a stonewashed jean jacket. Ellen should have known better, living in Minnesota her whole life, but she sincerely had forgotten the importance of dressing for the weather. Ellen went from her heated garage at home to her heated garage at work during the week. Ellen’s groceries were delivered to her house on Thursdays by a big, green truck and a man named Sanders. If she felt obligated to see her family, she would insist that they come to her, since her house was large and, as she claimed, good for entertaining.

Ellen stepped out of her Escalade and locked the door with her fob. She ducked under the railing of the scenic view parking area, scooted down a rocky incline, and walked out onto the frozen water.   There were no cheaply constructed summer homes or cabins on the lake. The only evidence of man Ellen observed was a tiny figure entering a battered fish house. “There is someone who understands what it means to lead the simple life,” Ellen thought. Ellen reached for her cell phone in the tiny pocket of her jean jacket. She looked up at the sun, became solemn, breathed deeply, and hurled the device as far as she could across the ice. Her sacrifice left her feeling giddy with optimism. Refreshed and freezing, Ellen headed back to her car. She unlocked the SUV, scooted onto the leather seat, and put the key in the ignition. The car would not start.

Ellen tried again and again. A sinking, sickening feeling spread out from her stomach to every corner of her body. She was already cold from her brief excursion outdoors. She blew hot air into her gloves, put them back on, and walked out to the highway to flag down a passing vehicle. After about five minutes, she saw a big, red Ford F150 speeding along the highway. She waved her arms and jumped up and down. As the truck cruised past, Ellen could see that the young man was staring squarely at the center of his steering wheel. She waited another five minutes and tried her best, but with no success, to attract the attention of a finely dressed woman driving a Lexus. She wore a headset and was waving both hands in the air shouting angrily. The old man in the next car drove 20 miles under the speed limit. He did make eye contact with Ellen, but instead of coming to her aid, he grimaced, activated the power locks, and pushed hard on the accelerator.  

Ellen retracted her numb fingers into the sleeves of her jacket. She had enough common sense to recognize that she needed to quickly find shelter. She scuttled down to the shores of the lake once more and began to walk across the frozen water toward the fish house. The sun was just past its zenith in the clear, blue sky as Ellen’s boots crunched through the luminous skin of the snow. After five minutes, Ellen couldn’t feel her toes anymore. After ten minutes, she had no sensation in her feet. She felt as if she were walking on stilts as she swung her legs forward.

 As she approached the shelter, Ellen heard the loud purring of a generator and the auto-tuned vocals of the number one hit in the nation, “Get D-R-U-N-K”.

Get D-R-U-N-K

Get D-R-U-N-K

Boobs to the booty

Boobs to the booty

Dance up on me

Dance up on me

Toot! Toot!

Ellen tried to grasp the door handle to open the shed, but her hands could not obey her. “Help me,” she cried. The music was too loud for the man to hear. She slumped down on the ice outside the fish house and cried.

Twenty minutes passed. The door to the metallic shed swung open and a large man in Bermuda shorts strolled out into the snowy landscape. At first, he didn’t see Ellen crumpled in a heap outside the door. He walked ten paces and urinated; steam rose up from his yellow initials in the snow. The man sighed in relief and stumbled toward his shelter once more where he found the unconscious woman. He pulled her into the fish house and shut the door.

Ellen’s eyes fluttered open. It was at least eighty degrees warmer in the fish house. The difference in temperature from the sub-zero air outside felt like scalding water on her skin. Ellen was feverish, and it didn’t help her feeling of disorientation that there were more lights and sounds in the hut than a German disco tech. “Whoa, lady, are you alright?” the big man said. “How long were you out there?”

            Ellen did her best to meet the man’s drunken stare. “I don’t know,” she shouted over the music, “I think I’m going to be sick.”

            “You say you’re pretty thick?”

            “No,” Ellen coughed, “I think I’m going to be sick!”

            “Yeah, girl. Is that why the back of your pants says Juicy?”

            Ellen retched in the corner on a pile of beer bottles. “Welcome to the oasis,” he said spreading his arms wide, “you look like you could use a swig of this,” he offered Ellen a flask.

            “What is it? Brandy?”

            “No, it’s better than that. Go ahead, try it.” The man trickled the clear liquid into Ellen’s mouth. Ellen grimaced, but managed to swallow. “It’s raspberry sorbet coffee vodka. So, what are you doing out here, anyway?”

            “My car wouldn’t start,”

“Did you phone for help?”

“No,” Ellen said, “my phone broke.”

“You mean you don’t have a backup? You gotta have a backup. I’d go bonkers if I didn’t have this little beauty.” The man held up a device, and as soon his eyes fixed on its screen, he forgot all about the distressed woman in front of him. His fingers moved with the grace and facility of a master violinist over the keypad.

“Doesn’t the music scare all the fish away?” Ellen asked.    

“One sec…,” the man’s fingers danced around his phone. “What did you say?”

“The music. Doesn’t it make it hard for you to catch any fish?” Ellen repeated.

“Fish? Nah, I just come out here to get away from it all, you know?” Ellen looked around the room. The fish house was equipped with a desktop computer, a flat screen television, a tangle of video game consoles and controllers, a mini-fridge, and an angry looking space heater. The décor included a neon ‘gone fishing’ sign and a poster of a busty brunette in a confederate flag bikini. “My wife’s granny recently moved in,” he continued, “all she wants to do is talk. She goes from one room to the other talking, talking, talking. It’s maddening.”

            “Listen, Mister…”

            “R.J Call me R.J.”

            “R.J, I don’t feel so well.  I think I need to see a doctor, can you drive me?”

            “I’d love to, lady, but I’ve already got two D.W.I.s and I really can’t risk another. I just ordered a case of beer from Bob’s Booze Barn. A guy in a pickup should be here any minute. You can go with him, okay? In the meantime, why don’t we play a couple rounds of Arson Riots VI. It’s two player. I try to burn down businesses and you follow close behind looting all of the stuff, got it? ” R.J fired up the machine and the fish house filled with the sounds of gunfire and screaming. R.J laughed. Ellen covered her frostbitten ears and clambered to her feet. She nudged her shoulder against the door and walked out into the cold once more.

            Ellen didn’t make it far before she collapsed on the ice, but she made peace with her dire situation. “At least it will be quiet,” she thought, “at least I won’t die like I came into this world, in a florescent lit hospital room filled with noisy machines perverting the beat of the human heart, the breath of life…” and then all of the poetry went out of Ellen as the cold tightened its grip.

            Ellen woke up the next morning in a hospital bed. The Bob, from Bob’s Booze Barn, spotted her as he departed from R.J’s oasis and rushed her to the emergency room. They found her wallet in her jacket and phoned her husband who drove up as quickly as he could. He could not, however, pass up the opportunity to stop at Tobie’s Restaurant and take a selfie in front of the iconic bakery case. He bought two long johns, one for himself and one for his wife.

Ellen’s husband engaged in his favorite method of self-reflection while waiting for his wife to regain consciousness. He took quiz after quiz online and gleaned much about his complex inner workings. He learned that his aura was a bright red starburst edged with silver sparkles, which meant he was a passionate human being with the capacity to inspire others.  He also learned that his spirit animal was a wolf. This fascinated him because he always considered himself to be ‘noble, proud, and protective of his close family and friends.’ Ellen’s husband was so consumed by self-discovery that he accidentally ate the doughnut he bought for his wife in addition to his own.   

The doctor came in. Ellen was under the impression that he wasn’t quite looking at her as he provided instructions for taking her medication. And she was right, the doctor was busy scanning Ellen’s chart on his smartglasses. “You were hypothermic and suffered from moderate frostbite in your extremities. Your husband will need to redress your bandages on your hands and feet twice daily. What’s more worrisome, is the underlying reason for your predicament. From talking to your husband, and the man that brought you in, you’ve obviously suffered from some sort of mental break. I have prescribed anti-depressants and sleeping pills.” The doctor left without once making eye-contact with his patient.

Ellen and her husband walked out to the hospital parking garage later that evening. “Man, I’m tired,” Ellen’s husband said, “I’d let you drive home,” he chuckled, “but you heard the doctor, you’re whacko!” Ellen winced in pain when she opened the car door. “What should we listen to on the way home?” he asked.

Tears welled up in Ellen’s eyes. “I don’t care,” Ellen said, “I took a sleeping pill before we left the hospital. I will probably sleep the whole way home.” It didn’t take long for Ellen’s sleeping pill to take effect. She unhooked her seatbelt and was about to recline her seat when she saw a big buck ahead in the ditch. “Lookout!” she cried, “There’s a deer coming up on your right!”

“Don’t worry, Honey,” Ellen’s husband said, “I’ll get a good picture this time.” Ellen’s husband retrieved his phone from his front pocket and steered with his knees while he framed the shot. The deer leapt into the road, the car leapt into the ditch, and Ellen flew through the windshield and died on impact. From the car, Ellen’s husband eulogized his wife in under 120 characters, “Who will love me now? R.I.P Ellen #followme,” and he was filled with warmth as the comments poured in.