The strong fumes of alcohol rouse me from my apparent slumber.
I’m lying in a cold, dark room in something wet, with damp glass shards around me. My left arm stings as I move it up out of the liquid below my body. My head throbs and my back aches as if someone has mistaken me for a baseball.
What happened? The last thing I remembered was that grumpy customer who threw his glass of rejected wine at me because he didn’t like it. It was his third rejection for the night and I was beginning to get really annoyed. He had chosen each of these wines., first the ’96 French Cab-Sauv, then the 2004 California Pinot Noir, then the 2006 Chilean Carmenere. Perhaps he was not a wine drinker and for some reason thought that being this picky would impress his obviously-paid-for date. I wonder if he knew that the only thing that impressed those types of women was a fat wallet, nothing else.
I was getting him the ’94 Australian Shiraz that he had ordered. I had stopped on the staircase in the cool wine cellar to calm myself a bit. It was the only place I could get any peace in this restaurant. I must have lost balance and fallen or something – and someone must have found the wine cellar door open and just shut it to clear the passageway without looking in. Luckily it only locked with a key, which I had on my belt. It should not be a problem to get out.
I have never understood why the entrance to the cellar is in the small corridor between the office and the kitchen – it is the most inconvenient place for an outward swinging door. The corridor is well used by the bus boys bringing the dirty dishes back into the kitchen. The boss wanted his office right there, in the middle of the action, so that he could keep an eye on the employees and keep the wine cellar within close view to make sure “pilfering hands” did not happen to “accidentally” pick up a bottle or two.
I am special though, he knows he doesn’t have to keep an eye on me. In fact, Allan confides in me constantly, usually after we make love in a nearby motel after my shift. He has told me all his secrets and all his concerns about the restaurant, and has spoken to me more intimately than he has ever spoken to his wife. He told me that.
Allan says he loves me and is going to leave his wife for me, once the kids were out of college. That is fine, I could wait – I wanted to finish college first before settling down – it would only be three more years. I know Allan loves me more than her and that it will happen. It’s all just a matter of time and I would be Mrs. Allan Granger, the co-owner and hostess of The Gingerbread House Restaurant.
I stood up and reached up into the air, feeling for the string to turn on the overhead light. I found it but it would not turn on. Great. Just my luck. I headed in the general direction of the staircase, and am surprised to hear the crunching of glass beneath my shoes. It wasn’t just one bottle then – I may have a bit of a clean up job once I get that new light bulb in. I start sliding my feet along the floor to prevent any shards of glass from getting stuck in the rubber soles of my work shoes and reach my hands out for the wooden rail of the staircase.
I made my way up, the stairs creaking under my weight, and pushed against the door gently, just to avoid colliding with any passersby. It did not budge. I turned the handle. It was not locked, but perhaps someone had carelessly left a cart or some boxes against the door. I pushed harder and it still did not budge. I put my entire weight against the door, and it slid slowly open. Who was the idiot that blocked the door?
I stepped out into the blinding white light. Something was different though, this light was of a different quality than the flickering kitchen lights – it was whiter, yet gentler. As my eyes adjusted, I realized it was natural light. Where was it coming from? The kitchen was enclosed and had no windows except in the dishwashing area behind the kitchen, next to the delivery door. I blinked blearily and looked into the main kitchen area and started at the sight.
There was no one in sight, but more alarmingly, there was a huge hole in the ceiling as if someone had taken a huge bite out of it. There was a strange, fine, whitish-grey powder lining all the cabinets, covering the furniture, sticking to the walls and shifting across the floor. What had happened here?
I closed the cellar door and glanced behind me. The white powder continued to the front of the house, into the dining room. I walked slowly to the front, confused, scared and excited all at once. The place was bare, not a single soul in sight. An eery calm and quiet infiltrated the restaurant. I walked out of the building quickly, my mind not comprehending why it was in such a state, my feet kicking the white powder off the tips of my shoes. A sick feeling began to spread through me and I racked my brain to remember what had happened before I blacked out.
I opened the front door and practically ran out into the world, desperately wanting to leave the strangeness behind me but as I ran out, I tripped over something and landed headfirst into a small dune of the white powder. It was outside as well, in such quantities that it made the entire neighbourhood look like a desert with shifting white sand. Shifting white sand with ruins of buildings. What had happened here? Where was everyone? The strip club across the way was levelled, the neon sign half buried, with only the legs of the characitured stripper sticking awkwardly out of the dust dune, blinking as if to say “we’re still here”. The coffee shop had caved in except for the doorway which stood strong and still, inviting you into the rubble chaos. The gas station seemed to have disappeared completely and the motel where I had spent many a night was just a wire frame of its former kitschy glory.
There were no people though. Where were they all? I had to find them. Maybe they had all run into the city to escape whatever had happened here? It was a few short miles away, just over a few hills. It was about half hour’s walk – maybe I should go find them there.
I got up and tread through the shifting dunes as carefully as possible. It was like walking through the soft white sand dunes of a Caribbean beach – warm, gritty, comfortable, yet difficult. A good workout for my thighs. Allan had said I was gaining weight – this would just be good exercise. I hope he had reached the city okay. I wonder where he would be? Perhaps at Le Gourmasilennd where he would take me to get his favorite steak? Perhaps at the Starbucks in Gerrard and Penitence Streets where we would meet when he had a “business meeting” downtown? Perhaps at the Hyatt Regency at the center of the city where he took me for Valentine’s? How would I find him? All I know is that I need him now, this silent solitude was unnerving me. I needed human company, preferably that of the love of my life.
As I trudged along what I remembered to be the roadway, I thought about our times together. The first time he kissed me, the first time I had let him into my apartment, the time we had both stayed late and had cleared off the large island at the center of the kitchen just to be together. I thought of Valentine’s Day when he pretended to be out of the country but when we really spent the entire weekend in the heart shaped bed at the Hyatt, making love, eating strawberries and drinking champagne. He had told me then that he wanted to marry me and that he would leave his wife for me. It was a perfect weekend.
I thought about his strong hands, his gruff, unshaven face, his floppy dark hair, those hazel eyes that saw everything. I remembered his fingers running softly down my back, over my shoulder blades to my waist, grasping strongly as he pulled me towards him.
I frowned. What time was it? It felt like I was walking forever. At least the crest of the hill was only a few more steps away – the City would be visible from there. The city was nestled in the valley of the surrounding hills, encompassed by the lush vegetation of the mountainous forests on one side and the deep blue sea on the other. Many said it was a dying city because it had expanded to its maximum, but I disagreed. The City was growing, just with a belt of nature in between it. After all, most of the inner city was now commercial, most of the residents had moved to the other side of the hills, near the restaurant. A city is nothing without its residents – and if the residents move, doesn’t the city therefore move also?
I finally reached the crest of the steep hill, and with a big huff of breath I summitted. My breath got caught in my throat – what faced me was not a city any longer. It had been razed to the ground and only one or two skeletal remains of buildings still existed.
Huge machines stood in place of the familial buildings with flashing strobe lights and hissing tubes. Creatures about three times the size of an average man walked about, communicating in loud, high pitched sounds. One of the machines hoisted what looked like a cage from behind another machine and packed it into a large, metal, boxlike structure that hissed and groaned as the cage was lowered into it. What was in the cage? Something was moving. I heard distant screams and cries – the unearthly type of cry that only comes from a human in great distress and pain.
I focused my eyes a little more carefully onto one of the newly lifted cages. The sound was coming from that direction.
I screamed as I realized what was in the cage. Humanity abounded, grasping at the cage, desperately trying to escape the cages, climbing up and around them like wild birds recently captured.
Suddenly, something grabbed me from behind, strangling the scream that was unknowingly still being emitted from me.
“Shut up!!” someone said desperately and roughly pulled me down to the ground. “They’ll hear you! They can’t see but can definitely hear you! We have to get out of here!”
I blacked out for what I believe was the second time for the day.
For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, MRMacrum challenged me with “The day after a real momentous event – Tragic or happy – you pick” and I challenged Irish Gumbo with “The lone fisherman floating on the deep blue sea”.
