T.F. Torrey's Stories

Enlightened Nihilism

2008-07-15T10:49:03Z

“In the end,” the young philosopher asked his mentor, “would you say there is hope for humanity?”

As the old philosopher opened his mouth to answer, he spotted a young woman moving down the sidewalk toward them in bouncy steps. She wore a bright yellow jacket and carried a black umbrella angled across her shoulder, and she glowed through the mist like a promise.

Suddenly, in her, he could see all the hope of humanity, all the dreams and ambitions, every plot and plan.

As she passed the bar, his gaze came to his own reflection in the window: beard going gray in ragged streaks, hair grown wild, black eyes sunken beneath a wrinkled brow. He flinched at the visage, and tequila shook from the glass over his fingers.

The young woman passed without a glance, and the yellow of her jacket receded quickly into the rainy evening, slipping away like the memory of a dream, a testament to wasted youth.

“Professor?” the young philosopher asked. “Do you—”

“No.” The old philosopher gritted his teeth. “No hope at all.”

Suppression By The River

2008-07-07T09:48:12Z

The memories come back in a rush, and he grasps at the curious threads and tries to assemble them before he loses them again. Something is there, an incident it seems, long forgotten.

He was walking through these woods, along this creek. He remembers a mood. Is it the end of his high school years?

Yes, that must be it. He remembers feeling grown and strong, independent, but still young and awkward.

He remembers an autumn day, the waning sun shining through the red and orange leaves, dappling the ground.

Someone was with him. Someone, yes, but no, not one of his friends. Someone else.

His forehead creases in thought. A darker presence. A bully? An enemy? Yes. That seems right. But how? Why?

The flashes come faster. He remembers careful planning. In his mind he sees red on metal, the white of bone. He hears a grating thump.

A panic chills over him, and suddenly he scrambles to unravel the threads of memories, to bury them again in the soft earth by the river.

He remembers now: He forgot this on purpose.

Young Love

2008-07-07T09:25:59Z

In the morning, she makes him sandwiches of sliced ham left over from the night before.

He watches her from the doorway of the kitchen, scratches the stubble on his chin.

“Did you sleep well?” she asks.

He grunts and turns to get dressed.

She watches his car back out of the driveway. He does not return her wave.

In the afternoon, she prepares lasagna and stuffed green bell peppers.

She eats alone.

By the time he comes home, streetlights glare down along the street. He smells like motor oil and beer.

He spots a plate on the kitchen table. “Is that for me?”

She nods.

He turns to the living room. “Game’s on.”

She sits across from him, watches him in the flickering light of the television.

In the evening, she lies beside him, but she faces the wall. She clenches the sheets.

He puts his hand on her hip for a thoughtful moment, then turns away heavily. Within a few minutes he is snoring.

She stares at the darkness for a long time. She can hear laughter in a nearby apartment and sirens in the distance.

A Winning Name

2008-02-18T11:07:45Z

“Hey, man, I just wanted to tell you I thought of a name.”

“A name? What for? You get a dog?”

“No, for me.”

“You already have a name.”

“My dance name, you know.”

“Dance name?“

“Yeah. All the famous dancers have names.”

“Um, yeah, their own names.”

“Freddy Two Shoes.”

“Freddy Two Shoes?”

“Freddy Two Shoes!“

“Um. I don’t know how to tell you this—wait, yes I do. That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”

“No, way, man. It’s got rhythm, like me.”

“It’s like you because it’s dumb. For one thing, everybody’s got two shoes.”

“Not everybody. Some people out there only have one foot, and some people don’t have any.”

“Those people aren’t dancers.”

“But I’m a dancer, and I’ve got two shoes.”

“And, your name is not Fred. It’s Jim.”

“So, what? I’m telling you it’s a great dance name. It’s a winning name.”

“And I’m telling you it’s stupid.”

“I’m going to use it. You’ll see.”

“I can’t believe I even talk to you.”

Six months later, the tri-county, all-ages tap contest was won … by Freddy Two Shoes.

N1t3W4tchr (P4rt V)

2008-01-23T11:12:02Z

The driver braked and turned and accelerated through the downtown streets, his eyes constantly darting to the mirror. I sat with my right arm braced against the back of the passenger seat, frowning so hard my forehead hurt. The package on the seat beside me thumped against my leg with every turn. At last the taxi slowed and straightened and merged in with the evening traffic headed into the downtown tunnel.

“Who are you?” I asked, my throat suddenly dry.

The driver turned to me with a serious look. He had short black hair and a five-o’clock shadow. “You were contacted tonight by someone calling himself Nightwatcher, were you not?”

I made no response. He obviously already knew that.

“We have reason to believe that this man is setting you up as a pawn in a very serious crime.”

“I work for a computer company,” I said. “How serious could it be?”

He turned to me again. “Assassination.”

I felt disbelief, but I swallowed hard. “Are you the police?”

He gave me a wry smile. “No. The police couldn’t help you.”

On A Snowy Evening

2008-01-07T11:28:20Z

It took us ten minutes to get the car out of the snowy ditch, but suddenly it rolled free. I didn’t know where this mystery girl had come from, but surely she had saved me. I turned to thank her, but she was gone. Squinting in the light of the full moon, I saw the tracks of her narrow boots in the snow, headed off down an overgrown driveway toward a farmhouse I had not noticed before.

Clearly she had wanted to leave without making a scene, but I had to thank her for helping me.

An old woman met me at the door. I smiled. “A young woman helped me get my car out of the ditch tonight,” I said. “Do you have a daughter?”

The old woman shook her head, but as she did I spotted a picture on the wall in the room behind her.

“That’s her,” I said. “That’s the girl who helped me. Who is she?”

“That’s my daughter,” the woman said, “but she couldn’t have helped you.”

I frowned.

“Her car went off the road at the foot of the driveway in a snowstorm.” The old woman’s eyes blazed. “She’s been dead twenty years.”

Outside The Diner

2007-12-24T09:21:33Z

Outside the diner, the night air tempered the coffee running through my veins, winding my brain down from overdrive. So much had happened so quickly, I found myself simultaneously repulsed—and intrigued. I paused a moment under the awning out front to try to clear my head, to understand not the answers at this point, but merely the questions.

Why had this stranger come into my life? Why me? What was going on? Why was he trying to lead me on some kind of chase?

And why was I letting him?

For a moment, I thought about going back into the diner to recover my phone number from the waitress, then I realized that the stranger probably already had it. After all, he knew where I worked, and where I lived.

Then suddenly I realized that he might be there, outside, watching me. He had left the diner, but had he left the scene?

My eyes went to the street, and at first I merely saw the sea of taillights streaming past in the early evening traffic.

Then I noticed the taxi, engine idling, parked midway down the block.

N1t3W4tchr

2007-12-17T03:58:02Z

I didn’t didn’t intend to work late that day, but late in the afternoon an urgent order came in. The mysterious customer refused to provide an address, a phone number, or even his real name. He described his request to the receptionist, insisted on an initial proposal that afternoon, and left only an instant messenger name for contact: N1t3W4tchr.

Plus, he asked for me by name.

I considered for a moment trying to pass the project off onto someone else. However, I decided that even if the customer was a little unorthodox (okay, bizarre), his request was innocuous enough. Besides, I could use the money.

So, I put together the proposal, and even though it was simple, it took me a few hours to knock out. When I had it ready, I signed onto instant messenger, added N1t3W4tchr to my contacts, and found that he was offline. Great.

It was growing dark as I walked the three blocks back from the office to my apartment, where the strange day got a little stranger.

On the floor at the door of my apartment, was a box.

White Dream

2007-12-10T09:46:32Z

In the dream, the snow is not falling, but the world is covered with a crisp blanket of white. Victor can feel icy air on his neck and wrists.

The world is at a slant, and he is walking uphill. He must, but he does not know why. His feet break ragged ovals through the crust of the snow as he walks, and he can hear the gentle wind in his ears, but nothing more. He marches to a destination he does not see, and does not understand, but does not question. His world is the quiet march of his feet.

Suddenly in front of him is a bump in the snow, straight-sided and rounded on top. Curious, he approaches it, and as he does he sees the snow shift, revealing a surface of smooth, pale granite beneath. The gray edge of a chiseled S peeks out from beneath the frozen white.

Frowning now, he straightens and looks around. He is near the top of a little hill, and all about him for as far as he can see are similar humps, slabs of white granite under mantles of snow.

Has all his journey been through here, or to here?

Black Dream

2007-12-01T12:16:27Z

In the dream, Victor’s father was not a man struggling to stay virile in an aging body, but a man in his prime—as Victor himself was now. Victor, in the dream, was his present self: in his early forties, old enough to feel wise, but young enough to feel strong. So, in the dream, he and his father were the same age, but this incongruity did not seem out of place.

They were in the back of his father’s flower shop in St. Louis. His father’s eyes sparkled. “Come here,” he said, and led the way through to the front.

Victor smiled at the familiar scent of plants, green and alive. His smile faded, though, when he saw that the normal array of colorful bouquets had been replaced by an ocean of carnations, all meticulously dyed black.

His father turned to him. “They’re for you.”

Victor frowned at the sea of black. “For me?” He reached out, felt the texture of a leaf between his thumb and forefinger.

“Yes,” his father said. His face now looked pale and bruised, his eyes glassy black. “They’ve always been for you.”

The Black And Churning Sea

2007-11-19T06:35:19Z

As the sea rose, the people of the town tried valiantly to stop it. They raised the breakers and extended the sea walls, but the waters kept rising. Day by day, more and more of the beach slipped under the waves.

At the town meetings, the older residents insisted on saving the town at any cost. “This has always been our home,” they said. The younger people grumbled amongst themselves.

But the waters continued to rise. The waves bit into the edges of the town, engulfing the sea wall, and still the sea continued to rise. People saw their efforts were in vain, and the town was abandoned.

On the night the last old man left, he stopped by the cemetery to say goodbye to his wife, who had passed on so many years before. With the sound of the waves rushing toward him in the darkness, he paused a moment to trace his fingertips over the cool, rough surface of the headstone.

As he drove away, he could see in his rearview mirror the water tearing away the cemetery and sweeping black caskets out into the churning sea.

The Pass/Fall Test

2007-11-09T22:28:47Z

Her, all chirpy: “Let’s go for a hike!”

Him, clicking remote: “I’m not really—”

Her: “Please, I know someplace really pretty…”

Him: “I guess so.”

Them: [Driving, driving, climbing, climbing.]

Her, all proud: “This is it.”

Him, hands on knees, panting: “Already? I was just getting warmed up.”

Her, hand out to the horizon: “Yep. Take a look.”

Him, head hanging, sweat dripping off nose: “My eyes are all glazed over from the climb. I can barely see my own face.”

Her, jesting: “You can see your own face?”

Him: “Grrr.”

Her: “Just look. It’s really amazing.”

Him, looking up a little: “Wow.”

Her, beaming: “Impressed?”

Him: “No. You’ve completely wasted my time.”

Her, with a little pout: “That’s what my last boyfriend said.”

Him, mockingly: “Really? Before he broke up with you?”

Her: “No. Right before he fell to his death.”

Him: “What? Whaaaaaaahhh….”

Her: “Heh.”

Him: “Waaaaaaaa….”

Her: “Aw, I should have got his wallet first.”

Him: [Thud.]

Her, pouting: “Damn. I hate driving home alone.”

The Story Of The Book

2007-11-02T16:50:19Z

First there was The Book. It was a great book, hailed as a new classic by critics and readers alike. It had no demographic, but was meant for all of mankind, a masterpiece for the ages.

Then came the movie, targeted at the primary movie-going demographic of 18- to 35-year-olds. Fans of The Book complained that the themes had been dumbed down.

Next came the book based on the movie, targeted at young adult readers. Fans of the movie complained that the book failed to capture the sweeping grandeur of the film.

Then came the television series, targeted at Generation Now, based on the book based on the movie. Nobody liked it.

Then came the cartoon series, simplified from the television series and targeted at the Saturday-morning demographic of tweens.

Along the way, there were playing cards, a video game, and a breakfast cereal, carefully carving up the market of movie tie-ins.

In the end, there was The Book, gutted of potential, known by all, dismissed by most, and treasured by the few who actually read it.

Enemies of the Library

2007-10-19T22:25:07Z

A balding man at a folding table of neatly stacked pamphlets spoke to Larry in a kind voice. “Would you like to join the Friends of the Library at the family rate of fifty dollars?”

Larry sucked his breath in through his teeth. “Friends? Ooh, that’s gonna be a problem.”

“We have lower levels of membership, if that would better suit your situation.”

“Oh, no, it’s not the cost,” Larry said. He leaned in and lowered his voice. “The thing is, I already joined the Enemies of the Library.”

“The Enemies of the Library? What is that?”

“Well, we’re a small group. Mostly we get together in the aisles and whisper a little too loudly.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“And sometimes we borrow books we don’t even want to read, just to keep anyone else from reading them.”

“Now, that’s not very nice.”

“And sometimes, we take books down and reshelve them instead of putting them on the library carts.”

“No! So you’re the ones!”

Larry nodded smugly.

The man’s face turned an angry red. “Despoilers of civilization.”

Hotel Catharsis

2007-10-12T23:19:32Z

And then it was done—the obstacles overcome, the fortune saved, the bad guys thwarted, the final phone call of victory placed. Somehow they had survived their cross-country odyssey, and here in this magnificent hotel at the edge of the continent, their quest was at an end. He should have been thrilled, ecstatic. Instead, he felt an inexplicable sadness.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

His mood had touched the satisfied look on her face, lifting her eyebrows and drawing a faint crease across her forehead. This made him feel even worse.

“It’s kind of a letdown, isn’t it?” he said. “I mean, it was an ordeal, but our journey together over now.” He gave her a wan smile. “It’s over.”

She took his hand in hers, and beneath the cool surface of her skin he could feel her heat. She embraced him, and the fading sunlight played over their faces. “It will never be over,” she said, her voice a half-whisper.

She tipped her face to his, and her eyes twinkled with the fire of a thousand sunrises. “This is only the beginning.”