Sharks and Snakes (A short story)

Sharks most certainly.  And maybe snakes.  These were the first things that came to his mind when she asked. 

She went on and pressed for something more.  When had he felt it upon him?  When had he been too scared to move or think? Had he even seen a wild shark or snake for that matter? 

She would not relent.  He playfully jawed with her about times when he had “fought off the monster” and not let it in.  Times he claimed that he should have been afraid, but wasn’t. 

“No,” she said plainly and forcefully.  “You have felt it.  I know.  Please…tell me.”

They walked further in silence.  When he began to speak it was soft with a deep delivery.  And she listened.

They were in the old red suburban driving to the department store.  It must have been quite the effort to merely get everyone in the car, but it happened and they had embarked on an errand to get a new dining room table. 

He sat next to his brother, as he always did; his younger two sisters in the seat behind him and the parents up front.  The tank like vehicle carried the six and creaked when you opened and shut the side doors and when you turned the steering wheel too fast and when you turned it on for that matter.  It rode slow but steadily. 

They always played the same game, his brother and him.  The imaginary world came with a language only they could understand.  Characters only they could develop.  Fueled by laughter and the occasional punch to the arm, the game was all-consuming.  He and his brother always played in the car.  It helped pass the time and insulate them from the questions of their parents and the crying of their sisters.  And then they were there. 

“The details occurred, but they have long since disappeared from my memory,” he said. He couldn’t recall walking into the store but only when it began.  They were in the store and he was walking at his brother’s side while his remaining family was dispersed in a malleable perimeter.  It was his father and mother that pierced the fear into him.  They were the messengers. 

His father’s eyes are where it started.  His father’s eyes dart around rapidly until his body can catch up.  The edges of the scene start to blur.  His father begins to move at what seems like a lethargic pace, but then he realizes that time has betrayed him.  The seconds shift in value.  One second it traded out with a millisecond and the next replaced with a minute.  The first sound comes in his mother’s voice.

“We can’t find her.”

Intermittently, his senses start to return.  People start to appear and they are looking at him- at his family.  A foreign and distant voice comes over the intercom and announces, “If you have seen a young child please alert the store officials.”

My father is speaking to a man with a mustache.  “Lock down the doors,” he says strongly. 

“We will, sir.  But she’s likely under some of the furniture.  This has happened before,” the man responds.

“Just lock the damn doors.”

The world begins to unkindly open up.  She could be missing for any reason. She could have been taken by anyone.  She could be anywhere by tonight for that matter.  He was not ready to face this and tears are the outcome and his escape. 

They had all just been in the car.  Not more than an hour ago, his world had been simply encased in the old red suburban.  That was something he could understand, something he could accept.  Now…he was being forced to acknowledge the unforgiving big world because it was washing down around him.  This was not yet meant for him.

His mother and his father were in contrast.  They had to be.  His father moved fast and wildly while his mother steadily and peacefully presided over him and his brother and sister.  His father spoke loudly and sternly and his mother whispered serenely and in a reassuringly. 

He began to walk under the auspice of looking for her but he couldn’t focus.  It was then he turned to the bargaining.  It was the only action he could do.  If he was now dealing with the world he had to deal with someone that had influence over the world. 

He had never had to done it before.  God had been presented to him in church and Sunday school but he had never known Him.  That had not changed.  He spoke to Him that day with desperation and fierce urgency to make the world right; to make the world small and controllable again. 

What could he offer Him?  He tried to think of things of value.  He would not curse.  He would not hit his brother.  He would go to church every Sunday for that matter.  The question of efficacy never crossed his mind. 

“I doubt I would do it again,” he said to her.  “But when you’re in that kind of moment…you just never know.”  He knew more about the world now and thought he would not bargain again.  But he just didn’t know. 

He continued to stumble around the store and continued to plead.  His vision started to blur again, and he made his way back to where they were standing.  Cradled in his mother’s arm was his youngest sister.  His father was speaking normally and friendly to the man with the mustache.  His mother smiled and he wondered if she had lost that smile during the frenzy; he could not recall.  His sister had been under some of the furniture.    

The world began to shrink down to the size that remembered, but he now knew it wasn’t true.  It was out there.  Waiting for him to grow older and then it would return.  Filled with the unknown.  His father’s unknown movements.  The unknown man that could have taken her.  The unknown place where she could have been.

“At least sharks and snakes are real.  You can understand them,” he said and they continued to walk.  They didn’t turn around for awhile.  There was more to see.