Speculative Fiction Transmissions

Tiredly swaying from side to side, Osbert Krikorian made generous foam with his stream, as he aimed into the toilet in the appropriately named ‘wee hours of the morning’, and for the first time heard, in the gentile crackle of bubbles – God’s voice. Of course, he was unaware of this great honor at that particular moment. In fact, he assumed that the whispering was the distant and muted call of his girlfriend, from their bed in the next room.

“What?” He called back.

He listened for a reply, eyes closed in the moonlight, as he navigated his urination by ear alone, the quieting modulation of splashing being a universal male warning that the rim was near. Just before making a needed course correction, he heard the call again. This time is sounded close. It was right near his ear. There was a whispering, Osbert.

“Woa!” Osbert called out and left some on the floor before he clamped the shut-off valve. Dashing to the wall, he hit the light switch and looked frantically around. Osbert saw only his own thin naked body reflected back at him through the old dark windows that lined the bathroom wall, rims thick around the large panes with countless layers of paint.

Osbert’s vision was quite bad in his right eye, so he begun a very natural series of motions for him. Cocking his head around like a pigeon, he scanned the room with his perfect left eye.

After less then a weary minute or two of examination, which included confirmation of his girlfriend’s slumber, he was satisfied, though still extremely cautious. Turning off the light, he made his way back into the bedroom. He pulled the covers to his neck as soon as he was in bed. Osbert felt like someone was watching him.

He had been feeling like that off and on for days. He felt uneasy when he was alone in an elevator, jumping with a sudden startle when he went to exit and someone was standing there. Osbert searched his apartment when he came home, even though he was in a doorman building, the yardstick for false senses of security in New York City. Most nights he had been leaving lights on, to the bewilderment of his girlfriend. First one, then three, and then soon only the most remote, such as the linen closet or fish tank, were left off. Osbert passed it off as absent-mindedness as best he could. He tried to make a joke of it. He was very aware that fear was an unwise and extremely unattractive trait for a man to display openly.

“Faye … Faye are you awake?”

She moaned and shifted her position in an adorable way, leaving her trademark drool spot visible on the pillow. Faye’s mouth would always open in sleep, her silky soft full lips slightly folded to expose her little white teeth. Osbert loved to stare at her while she slept. He could touch her lightly, kiss a particular part, or merely stare and would not have to qualify it, as men often must with pointless talk. Women rarely understand the overwhelming preoccupation men can have with what their senses find sensually pleasing, how lost, like explorers on a desert or glacier, men can become in a curve, fold, or shape.

Lately, however, Osbert felt more like a child then a man. Suspiciously, like a child on watch for monsters, he scanned the room. Poking his arm out of the covers to touch the alarm on the bedside clock, he made absolutely sure it was set properly. He flipped between the actual time and the time the alarm was set to several times. 2:32 … 6:30 … 2:32 … 6:30 … 2:33 … 6:30. He checked AM was not PM. He checked that it was on alarm and not radio. He checked that the volume was high. Then he want back to flipping the times back and forth again. The whole routine was a nervous habit he repeated before sleep every night. Since he missed the bus for weekend trip in eighth grade, a trip that was talked about for the rest of the school year, he never was late to anything if he could help it.

Lately, however, his nightly routine was absurdly lengthened by nervous examination of the room between every stage. Osbert could not keep himself from imagining the ‘it’ grabbing his hand while he checked the alarm.

Though the light of the full moon clearly proved there was nothing out of the ordinary in the bedroom, he knew someone or something was there. He wanted to open all the blinds and turn on all the lights. But also like a child, he was fearful of actually getting out of bed and confronting whatever the ‘it’ might be. Weighing equally as well was his fear of ridicule, which would surely follow waking Faye, and his need for the truth. These things flipped back and forth like the alarm clock.

Although Osbert looked around the room, he did not see very much, much like his life. Osbert, you see, was never one to pick up on details. Observation was not his strong suit. Growing up in a over-stimulating part of Brooklyn, the product of loud talky parents, his mental filter eliminated ninety percent of all information by default. Some of this information was, in fact, very useful. For example, the sleeping patterns of his girlfriend Faye, which were too predictable to be at all natural.

While Osbert whiled away the minutes wresting with his puerile paranoia, Faye was annoyed. Her open mouth was drying out from feigned drooling and she was having great difficulty that particular night staying awake, due to the extremely unprofessional indulgence of wine at dinner. Perhaps her nightly delving into Osbert’s briefcase will have to wait for the morning, she thought, when her vibrating alarm will wake her a half hour before the nightstand’s goes off.