Sue & Iudice

The following is a short story I recently wrote. I hope you enjoy it. If you don't enjoy it you can ask me for a refund on your wasted time.

    Jumping in front of an oncoming train had occurred to Sue on a Wednesday evening. There was nothing peculiar about that Wednesday as far as the universe is concerned. No hurricanes, tornadoes, or tsunamis on Earth. A planet 7 billion light years away from Queens, New York was bombarded by asteroids, but that had no effect on Sue.
    She had eaten a bagel with everything that Wednesday morning, accompanied by a medium coffee- no sugar, no milk. Sue ingested the brothers and sisters of this everything bagel five days a week. Medium coffees always tagged along. There was always a “Thank you” at the register and change that would later be abandoned was exchanged. This ritual was repeated Monday through Friday for seventeen years. Sue was “like a clock,” and this was considered by many to be a good thing.

    Romantic comedies triggered emotional ups and downs throughout the years. She rarely watched violent movies due to her being raised by a now deceased hippie. A mid sized sedan resided in her driveway mostly to fill what would be an oddly empty space otherwise. Recently divorced and with no children Sue masturbated frequently and always paid her bills on time.

   For the past 17 years Sue arrived home between 8:08 and 8:17 every night Monday through Friday. Seated in her couch between 9:03 and 9:15 every night Monday through Friday after dinner she would watch a sitcom at 9:30, followed by a reality show, and followed by the news. At exactly 10:15 every night Monday through Friday her neighbor would drop three marbles on the roof directly above Sue’s couch. Each marble was dropped separately with about a second’s space between them. During the first six months of her neighbor’s experiment Sue would look up at the ceiling in confusion. Two weeks into the seventh month of the experiment she was no longer curious. The sound of each marble drop and its bounces would become a comforting event over the years. Nature worked like a clock, much like Sue.

   There is no known reason as to why Sue’s neighbor was conducting this experiment. Although I have been told that the man had some peculiar habits. It was known that he travelled to “exotic” locations often and that “he never stayed at the resorts!” It was also known that he owned two chickens and a rooster. The latter was named Iudice (pronounced you-dis) and he crowed every morning at 6:00. Sue’s neighbor was woken every day by the majestic crow until the night of his death. I overheard that our strange neighbor died in his sleep.

    Sue arrived at her home the night after her neighbor’s death at 9:12 p.m. She had no idea that a dead body lay fifty yards away from her while she ate dinner. A very funny episode of her favorite sitcom aired that night. The episode was titled “God Couple” and it dealt mainly with the protagonist couple visiting a priest who gave them advice concerning their marriage. At 10:00 p.m. Sue’s exposure to the reality show began. Her mind eased into neutral as the show built upon its premise: bachelor millionaires that prowled nightclubs in search of women. When Sue’s cable box showed 10:15 on its face she felt a heavy jolt of insecurity overcome her. Years climbed on the shoulders of years and together they taunted her. The dinner she ate about an hour before made its way from her stomach out on to the surface it had once grown and lived on. She noticed mold in the corners of her living room, imperfections in the walls, the softness of her couch, and the slow vibration of what she could only identify as her soul. So many thoughts raced through her head she could not get a grasp of how much time was elapsing. Sue fell asleep at 10:42 p.m. and was not able to watch the news.

    At 11:13 a.m. Sue was awake. She was two hours late and covered in vomit. While taking a quick shower she thought up a variety of excuses, most of them variations of sitcom situations lodged in her mind. It had to be food poisoning, she told herself in silence. Her mid sized sedan bolted out of her driveway backwards killing two insects of the family Formicidae in the process. The victims left behind dozens of orphaned young ones. Her driveway was left oddly empty.

   By 11:47 a.m. Sue arrived at a familiar train station. From one of the many compartments in her purse she pulled out and swiped a card that allowed her to walk through a turnstile. Thousands of noises entered her ears and were deciphered somewhere along the way. She walked up a set of stairs, down another set and made a right. A quick look at her watch and some subtraction led her to the conclusion that she was now two hours and fifty two minutes late. There was no time for her everything bagel and its faithful brown companion. What if she had to stay at work later to make up for lost time? Would she be able to watch her shows? She began to notice the grime and muck around her while awaiting her train. A rat scattered across the tracks and through a hole. In that hole lived a large family of rats who were about to have breakfast. A woman and a small girl walked slowly down the stairs while holding hands. The lights from Sue’s train became visible and they illuminated the tracks and the wall she was facing. On the stairs the woman lifted the girl by the wrist and swung her across her body like one does a scarf. “There’s no time,” the woman told her daughter. Upon hearing this Sue slid her hands into her coat pockets and took a soft leap into the tracks.

- Alex Moran