Fiction - Nothing More Than Emptiness

The world was different when they left the tunnel. Jessica was the first to notice.

“The clouds are gone.”

She was right. Where only moments ago was a sky full of blues and whites was now nothing but unending grey.

“They got the right idea,” Michael joked. He was always joking. He joked the first time they met and joked when they got married. He joked and joked and before long she was never sure what was true and what was fun. “If I could run as fast as them, maybe I could finally keep away from your dad.”

Him and her dad had never got along much, probably because it all moved so fast. Michael first met him two months after he first met her, on their wedding day cramped up in the local courthouse with drunks and late fees. Her dad watched the whole thing but never said a word. He only sat there and frowned that frown she knew so well. It didn’t bother her much. He didn’t approve of just about anything she did.

With no clouds, the moon was clear as they come and as full, too. They’d been driving for hours now, and the fields and valleys surrounding them had changed from oceans of wheat to dead grass and soil. Over radio a little too loud, Michael said,

“Wonder where everybody’s at. Haven’t seen another car for a while now.”

They moved in before the wedding, her hiding away in his home, poor old dad still thinking she was at school. Thinking back, Jessica was sure those were the greatest days of her life, the two of them tangled up like rats in the bedsheets she'd had since she was a child, never seeing the sun. They just laughed and loved and talked, talked, talked. They talked about frivolous things, about their hopes and their future, about all they’d do together they both knew they never really would, and when they weren’t talking, the silence between them felt like the home they’d always been looking for. He asked her to marry her before the week was up. She cried and said yes. It wasn’t long after that when she found the box.

“Where’d the moon go?”

Jessica looked back up to the sky. Sure enough, it was gone. It had only been a second. When she looked at the road again, the trees were gone, too. The two of them were on the way back from a movie—an old rom-com where everything turned out exactly as it should. She saw him crying in the dark when the beautiful actor couple kissed, but she didn’t say anything. He kept whispering “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, oh God I’m so sorry.”

Inside the box was a bird. She’d found it in his basement, stuffed deep among forgotten knick-knacks. Its feathers had fallen, its skin rotten. A single eye stared open so that when she looked at it, she could see herself, which made her feel embarrassed and ashamed.

When she asked him, he only said, “She turned into a bird. What else was I supposed to do?” like it was the most natural thing in the world and kept on cooking her favorite: A pot of spaghetti and meatballs.

“We should throw it out.”

“Come on, don’t make a big deal out of nothing. It’s fine; put her back, let her be.”

She didn’t understand but did what he said. What else was she supposed to do?

Things changed after that. Not in an instant, but slowly. He started working till late at a factory making exhaust pipes while she stayed home doing nothing at all. Sometimes, when he was gone, she’d go downstairs and stare at the bird and wonder. When he came back, stars out, she’d ask again, and he’d joke like always. Joke, joke, joke; it made her madder than mad. “Tell me,” she cried, “who is she?” she screamed. He kissed her and put the bird back and she wanted to die. Was this all just a joke, too?

Slowly, words became less and silence more common. Every time she went downstairs, she could feel the bird watching and knew it was laughing exactly like him. She never did find out who it was.

It wasn’t long until the mountains went missing and the grass ran away. They kept on driving, nothing but dirt and road as far as the eye could see. Michael laughed when the radio cut out—said it must be the weather—and started telling stories in its place. She used to love how he told them, but she’d heard them all so many times that they made her head ache.

“You know, I had a dream once,” he said, and she knew which dream it was. “We took a trip, the two of us, to Indonesia, and one night you suggested we do it someplace sacred, which got me going, and we ended up buck naked in this huge town of ruins and rocks, full of these temples bigger than you could ever imagine. I remember it so well you could swear it really happened. I turned around right in time to see you crawl into one of those temples, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t find you. It was like you never existed. So here I am, naked as the day, pressed up against this holy thing and calling for you into one of its thousand holes. Calling and calling….”

She looked over. Michael didn’t say another word. He just kept staring out at the sky before them, hands gripped tight on the wheel. It was fine, she didn’t mind; she knew the dream wasn’t really about her. It wasn’t about anyone.

When they finally got home, Michael was gone. The driver’s seat was empty, keys nowhere to be seen. Jessica got out and opened the front door. It was silent as can be. Inside was a single room, bed in the center. The rotten bird from the box lay there, tucked in tight under her old sheets. It had grown the most beautiful feathers she’d ever seen. She crawled into bed and hugged that lovely bird and whispered to it, but there was no more sound.

The lights went out.