tightening the tale

I have a week to soak in comments and firm up my short story, which I had expected the class to crease their foreheads about and accuse me: what the fuck is this? Somehow I pulled through. My head-game scare story scared them.

I'd love to get slapped with a shining grade in this PhD subject.

Here's how it starts out. Bright and sunny. Such a nice day. But there's a doppelganger in the house.

When Did I lose the Knife?

by Irwin Allen B. Rivera

I CAN TELL, WITHOUT opening my eyes, that chirping birds mean half past nine in the morning. Into my comforter I cocoon myself some more, into the small sea of softness and the scent of fabric conditioner. I want to drift off till noon, when the birds are gone and all that pervades me is the empty house, still as a pond in a retirement home, and just as quiet. It's the Christmas break anyway, and with December this cold, I find no motive to swim out of bed, and fall, voluntarily, on the wooden floor, with a thud that would send Jeff, my housemate, mumbling about me over breakfast in three words: oversleeping lazy bastard.

But the birds won't go away, and Jeff isn't here to annoy me. Neither is the reason why the birds, on a December morning with nothing, supposedly, to do, irk me. Inside my cocoon I cover my ears, willing the birds to vanish by reason of my not hearing them. 'Bullshit,' I hear Jeff say in my head, with the same venom he reserves for when I sometimes think out loud. Maybe he's right. I bolt up, suddenly, still hugging a bundle of my foamy blanket. The world, despite what my professor says, is still there, here, even when I don't want to hear it.

The same premise holds for small square yellow post-its on a tact-board above my study table, a sock-throw from my bed. Four large strikingly yellow ones scream in red ink: Paper on Personal identity for Professor Perez due in two days. 'Fuck it,' Jeff says again in my head. 'Just get it over with.'

I don't want to hear it, Jeff. Get out of my head. Take the world with you.

JEFF DID LEAVE, YESTERDAY. But I go through the motions anyway. I crawl to the other side of the bed, away from the morning light, closer to the small clock under the lampshade, fail to reach it, and fall on the floor with a thud, still cocooned in the comforter. Verified: it's only 9:35 am. Jeff would be done showering by now. The shuffling I would hear downstairs would be him in the kitchen. And if I open the bedroom door a crack, I'd hear the whish of something being fried, the scent of brewed coffee, and the complaint of some guy about me using his shampoo again. Some kids were raised well.

Except that when I thud on the floor, there is a humming nothingness in the house. And I suddenly find the chirping of the birds eerie. Slowly, I peel off the comforter, bundle it up and throw it on the bed. I open the bedroom door a crack and hear a squeak that must have been always there, unnoticed, by me. No shuffling and no scents of morning breakfast joy.

In my shorts, I descend the stairs a deserted man. Mrs. Adoring's pots hang unmoving in the kitchen. The stove is as clean as Jeff left it. I smell Domex on the kitchen tiles. And, inspecting the shower room, I can't find Jeff's shampoo.

But I still have that paper to write.