“Offspring Support Payment: Paid In Full. The Department of Relations and Offspring Thanks You,” read the purple letters scrolling across the band. The screen displayed a new text message, “$500,000 transferred to the DR&O, Balance: $788,188.87.” The screen returned to it’s normal dark state.
“What the hell?,” thought Stephen, still trying to wake up. “This must be a glitch, where the hell would I get that kind of money?”
His band vibrated again and he sat upright in bed, “Offspring Support Payment: Paid In Full. The Department of Relations and Offspring Thanks You,” read the purple letters scrolling across the band for a second time.
“Yup,” said Stephen to the room, “another glitch. Shit, it will take weeks to get this straightened out.”
The screen displayed a new text message, “$500,000 transferred to the DR&O, Balance: $288,188.87.” The screen returned to it’s normal dark state.
Stephen threw the covers to the other side of the room and jumped out of bed. “What the hell is going on?” he thought as he moved toward the bathroom.
Just as he finished relieving himself his band vibrated for a third time, “Human Resources & Development Payment: Paid for 2164. The Department of Housing and Subsistence Thanks You,” read the purple letters scrolling across the screen this time.
Again, a vibration, a sound, a message, “$200,000 transferred to the DoH&S, Balance: $88,188.87.” The screen once again lost all color.
Stephen stood at the bathroom sinking trying to comprehend all that had happened in the past few moments. Three bills were paid in full. He washed his face with some warm water and tried to make sense of things.
Three enormous bills were paid in full. Three bills that he dreaded even thinking about. The first two were for his two children, now living with their mother in another part of the CitySpace 14. Ever since the separation, he had agonized about how he would ever find the money to pay those bills. The Department of Relations & Offspring was granted permission to drain funds from your account to a certain limit. This permission extended to your entire life and the lives of your children whichever ended first. Any unpaid debts could also be reclaimed first by the DR&O after a R&R (Recycle & Renewal) procedure. His had just been paid in full.
Stephen jolted as though he’d be struck by lightening. He grabbed hold of the sink with both hands to keep himself from collapsing to the floor. He could see himself in the mirror. His eyes were stretched wide with terror. His naked body was pale and and trembling. He resisted the urge to vomit.
“The kids,” he screamed inside his mind. “...the kids, something has happened to them. The DR&O bill is only paid through earnings, or death of a parent and/or the death of a child. Shit, oh shit, what is
going on.” The man continued to stand at his sink staring wide-eyed into the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, teeth clinched tightly together, the veins in his forearms began to bulge as he worked to grip the unrelenting metal sink tighter and tighter. A solitary fly banged its head furiously against the window in the other room trying to escape. The only sound he could hear was the tap, buzz, tap, buzz, tap, buzz of the trapped fly.
His band vibrated with ever increasing intensity. He looked down at it and collapsed upon the bathroom floor. The cold tile against his naked body shocked him back to reality. The band continued to vibrate as the purple letters scrolled from right to left: Daria Patridge Calling. Stephen stared. The phone vibrated. The purple words scrolled.
“Answer,” whispered Stephen as he began to shiver on the floor. He grabbed a bath towel and draped it over his shoulders. He crossed his arms, placed his elbows on bent knees, and rested his forehead on his arms. He stared at the gray grout between the white tiles.
Daria’s voice flowed out of the black band wrapped around his left wrist, “Stephen, are you okay?”
The sweet melodious voice of Daria was a stark contrast to the cold tile floor beneath his bare feet and bottom. It danced off the icy, lifeless bathroom walls, swirled around the single recessed light, and seemed to escape into the rest of the apartment as though it were looking for love to receive it.
The woman’s voice issued forth from the band again, this time with a tinge of concern mixed into the melody, “Stephen, are you okay? Talk to me.”
“I don’t know,” said the shivering man staring the gray roads and vast fields of white that lie beneath his body. “I..I, don’t know. What happened?”
“What do you mean, what happened?”
“What happened to the kids? How did it happen?” he whispered again and again fought the urge to vomit.
“The kids?” asked Daria. “Stephen, the kids are right here with me,” she said growing frustrated and exasperated.
Stephen looked at his band with the look of man on the verge of insanity. He quickly raised it to his left ear.
“Hey, dad!”, a teen boy called out with a mouthful of pancakes. “Thanks for taking care of our DR&O bill.” Stephen could just faintly hear Daria coaching Timothy on what to say next. “It will help me,” there was an awkward pause. He could hear Daria’s soft voice whispering and then their son’s echo, “get a good education and job.” The fact that this last part was a subtle jab at Stephen by Daria was lost on father and son.
The echo regained its own energetic voice, “When are you going to take me to the Greenspace again? I need to go there for a project anyway. It’s due soon so let me know.” The teen carried on between and with mouthfuls of pancake.
“Daddy, daddy, daddy,” the voice of an excited little girl pounded through the band. Stephen felt a sharp pain in his chest just below and to the right of his heart. “Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy,” continued Megan’s sweet voice incessantly and each time, the same pain in the center of his chest. If the little girl were allowed to continue, it may have killed him.
“Stephen, the kids are here with me, as always,” Daria said as she moved toward her bedroom and away from the children who were eating their breakfast. “Look, I just wanted to say thank you for paying those bills. They were starting to become a really worry for me.” Daria paused, “Stephen, are you still there.” The woman looked at her band and saw that they were still connected.
“Yeah, I’m here,” said the Stephen weakly.
The melodious voice of Daria changed as she closed the bedroom door, “Stephen, you didn’t say a word to Timothy or Megan, you haven’t said hardly anything to me, what is wrong with you?”
The man shivering on the bathroom floor tried to speak, “I..I..don’t..”
Daria cut in, “Where’d you get that much money?”
“I..I..don’t know where it came from,” he said weakly now lifting his head to stare at his band as though this might draw a little sympathy from Daria.
“Stephen, it’s 0900 are you drunk already? Or hungover? Are you working? I doubt that! Where did the money come from?”, pressed the beautiful auburn-haired woman as she looked out upon the city from her apartment’s bedroom window. The darkness of the forests beyond the city made her shudder.
“Oh shit,” she said as she put her head on the window, “you’re a Harvester, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not a Harvester, Daria,” Stephen said as some life began to flow back into his heart and limbs. “I’m not drunk and I’m telling you I don’t know where the money came from.”
Daria turned her back toward the large window with the incredible view of the city and in the distance, the Greenspace. “Well, whatever, it’s your business. I just wanted to say thank you. It’s a real load off of my mind. You’ll probably receive a message from DR&O allotting more “offspring time” soon.” The woman walked toward the closet and began sifting through her work clothes. “Once it’s approved we’ll set something up so you can take Timmy. Timmy is driving me crazy about going to visit the Greenspace and I just don’t have the time. Plus, I hate that place, it just creeps me out.”
Stephen pushed himself up off of the floor and once again looked in the mirror. A faint smile appeared on his face at the mere thought of taking Timmy to the Greenspace. “That would be awesome, Daria. I’ve wanted to take him for so long. It’s amazing to look at and walk through,” said the man growing excited at the thought. “I’d given up hope that I’d ever be able to do this.”
“It’s dark, dirty, disgusting, and who knows what creatures live in it. No thanks,” said Daria as she hoisted up her scrub bottoms and cinched them tight while looking in the full-length mirror of her closet. Since Stephen couldn’t see her, only hear her, she mocked him in the mirror parroting his words silently.
“Ok, well, we’ll figure something out,” she said as she draped the digital stethoscope around her slender neck.
Stephen’s head dropped a little and he stared into the seemingly never ending darkness of the drain hole in the bottom of the sink.
“And you have to be sober, Stephen,” said Daria sternly. “Greenspace rules and more importantly, my rules!” Daria slipped on her closed-toed rubber Crocs completing her doctor’s ensemble.
“Daria, I’m not doing this right now. I know the rules and you know they check the band for purchases and my blood for substances before entering the Greenspace,” he said growing slightly angry. “Why do you have to harp on this every single time we talk?”
Daria’s face grew flush, “Why? Why? Because you screwed up our entire family with your little problem. Why? Because you couldn’t see your kids anymore! Why? Because you’re living in the slums with the rest of the addicts?” There was a bit of silence. The fly by the window came back to life after knocking himself unconscious a few moments before, buzz, tap, buzz, tap, buzz, buzz, tap..
“Why,” the angry woman continued, “because it’s 0902 and Stephen Partridge, my former husband, the father of my children, the brilliant bean-counter of Partridge-Miller Accounting Firm couldn’t control his addiction or his dick, and is now so stoned out of his mind he can’t remember where he got one million dollars. End.”
Stephen began to reply but saw that Daria had ended the transmission. The screen on his band was once again black.
Stephen took a deep breath and spoke, “shower, hot.”
Behind where he now stood by the sink a showerhead emerged from the wall above the drain pan. Water began to trickle out the showerhead. It was slow and had a tinge of yellow-orange and smelled of sulfur. It looked like weak coffee. The water sputtered out and cascaded into the drain pan below. After about 20 seconds the water cleared up and began flowing steadily. The mirror image of Stephen slowly disappeared as the hot water began to react with the cold tile and metal filled room.
Stephen slowly turned around and stepped onto the drain pan and into the stream of hot water. When the water hit his abdomen and groin he instinctively grabbed the showerhead and moved it away from his body while trying to escape physically into a corner of the drain pan.
“Shit, that’s hot,” he said as the hot water now splashed onto the tops of his feet. “Shower, warm.” He waited, there was no change in the temperature that he could feel on his feet. “Shower, warm,” he said again a little louder this time. Nothing happened.
“It is a DoH&S apartment after all,” he thought, “I’m probably lucky to have a shower.”
Stephen glanced down at the wall below the shower head where the manual controls for the shower were located. “I guess I have to do this the old-fashioned way,” he murmured. The red and blue buttons were attached to the tile wall about waist high. On the left was a red button labeled with a black “H”, and on the right was a blue button labeled with a black letter “C”.
As the man pushed the blue button requesting an increase in cold water in an attempt to temper the scalding hot water, the events of night previous returned to his mind in a flash. In what felt like a nightmarish eternity to Stephen happened in nano-seconds. He saw nurse Rebecca’s thin-lined smile and her tablet screen with dancing numbers. The image of the polite nurse in the old lady’s room and the photograph of nurse Rebecca and her mother. He saw the bathroom where he splashed water on his face and he saw the face of his mother. The image of his smiling, innocent, aged mother was like a dagger through the middle of his brain. He saw the package of pills, the darkened streets lined with the living dead on his walk back to his apartment, and a strange vision of some crumbling stone monument.
The shower water grew ever colder as his brain tried to present him with one last image. He could see his pointer finger out before him, pointing at something. He could see the tip of his finger. He traced the finger backwards and saw that it was attached to his hand but he couldn’t see any further. He tried to look forward to what the finger was pointing at or gesturing towards. Nothing would come to mind.
The frigid water brought Stephen back from his nightmarish vision. He opened his eyes with a start and looked at the tiny droplets, almost as if in slow motion, dripping and bouncing off of the goosebumps on his right arm. One droplet in particular caught his attention. He followed its course down over the bicep toward the forearm. The droplet grew as it traveled picking up other droplets and speed. The now much larger droplet weaved and dodged the hairs on Stephen’s forearms as it made it’s way toward his wrist and hand. Stephen followed the drop of water as it cascaded over his wrist and picked up strength and power as it moved toward the end of his finger and the blue button.
Stephen saw the drop of water crash and break apart upon the blue button. He was where the finger in his vision was pointing or pressing. The cold water continued to stream down upon his right arm and feet. He saw the other blue button and heard a voice, ““Yes, it came to me as you pushed that button,” the old lady said with the giggle. “Yes, you are my son, Judah. Am I right?”
Stephen dropped to his knees and began to vomit into the shower drain pan as the cold water numbed his spine.
Are you interested in learning more about the world Stephen lives in and what happens next? Look for this new dystopian novel, The Greenspace, available Fall 2023. Email me to be the first to know about preordering and advanced copies for review.
Click here to read more from James M. Hahn -
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