Short Fiction : "When the Light Goes Out"

-- Featured in Tokyo Gumbo Magazine, November 2005

“I wish it wasn’t raining,” he thought to himself again. “I like it much better when the sun is shining.” He played with his hands and stared out at the world through a droplet-pocked window. It had been raining for a least at week now and the whole city seemed to smell of wetness and of the fallen leaves clinging to the ground like soaked pieces of burnt paper. The bus pulled over and he counted the stops again to make sure that he did not get off at the wrong one. “I’m number five,” he said to himself. As people got on he noticed that, once again, no one sat next to him. He stared blankly at his shoes. “It sure would be nice to have someone sit next to me just once.” He noticed that people seemed to sit next to each other all the time. “Maybe they know each other; if I knowed more people, then people would sit next to me.” He concentrated on this for a few minutes, then turned to look back out the window. “I wish it wasn’t raining.”

“Maybe I should just smile more, then they will know I want them to sit next to me.” The bus stopped again. “I’m number five,” he thought to himself. More people got on and he saw an older girl, in her mid-twenties or so, look at the empty seat to his right then at him. He grinned broadly and moved over slightly so that she would have more room. She made no response but simply turned in the other direction and leaned against the window with her back to him. “I guess she feels like standing,” he thought to himself. The bus stopped again, and as an older man sitting just across the isle from him got up to leave, he noticed the girl take the empty seat the man had just occupied. He frowned, looking down at the empty, plastic bench next to him. As the doors closed, he suddenly realized that he had missed his stop. He counted the stops again just be sure, but when he was finished all the fingers on his left hand stared open at him, and he was angry with himself for missing it again.

He got off at the next bus stop and started walking back towards his building. The rain felt cold on his scalp and he put his hands in his pockets hoping to find his wool cap, but he’d forgotten it. He had been living in the apartment for about four months now, but sometimes he became confused when he ventured too far out of his neighborhood. Things began to look familiar again and he made the left onto his block and shuffled into his building. He’d moved into the apartment after the man who worked for the city came and told him that he would be going to live in a new place that was closer to the plant. He hadn’t really wanted to move, but the man who worked for the city seemed to know what he was talking about, and had said it would be best for him. But then again, it had felt strange being in his house alone after his mother was gone. While he was still living there, he would dream about playing in the backyard while his mother watched from the kitchen. She would call him inside for dinner and they would sit together over a hot supper and when night fell she would read stories to him. But then he would wake up in the night and be alone in the empty house and remember that she was gone. Sometimes he would cry until he fell back asleep, but he would never admit it, not even to himself. “They would think I was a sissy or something,” he would tell himself. “No one wants to be friends with a sissy.”

As he came up to the door of his apartment he could hear laughter coming from the door next to him and he knew that Jacob was there. Jacob always came to visit his mother. She had been living there since before he had moved in. Jacob was always telling her such wonderful stories making her so excited, making her laugh. “I really did miss you honey, I’m so glad you’re here.” Sometimes he would just sit at his kitchen table and listen to Jacob talk and talk through the thin walls and giggle at his jokes and stories. He didn’t really understand them at times, but when he heard Jacob’s mother laugh he knew that Jacob had said something very funny. From time to time, Jacob would bring a pretty girl with him. She was tall with dark hair and green eyes, and she had a very sweet voice and smelled like springtime in the park. The girl reminded him of his mother, so he had liked her immediately. He had only seen her once, but he could picture her as he listened to her speak just a few feet away though the sheet-rock, or when he smelled her bottled-orchid scent resonating in the hallway. When Jacob would leave, his mother would talk about him endlessly to the girl. He had gone to a very important college, and although he couldn’t remember exactly what was so great about it, he heard her say it was important many times. Jacob’s mother also spoke of his important job and how smart he was. “He sure is something,” his mother would say to the girl. He thought Jacob was something too. Just then one of the bulbs in the other room burnt out.

“I hate when that happens,” he said out loud walking over to inspect the light. As he tried to unscrew it, the globe cracked and came off in his hand leaving the metal bottom and the innards of the bulb sticking out of the socket with triangular shards of glass around the edges making it look like some dangerous, mechanical wildflower. He groaned. “I wish the light didn’t go out.” He threw the glass in his hand away and left the broken bulb alone. He had slashed his fingers the last time something like this happened and was forced to wait for the next time the man who worked for the city came by so he could have him replace it. “I’ll just wait till he comes again,” he thought, “I don’t want cut myself like last time.” That was the only bulb in the room, which served as both a living room and bedroom. And now, aside from the bathroom, the only light in the apartment was the one in the kitchen. It shone into the living room just enough for him to see.

Jacob’s mother’s apartment was now silent. He wandered into the now dimly lit room, turned on the television, and sat on his bed. He didn’t like most TV, especially the programs at night. Some mornings, he would wake up and realize it was the weekend and he would sit and watch TV because that was when all the good shows were on. At night however, he merely skimmed through the channels for a while. “Everything is news,” he said aloud. “I hate the news; I wish something good was on.” After about a half-hour of fruitless surfing, he turned the TV off, and slinked under the covers. He looked at the picture of his mother on the night table, cut in half vertically by the light coming in from the kitchen as it hit the door jam. He stared at it for a long time studying the lines of her face, the wisp of dark hair that clung to her cheek, and the warm glow of her eyes smiling back at him through the glare of the gloss finish. “I wish she didn’t go away,” he whispered. “I wish she didn’t die.” He began to feel pressure in his chest and a tickle in the corners of his eyes, but he quickly looked away trying to compose himself. “No one wants to be friends with a sissy,” he told himself. He had never fully grasped the concept of death, or even what had happened to his mother. All he knew was that she had something called ‘cancer’, and that she was gone and would never come back. He rolled over, putting his back to the picture and tried not to think. His pillow was damp by the time he fell asleep.

He arrived at the plant the next day in particularly low spirits. On his way there earlier that morning, no one had sat next to him on the bus yet again, even though he had tried to smile as nicely as he could. On top of which, it was drizzling again; it was as though the sky never emptied itself of enough tears to stop. The man who worked for the city had told him to go there after his mother had died. He was nervous because it was his first job. But the man who worked for the city seemed to know what he was talking about, and had said it would be best for him. He worked with a machine that crushed up glass to ‘make it new again’. His job was to help the machine by sorting the glass according to color. At first he had had trouble helping the machine because he would get confused, but now he knew it by heart and was actually pretty good at it. At first he thought that it wouldn’t be fun, and it wasn’t, but it least it gave him something to do during the day – it made him feel important. “The machine couldn’t do its job if I wasn’t here to sort this glass,” he would tell himself when he got to the plant every morning. Besides, most of the time he was concentrating so hard on sorting the glass that he forgot he was working. Still, every now and again he would think about when his mother was still alive and when he didn’t have to sort glass. He only had to play and be happy.

On the way home that afternoon, he was feeling a bit better than in the morning. The rain had ceased for the time being and the sun was partially visible through the smoky canopy of clouds blanketing the city. He forgot about trying to smile at people and wondered if Jacob would be at the building, visiting his mother again. I hope Jacob will be there to tell stories again today, he thought, because it’s raining again and there probably won’t be anything on TV but the news and I hate the news. He stared out the window at the water dripping rapidly off the overhangs of the buildings and the people walking with their heads down trying to ignore the rain – as if that would somehow make it disappear. “I wish it wasn’t raining.”

When he got to his apartment he could hear Jacob talking to his mother and the girl, both of them were laughing as he delivered a story vivaciously. But just was he settled down at the table to listen to Jacob, he heard him leave and only the girl and Jacob’s mother remained. He soon got bored because they weren’t talking very much so he went into his room to see if anything was on TV. He got very excited because one of the shows he watched on the weekends was on even though it was the middle of the week. He went to flip the light on and nothing happened, and he scowled as he remembered the broken bulb. “I wish the light didn’t go out,” he whined. He sat on his bed in the darkness, the room lit only by the phosphorescent glow of the screen in front of him. He began to feel tired and as he got more comfortable, he fought to keep his eyes open, but succumbed to a numb, dreamless slumber.

He awoke to a terrible noise nearly falling out of his bed. It was a sound he’d heard somewhere before– a high pitched beeping sound that seemed to be coming from Jacob’s mother’s apartment, and it penetrated the walls so easily that for a second he thought it was coming from his own living room. Something smelled strange to him too – a harsh, acrid smell. It was like the time he had left a pot of noodles on the stove too long and they started to burn. Then he heard Jacob’s mother and the girl screaming and he sprang up, frightened. He knew that something was wrong and darted out into the hallway to see if Jacob was there. “Jacob!” he yelled down the hallway. But there was no answer, and it didn’t seem as though anyone on the floor was around either. He began to panic. "I wish Jacob was here,” he whimpered, “he is smart and he would know what to do.” He could see smoke starting to billow out from under Jacob’s mother’s door into the hallway and the voices of the two women in the apartment growing more frantic by the second. Then he thought of his mother, and then again of Jacob. “I don’t want Jacob’s mother to die, because then he will be sad and won’t come to tell her stories no more.” He ran to the door of the apartment and flung it open. Thick, black smoke poured out into the hallway and he coughed as tried to look inside. He couldn’t see anything, but he knew he would have to go in to help Jacob’s mother and the girl. He held his breath and pushed through the curtain of blackness flowing into the corridor. It burned his eyes and his throat, so he knelt to where the smoke seemed much thinner and crawled through the hall into the edge of the living room. On the opposite side of the room, he could see faintly through the haze Jacob’s mother and the girl in the corner near an open window screaming and terrified. Between the three of them was a gauntlet of heat and flames, which were almost burning him even now. And in the center blocking the entrance to the living room, was a large armoire that had fallen on its side creating a crackling barricade of fire. He suddenly found himself rushing towards the wardrobe as if under the control of some external force, lifting it up and pushing it away from the doorway creating just enough space for the two women to escape into the foyer. They rushed to him and he grabbed them both, pulling them down towards the floor and then nearly dragging them through the kitchen. As they approached the outer doorway, a fireman cut through the smoke and hurried to help pull the two women out. Then another firefighter grabbed him under his arms and hauled him out to the safety of the hallway. He sat in a daze as a half dozen more firefighters dashed in to hose down the apartment.

Jacob came bounding up the stairs hysterically, but when he saw his mother and the girl, he fell on them relieved. He watched as the three of them embraced tearfully. Then Jacob’s mother and the girl turned and pointed at him through rambling words and tears. Jacob came over and helped him up from the floor. “Thank you so much, thank you,” he repeated over and over again, trembling, searching for the words. “If you hadn’t been here, then Angela and my mother could have – ”, Jacob’s voice choked but his eyes said everything. He said nothing, but could only beam sheepishly with flustered cheeks – he had never spoken to Jacob before though felt as though he knew him. The next few hours were a blur: Jacob left with his mother and Angela to go to the hospital while one of the firefighters and a man from the newspaper asked him a slew of questions about what had happened. They told him he was a hero.

When all of them were gone, everything was quiet again. The air still hung heavy with the smell of fire, like burnt leaves and plastic. And after a few minutes of sitting in his kitchen to calm himself, he realized he was covered with soot and in desperate need of a bath. While he was in the tub still reveling over his heroism, a terrible thought shot through him. “If the apartment is burned up, and Jacob’s mother can’t live there no more, then Jacob won’t ever come back to tell stories.” He breathed in deeply in an effort to hold back the tears forming at the edges of his eyes. He got out of the tub, dried off, put his clothes on and went over to brush his teeth to go to bed, just as his mother had always told him to do. He looked in the mirror studying what he saw as if detached. His teeth were a little crooked and slightly discolored with a large gap between his protruding incisors. He had coarse brown hair with flecked of gray which formed a horseshoe that encircled his exposed scalp. His eyes were a dull blue and one of them wandered somewhat, the sunk back in his head under heavy eyelids above dark circles reaching halfway down his nose. They were like a child’s eyes: innocent and watchful, almost like those of a porcelain doll. He looked at himself for a long time, and then his head sank between his shoulders following his eyes as they became fixed on his powerful hands and forearms which were covered with dark, matted hair. He thought of his mother again, because she was the only one who ever said he was beautiful. “I wish she didn’t have to go away,” he said gripping the edges of the sink, trembling, “I wish she didn’t die.” As he started blankly into the sink he could see his tears hitting the basin just below the drain, quietly tapping as they fell. Just then the light in the bathroom flickered and went out. He stood alone in the darkness, crying softly. He could hear the rain starting again as the smell of wet pavement began to creep through the chink in the window. “I hate when that happens,” he said. “I wish the light didn’t go out."

-- Chris Carsten, 2005