The Riddle

Why am I here? Hell, Doc, you know why. I’m getting court martialed, and JAG wants to know if I can competently stand trial.

Why am I getting court martialed? You ask a lot of questions you already know the answers to. I don’t want to discuss it just yet, though.

Want to hear a riddle?

A father and his son get into a car wreck. Father dies instantly. The ambulance takes the son to a hospital where the doctor immediately says, “I can’t operate on him. He’s my son.” How is that possible?

No. No gay marriage involved.

Keep thinking about it. Maybe the answer will come to you.

I told you I don’t want to talk about the court martial just yet.

Do I have a girl back home? Yeah. I did.

Emily. Cute girl. Pale white. Freckles. Wanted nothing more than to have a kid. Acted as if her value as a woman depended on it.

No. She, um, well, she started to get real tired. Went to her doctor and found out that something went wrong with her white blood cells. More tests. Bone cancer. Not the sort you bother to fight.

She was twenty-six years old.

She panicked, but the wrong way. All she could think about was that she would die without having a baby. She wanted one, swore she could keep the cancer at bay until she delivered.

What the hell could I say? A dying girl’s wish? It felt wrong. No way she could live long enough to give birth to a healthy kid. Even if time weren’t an issue, she was sick all the time. It wouldn’t work.

But . . . dying wish. So, yeah, I knocked her up.

I immediately wished I hadn’t. I kept thinking about this premature baby I would spent the rest of my life saddled with.

My girlfriend’s about to die, and I felt only self-pity and anger at her for pushing me into such a stupid life-sentence.

She died less than a month later. Took the kid with her.

Hell of a thing. Standing there, watching my girlfriend lowered into the ground, feeling relieved.

I rejoined the Army the following week.

Why did I rejoin? I don’t know . . . why did I ever join in the first place? I guess I felt . . . macho when I did.

After I let Emily die, I needed to feel like a man again.

The court martial? You really have a one-track mind, Doc.

I got captured by one of those smalltime terrorist groups out in the sandbox. I forget what they called themselves. Some piss-ant group. Maybe twenty members in all. Made a couple amateur-as-hell IEDs.

My own fault. They got the drop on me while I took a piss behind a building.

I wake up in some basement, tied to a chair. Scene right out of 24.

They leave, all except this one guy who speaks perfect English. He tells me about how an American bomb killed his mother, his sister.

He shocks me with electricity. Doesn’t ask questions, just shocks me. Over and over again. This goes on for six hours, then the chair’s arm splinters.

He doesn’t notice.

Once his back’s turned, I suck in a breath, snap the chair’s arm, get out of my ropes, and punch the dickhead until he’s on the ground, helpless, astonished that I moved so fast, that the tables turned so quickly.

I find my walkie-talkie and headgear nearby. I call headquarters. They connect me to my commanding officer, who connects me to his commanding officer.

He tells me that he can triangulate my position. He promises to arrive soon.

My orders until then? Keep my captive alive for interrogation.

This guy that spent the last six hours zapping me? He’s on the ground, watching me with naked hate. He heard my orders over the walkie’s speaker. He knows what “interrogation” means.

Now I face a court martial because I didn’t follow those orders.

No. No. You misunderstand. I didn’t kill him.

I let him go.

Okay. A father and his son get into a car wreck. Father dies instantly. The ambulance takes the son to a hospital where the doctor immediately says, “I can’t operate on him. He’s my son.” How is that possible?

Because the doctor’s the mother.

Don’t feel bad, Doc. No one ever gets that one right.

Wake Up Call

The call came about three in the morning.

Earl rolled over in bed, reached past his snoring wife. He scooped the cell phone he left on her nightstand (closest to a wall outlet). He unplugged and set the phone against his ear. “Hello?”

“ . . . Dad?” A stranger’s voice. “Is . . . is that really you?”

Earl groaned. “Wrong number, buddy. Goodnight”

“No! Wait,” his caller said. “Please. It is you. The experiment worked.”

Earl wiped his sweaty, callused hand across his face, felt the scratch of his whiskers. “Sorry, but I ain’t your daddy. I’ve got one kid, a boy about—”

“Five,” his caller said. “No. I mean . . . I guess I’m about six now.”

Alarm bells rang in Earl’s head. “Sounds like you're confused, buddy. Goodnight.” He disconnected, stared at his wife for a moment, watched her sleep.

Earl used to tuck two kids into bed at night, before the train wreck.

Amber, his daughter, died while impaled upon a few jagged fangs of twisted steel.

He slipped out of bed and headed into the kitchen. He never drank to excess. He drank in moderation—and often. A shot in the morning. A shot during lunch. Another after work. One when he arrived home. One before bed so he would't dream about the wreck.

He sometimes drank at night.

He opened his refrigerator. He liked to keep his Scotch cold, and he disliked ice. He closed the refrigerator while his cell phone—still in hand—rang.

He answered. “Yeah?”

“Dad! Don’t hang up. It’s me.”

Earl saw red. He fought to keep his voice low. “Now see here, Mister. I don’t know if you’re crazy, or playing a joke, or whatnot, but you leave me—”

“It’s me, Dad. It’s Jimmy.”

Something inside Earl turned cold. “Who the hell are you? My boy, Jimmy, sleeps in his bed.”

“I’m Jimmy from—aw hell, just listen. I’m not supposed to use this machine for something like this. I could go to prison. Lose my job at the very least. But I had to call you. I had to warn you, change everything.”

Earl sat at the kitchen table. The thumb of his free hand screwed off the Scotch’s cap. He drank straight from the bottle. “Change everything, huh?”

“You have to stop drinking, Dad,” the stranger said. “Now.”

Earl took another slug. “I don’t much like another man telling me what to do. Don’t call here again.”

He disconnected, turned off the phone’s ringer, and pushed the device across the table.

His hands shook.

He took another slug, felt the need to drink grow stronger.

He knew his wife cheated on him, held goings-on with that young kid who packed groceries at the corner store. Earl let it happen. She needed someone after the accident, and Earl failed to supply that someone.

She needed a rock, a man, and, after he let Amber die, he never felt much like a man.

Another slug. Liquid warmth flooded his nerves, blurred his fears. Perhaps he ought to surrender, crawl into the bottle completely. It seemed bound to happen at some point.

He stood and stumbled towards Jimmy’s bedroom, opened the door a crack, peered at his son, tucked beneath his Doctor Who bed sheets.

Earl closed the door and returned to the kitchen. The blue light on his cell phone blinked, coaxed him closer. The blue light meant that someone left him a voicemail.

He lifted the phone. Its touchscreen offered two options: Hear voicemail or Delete voicemail.

His thumb hovered.

Thanks for reading. You can catch my my novels, such as Daughters of Darkwana on Kindle,

and my other blogs at the following sites:

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Upgrades

Specialist Dune sat in the doctor’s waiting room inside the 166th Transportation Unit’s headquarters. Captain Stevens served as its physician and psychiatrist.

Dune, since she took a bullet in the sandbox two months ago, often saw Stevens as both.

She, during her first two sessions with Stevens, defensively dodged his questions. They eventually decided that Dune did this because her first-grade teacher humiliated her students whenever they incorrectly answered her questions.

Another soldier sat across from Dune in the waiting room. He grinned. A lump of chewing tobacco bulged his cheek. “Ain’t you that female got herself shot last January?” His grin widened. “You must be one tough, little cookie.”

She frowned.

He rolled his eyes. “Come on, now. That was a compliment.”

“No, it wasn’t,” she said. “I did my job and got hurt. You shouldn’t find that cute.”

She doubted anyone would call a recently wounded, male soldier a “tough, little cookie.”

The door to the doctor’s main office opened. “Specialist Dune?” Stevens asked. “You ready?”

She entered his office, sat at the edge of its small bed while he checked her blood pressure.

His television sat on a nearby counter. Onscreen, Alice and the Mad Hatter rested beneath the sheets of his bed.

“I do wish you hadn’t yelled, ‘Change Places’ every time you wanted to switch positions,” Alice said. Fake laughter echoed from the television’s speakers.

Stevens nodded. “Your blood pressure improved, Dune.” With twin tears of Velcro, he removed the blood pressure monitor’s cuff from her arm. “Do you still dream about the mission? The one where you took a bullet?”

Her gaze fell upon the ugly scar that decorated her left arm. She would never again silently pass through a metal detector. “I just wish we wore more armor.”

“I just wished you hadn’t cheated on me,” Alice told the hatter. More fake laughs from the TV.

“What makes you think I cheated on you?” asked the hatter.

Stevens straightened. “You know, Specialist, we have access to some new technologies. We’re looking for volunteers who want to try it.”

Dune’s eyes narrowed. “What sorts of technologies?”

Steven used a tiny flashlight to check inside Dune’s ears. “One involves a medication that strengths your skin. After a few weeks of treatment, you permanently thicken it to the point that it becomes bulletproof.”

Dune blinked. Seriously?

Alice told the Mad Hatter, “I saw the white rabbit running about in a panic. She said that she was ‘late for a very important date,’ and when I asked her what she meant by that, she told me that you impregnated the poor thing.” Fake laughter.

Stevens set aside his flashlight. “Would that sort of treatment interest you?”

“Side effects?” Dune asked.

“Your skin will lose sensitivity,” Stevens said. “You won’t feel soft things or light touches.”

*                      *                      *

Dune, about a month after her final treatment, performed morning PT with her squad in front of the motor pool. She and about twenty other soldiers labored through push-ups while they arranged themselves before an audience of Hummers.

Dune marveled at how little she could sense the rough pavement beneath her hands and knees. The treatments she endured had thickened her skin, but she could no longer feel the softness of her pillow or the warmth in a hug.

“Iiiiiiiiiiiiiin cadence,” their drill instructor shouted.

“Iiiiiiiiiiiiiin cadence,” Dune and the other soldiers agreed.

They performed their exercises while they counted off their movements. “One. Two. One! One. Two. Two! One. Two. Three!”

Dune’s mind returned to the unfortunate news she heard earlier. An IED took out a convoy of soldiers from her unit. Whoever detonated the bomb hid it beneath a simple, cardboard box, about six inches high.

“Relax!” the drill instructor said once everyone finished.

“Never!” Dune and her coworkers yelled in union.

*                      *                      *

Dune sat at the edge of the bed in Steven’s office. He sat across from her. His TV player The Wizard of Oz. The Wizard commanded Dorothy to steal the witch’s broom.

“How did you feel after that bomb wiped out our convoy?” Stevens asked.

Dune faced the ceiling. “I just wish that . . . I could trust my eyes to spot that bomb, no matter how well its maker hides it.”

Stevens treated her to a strange look. “There is. Another new technology. We surgically replace your eyes with mechanical versions that better spot potential threats.”

Dune snorted. “Side effects?”

“Well—” Stevens shifted a bit in his seat “—these cybernetic eyes work because they dull your ability to see things that do not serve as a threat. Also . . . you might see, on occasion, images from your past, such as people you’ve watched die.”

Dune’s gaze drifted towards the TV. Dorothy and her freaky friends stumbled through a scary forest as they foolishly sought the Wicked Witch’s palace.

Better to live with side effects than to go home in a box. “When can I have the surgery done?” Dune asked.

The Cowardly Lion said, “I do believe in spooks. I do. I do. I do.”

*                      *                      *

Dune, a few weeks after she installed her new eyes, led her platoon in morning PT.

“Iiiiiiiiin cadence,” she said.

“Iiiiiiiiin cadence,” the other soldiers shouted.

They performed sit-ups. “One. Two. One! One. Two. Two! One. Two. Three!”

Her new eyes never noticed dangerous distractions, such as beautiful birds or flowers. Her thickened skin felt numb.

“Relax!” she said, once everyone finished.

“Never!” her fellow soldiers yelled in union.

Phantom Limb

Many people believe that we experience peace when we die. Those people never died. Peace does not follow death. Rage comes. Inhuman rage that devours away thought, until nothing remains save screams.

Well . . . maybe experiences vary.

Perhaps I always felt rage, but I wouldn’t know. I can’t remember anything since the accident that killed me. This proves inconvenient, since nobody seems to remember me since the doctors brought me back to life.

I, after a bus slammed me while I crossed a street in downtown Seattle, spent three minutes technically dead and two months in a hospital.

The doctors said I would never walk again. I didn’t believe them. That’s why I walked out of their hospital.

The doctors said my memory would return. I didn’t believed them, because I couldn’t remember my name.

No wallet. My fingerprints never showed up in any database. It seemed that I sprung into existence as a thirty-something-year-old man in front of a bus (Rapid Ride B, to name the vehicle precisely).

I wash dishes now, years after the accident, at a Chinese restaurant. I live in a studio apartment above the restaurant. I call myself Jefferson, but who knows my real name?

I can feel a shape beside me, at night, when I rest on my side in bed. Someone slender, curvy. A scar. I remember a nasty scar behind a shoulder. I cannot recall which shoulder.

I can’t remember her words, but I almost remember her voice. It tastes like a word on the tip of my tongue, almost remembered . . . but not. There, but distorted beneath the surface.

Whenever I hear police sirens, a strange panic overtakes me. My heart jumps. I’m terrified for someone beside me, someone no longer there.

I recall fingers interlaced with mine. Thin fingers. Long nails that . . . do not resemble human fingernails.

I saw a flower, the strangest color, a week ago, and my breath caught in my throat. Flowers like eyes I know I saw before now. Almond eyes. They used to watch me. I know this person. I know her so damn well. I fear for her.

Who is she?

I ask her that every night, while I rest in my lonely bed. Who are you? I want to remember.

My hand precisely traces her intangible curvature, the same path every time. I can almost feel her smooth skin. Even its smell, I know.

I dated only one woman since the accident. I felt guilty the entire time, especially after I forced myself to kiss her goodnight. She wanted me to, and I did not wish to hurt her feelings.

My tongue flicked into her mouth, searched for . . . sharp teeth, like needles.

Who are you? What are you?

I can occasionally recall the phantom’s growl in my ear, feminine and inhuman. I feel warmth beside me when I walk.

Where are you? Did I abandon you, or did you abandon me?

Or have I gone mad?

Was I always mad?

How much easier that would prove? I know she was real, though. I still sense her. I know not her name.

I sleep, alone and not alone, and I dream of fangs like needles and warm breath in my ear.

Where are you?

Thanks for reading.

Daughters of Darkwana received a sweet, succinct review, which you can read here, http://www.thebookeaters.co.uk/daughters-of-darkwana-by-martin-wolt-jr/

         Also, the third book in my series, Diaries of Darkwana, will hit Kindle just as soon as I find a new cover artist. I have a few candidates already, thank goodness.

Movie reviews at moviesmartinwolt.blogspot.com

Short stories at martinwolt.blogspot.com

A look at the politics of the entertainment world at EntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com.

An inside look at my novels (such as Daughters of Darkwana, which you can now find on Kindle) at Darkwana.blogspot.com

Tips to improve your fiction at FictionFormula.blogspot.com