In 2013, five years ago yesterday, I received the final edits from editors Lana Polansky and Brendan Keogh on a short story that would eventually be included in a small anthology called Ghosts in the Machine. The anthology was to feature fiction specifically revolving around video game glitches.
That story -- titled “Slow Leak” -- is presented in full below for the first time online, with permission. I have left it entirely as it was when it went off to the printers, though I’d likely fidget over certain choices and words if I were to take a figurative red pen to it now.
“Slow Leak” by Rollin Bishop
But when he knew he heard
Odysseus’s voice nearby, he did his best
to wag his tail, nose down, with flattened ears,
having no strength to move nearer his master.
—Homer, The Odyssey (1049–1052)
Of everything, the sky is what I find hurts the most. The people, the places, the various thoroughfares...Those are the kinds of things that come and go on a fairly regular basis. Folks leave; buildings are torn down; streets are renamed or diverted. The sky, though. Well. The sky is a thing of beauty that shifts in color but never really leaves. That’s what I might have said before. Then it left.
Not all at once. If it’d gone that quickly, we’d have noticed. The stars were snuffed out one by one, then by the handful, and finally even the moon was gone. It was only as the last few twinkling lights were burning out that the bits and pieces came together to form a cohesive whole.
The days were full of questions. Folks congregated en masse at city hall only to have their concerns rephrased and repeated back to them. The best they could do was tell us that we should just stay inside and wait it—whatever it was—out. The mayor said she’d already been in contact with mayors from neighboring towns and would let us know as soon as she’d heard back from them. She finished her speech by telling us we worried too much.
Then people started to disappear.
Our town never had been a populous place. It was really just an extension of the two towns to our north and west. As folks moved south from the one, and east from the other, the two dozen or so of us decided it was about time we had a mayor of our own. We all just referred to our little patch of real estate as Southeast, as something of a glib reminder of our origins.
That two dozen soon became three dozen. Small businesses began to sprout on every corner. A drugstore here, a comic shop there. And the kids. The kids were probably the best thing about it. There’s always something joyous about watching children make discoveries of their own. Though I never did have any of my own (not for lack of trying, mind) the gaggle of pint-sized monsters kept me busy when I volunteered to watch them. It was enough, for a while.
Then times got hard. Folks left, stopped calling on each other. Our happy little town became a place of doldrums, filled with nothing but memories of better times. When I asked the mayor what’d happened to cause such a rift, she shrugged at me and said, “Hard to get people to stay when there’s always somewhere to go.” I reckon she was right.
So it came to be that there were only a grand total of eight, counting the mayor, when the stars went dark. The stores had been all boarded up for a long time, and we mostly kept to ourselves. I would ask the mayor what she’d received back from the other towns, but she always said that there’d been no word. After a week, I got worried. After three, so did she. We’d both failed to notice at the time that three of our meager group had joined the stars, wherever they were.
Eight had become five. Then the power went out.
After the power went, and didn’t come back, I hesitantly asked the mayor what we’d do when all the food was gone. She gave me an incredulous look, raised a brow and told me, “What makes you think you need it?” I stopped eating after that.
The nights weren’t dark so much as they were absent. Without the stars, moon, or power, it was like the world ended each time the sun went down. Each morning, those of us left would congregate at the hall. There were only three of us when the buildings started to go. First it was all those rundown shops that hadn’t seen use in ages. Then, one by one, the abandoned houses were gone.
I quietly came to terms with the fact that I’d probably be one of the next to go. Fear seemed like a curious thing more than a fact of life. Why be afraid of something when you’re certain it’s going to happen? When I stopped eating it didn’t stop the hunger. I apparently didn’t need the food, but I certainly wanted it. The cold nothingness would be a welcome reprieve from the endless gnawing sensation in the pit of my stomach.
Somewhere during that feverish time the last of the townsfolk slipped out of existence.
Then it was just the mayor and me, left to wait.
When the sun finally didn’t bother to even come up, the mayor and I bunkered down in the candlelit portions of city hall, both for the sake of our sanity and because my house finally drifted off to join the others. The darkness encroached upon the doors but went no further. The candles and lanterns the mayor lit stayed that way. I would have asked how but, to be honest, I was a little afraid of the answer. Instead, I quietly suffered my hunger and let her do as she pleased.
Her office quickly became a pile of pages, full of calculations and strange words. She’d taken to mumbling about “servers” and “admins” while doodling equations and maps at all hours. The constant hunger finally subsided into one long, hollow feeling, and her behavior became more overtly erratic. When I did eventually try to intervene, she shrugged me off. Then, as if something had suddenly struck her, she straightened and stared me down, taking my measure.
“I’m going to make you a mod,” she said. I told her that was fine and dandy, but it didn’t mean a thing to me. She chuckled before returning to her work. I curled up in the corner, ultimately too tired to fight her turn to whimsy, and fell asleep. When I awoke, I wasn’t hungry anymore, but the mayor was gone.
She’d left a note on her desk. “Off to find other admins,” it read. “No hope of bringing the servers back up without them. Hold the office till I return. I’m sorry to put this on you but there was no other choice. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Promise.” I folded the note up and stuffed it in my pocket.
She’d be back. She promised. I just had to wait.
So here I am. Present, I guess. Time’s fuzzy without the sun or moon cycling through the void that used to be the sky. Don’t rightly know how long it’s been since she left. Just know I want her to come back. Don’t feel hungry, or tired, just… sad. I cry when I feel up to it, quietly, and then stop when I can’t any longer. Sit in the chair watching the door. Nothing happens. It’s been too long. She isn’t coming. Perhaps someone, anyone at all, will find this among the mayor’s unintelligible doodles.
Just want it to be over. Want it to end. Nobody here anymore. Not even me. Just an empty room. Empty room and a door. Just close my eyes, maybe. Maybe see what everyone else is seeing. What’s the point? Point stopped existing a long time ago. Time to stop. Time to end this. Sounds good. Sounds so good.
I imagine her opening the door. Put a smile on my face one last time. Bliss. “I waited for you,” I’d say. “I waited.”
2087
kianamaiart
germansingergirl
jacobvanloon
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areudirty
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
