This is the story of Sydney Moore. A man who was many things, few of which were particularly interesting, and who was, above all other things, afraid of the ocean.
He was a small squat man, flattened by life. His hair had begun to recede around the same time it started growing in places like his ears and back, but really that was quite a common phenomenon. He was the manager of a small bank and made a fair amount of money, of which he sent a portion to his ailing mother, who lived up north. He was polite enough, though he hated most people.
He had once had a relationship with a woman named Beatrice, who was five years his junior and four inches taller than him, on and around his 28th to 32nd birthdays. He’d spent the 28 years preceding dreaming of such a relationship and the three following years mourning it.
And as I said, he was afraid of the ocean.
It was not water in general that frightened him. On the contrary, he much enjoyed swimming pools at hotels or at the occasional neighbor’s barbecue. He liked the rain. He even liked lakes and rivers of acceptable size (acceptable meaning the other side could be easily seen.) It was the open water, the deep ocean, that Sydney Moore feared. Not only did he fear it, because people feared all sorts of things and lived perfectly normal lives, but he also dreamt of it, constantly.
On one particular night, you could say the night that was the impetus for this story, he laid still, tucked under the neat covers of his somewhat too firm bed, in the dark of his somewhat too small flat, and dreamt.
In the dream, he was stranded, drifting, the vague lights of a huge cruise ship far away and growing more and more distant. Had he fallen or jumped? He hadn’t a clue, but that ship was nothing but a gray dot in the distance, and it had forgotten him as so many others in his life had.
He was hundreds of miles from land, bobbing up and down in nameless waters. The sun was setting in the distance, and the night was pulling him into a blind impossible darkness. He felt the waves coming to push and pull him, to cover his head in pitch as his will to keep himself afloat ebbed away. Each wave seemed to be the one that would end his life, filling his mouth with salt and his eyes with burning and his lungs with fire.
As the last sliver of the orange sun was extinguished and only the dull silver of the cloudy moonless night lit the white crests of the building waves around him, he knew that his legs could only tread so long. As his limbs gave in to fatigue, he felt himself sink beneath the waves.
“Why fight?” The darkness cooed and soothed.
There was no air, no escape, and certainly no hope. There was only the ocean and one little tiny dot of beige flesh that didn’t matter in the least. There was only the ocean, and tears were nothing but a little more salty water in the unfathomable rest.
He awoke, as he did at least four nights a week, in a cold sweat. He stumbled out of bed to turn on all the lights and assure himself he was on dry land.
That night, that dream, was just a little more intense than ever before. It was that little bit more that finally broke him. The tears and sobs and pains in his chest, which usually ceased after a few minutes, never relented, not until the sun came up.
In the light of dawn, with his eyes red and sore as if he truly had been underwater, he knew he had to do something. He had to stop the dreams.
At work, Sydney had tacked an ad to the wall of his office. He’d seen it on the back page of a newspaper among the diet ads and personals.
“Plagued by BAD DREAMS? Can’t SLEEP? Join our INSOMNIA Group and test an INNOVATIVE NEW INVENTION! Our group meets every Wednesday at 6 pm at The New London Bookstore. Hosted by the New London Staff AND Doctor Anton von Krapf, Oneirologist.”
Sydney had looked at the ad several hundred times that month. He noted the particular capitalizations. He’d even looked up the word “oneirologist,” which he’d never heard before, and he’d always prided himself on his vocabulary. The dictionary said it was an archaic term for one who studied dreams.
He wondered if it could be true. He wondered if he could just go in pretending to be looking for a book. If the people looked strange, he would simply leave. He imagined it was a scam, that someone in the bookstore would lure him into a pyramid scheme or a timeshare. Then he wondered if it was actually some sort of secret message and if the capitalized words sent some sordid cipher to those with knowing eyes.
Still, the dream the night before had shaken him, and at the end of his work day, without really knowing what he was doing, he was packing his briefcase and heading toward the bookstore.
The New London Bookstore was old and dusty and quite beautiful in its own way. It was one of those places you passed by every day but never went in. Sydney looked into the large glass door as inside dozen people were milling about. Some were well-dressed, some in jeans. Deep down in his bones, Sydney was sure that it was all a ruse. He turned to leave but was pushed inside by a tallish over-freckled woman in her mid-twenties with huge eyes and many layers of clothes and an older woman in a fur coat.
“Girl! In! You’re not going to bow out now. I’ve made a point to get in a taxicab and see you to the door this time, and you’re going to go in there and have that Austrian fix your curly ginger head, do you hear me?” said the older woman.
“Mother-” the red-haired girl tried to interject but was cut off curtly.
“No, there will be no ‘mother’ today. I’m not going to let any daughter of mine spend her life staying up all night pulling her hair out of her head,” she turned to Sydney, “and red hair, no less, where she got it, I haven’t the foggiest.”
“Mother-” she started again but once more was denied.
“No, no, no, Maudette. Your uncle read this Doctor Kramp’s book,” the older woman went on.
Someone in the front of the room shouted “von Krapf!” in correction.
“Krapf, yes, he’s well known in Europe. He cured royalty of nervous disorders of all kinds. They say he single-handedly cured a Danish prince of a facial tick and talked a tzar off a ledge!”
Just then, a severe woman with a severe bun stepped up to a lectern, cleared her throat, and said, “we will be starting very soon. Please, take your seats.”
People found spots on the small folding chairs. Sydney and the two arguing women sat, and the redhead woman leaned over and said, “sorry about my mother. She’s always pulling strangers into our conversations.”
“Oh, yes, well, it’s fine. I’m sure she’s just being friendly,” Sydney said, feeling like a fool. He wasn’t very good at talking to strangers, especially women.
“I’m Maudette.”
Sydney nodded, not giving his name because he was still fairly certain it was a setup.
“Hello, and guten tag. I am Doctor Anton von Krapf, and I have, for most of my life, studied sleep, sleep disorders, and dreams. The act of sleeping is key to the health of one’s mind. Through sleep and dreams, the unconscious mind organizes and synthesizes thoughts, as well as processes the memories of the day. Without sleep, the conscious mind’s ability to reason and function degrades quickly. The sleepless patient becomes prone to error, prone to irrationality, and it can be said reverts to a childlike or even animalistic state,” he said in a thick Austrian accent.
Just then, the woman with the bun wheeled out a cart with something under a white sheet. Whatever was under the sheet was about the size of a shoe box.
“Five years ago, a colleague of mine, the late Heir Otto Verukt, a genius taken from the world far too soon, put together this brilliant if misunderstood machine…” and with that, he pulled off the sheet with a flourish.
It was mostly made of dark wood, with rather ornate brass fittings on the corners and a control panel of some kind on the top with some some kind of cartridge, like an old eight-track tape or an Atari game, sticking out of it. A thick cable protruded from the side, attached to what could only be called an electronic yarmulke.
The audience was murmuring, and some people were standing up to get a better look.
“Please, please, keep your seats. There will be ample time to examine the device once my presentation is through,” the doctor said, motioning for people to sit.
“This magnificent device is the Verukt-Krapf Delta Wave Manipulation Apparatus. By recording the delta wave patterns of normal healthy sleeping adults, we then, through electronic pulse induction, play back the dreams into the patient’s mind, lulling them to sleep and giving them a relaxing and happy REM cycle.”
A few people scoffed, others raised their hands, but Krapf waved them all away.
“Now, now, the sleeping mind is not a cinema,” he laughed at his own metaphor, “I assure you, what I offer is not a common–how do you say–radio playing soothing wave noises.”
Turning and pointing a pen at a board on an easel behind him, he explained, while the woman in the bun removed large cards showing illustrations.
“Jung has given us insight into the various archetypes and symbologies which dreams communicate to us in. What I propose, and can prove, is that beyond these symbols, there are higher units of information. The waves, which this machine records, are conceptual forms, in the Platonic sense, and the user’s mind will interpret them in a variety of ways and use their structure to go about the necessary function with which dreams serve.”
The presentation went on, but Sydney stopped listening. He was focusing on the little box. A machine that could play back dreams. A machine that could, in theory, cure him. A machine that could turn back the sea.
He was so focused on the box he didn’t realize that the doctor had stopped speaking and the remaining audience members had gotten up, and many were lining up to speak with him.
He saw that there were two boxes on the table, each wrapped in brown paper. Atop each was a thick wad of white paper with “Instructions” typed simply on the cover.
As Sydney got closer, he saw a tall man pick up one of the boxes and hand the doctor’s assistant an envelope. There were three people in front of Sydney. He worried that he might never find out the validity of those magical boxes.
He heard the next woman scoff loudly and shout, “One thousand dollars? Why that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”
Sydney realized it was the mother of the red-haired woman he’d bumped into. As she stomped away, Sydney felt hopeful he might get a chance. $1000 was a lot of money, but well worth it, even if it gave him half a night’s sleep.
The redheaded woman stood and continued to speak to the doctor, though her mother left.
“These machines are extremely difficult to construct, and many of the parts can only be found in Europe,” the doctor explained.
“Yes, I will–I will take it! Just hold on one moment while I get my money,” she said loudly and unnaturally. She turned and walked up to Sydney.
“Excuse me, mister. This is the last machine they have, and I only have five hundred bucks. I thought my mother would pay the rest. Do you think you want to go halfsies? We could, like, each try it, and if it works, then we could buy another, and then we’d each have one,” she said in a conspiratorial tone.
Sydney Moore frowned at the ground. “I-I don’t think so. I don’t know you,” he said, once again wondering if she was in on the whole ploy.
“Oh, come on, you can use it first,” she said, elbowing him.
“I–” he looked at the other two men in line in front of him and their eager eyes and fat envelopes. He knew if he didn’t take the girl up, he would have to wait at least another week.
Looking back at her, he saw red eyes, like his. The eyes of those who sleep eluded.
“F-fine,” he said in frustration.
Sydney fumbled with his briefcase and took out his checkbook.
“You’ll tell me if it works? Then I’ll get to use it for a while?” she said with her huge eyes full of optimistic expectancy as they exited the bookstore.
He turned to her and gave her as reassuring of a smile as he could. He fumbled with the machine holding with one arm as he took a business card out of his pocket and handed it to her.
“Call me tomorrow afternoon. I’ll let you know if it works,” he said seriously.
Maudette nodded and seemed to be shaking in need to hug him.
“Thanks for your help,” he awkwardly shouted as he rushed for a cab, cutting a young couple off.
At home, the box sat ominously on his kitchen table. It was solid, nothing rattled when he shook it, which he did lightly just to see. The control panel on top was etched with descriptors in German. He had taken some German in school and recognized the words for “start,” and “stop,” and “power.”
The instruction book was strangely worded, and he assumed poorly translated to English, but the gist was plain to understand. You put the little hat on and fastened its buckle around your chin to hold it in place. You lay down in bed and pressed “power,” and then after it warmed up and the green light came on, you pressed “start” and went to bed.
Sydney thought he might have trouble sleeping that night, but being in a state of panic for ten hours straight seemed to have tired him out, and before he could really think about what might happen, he was already fast asleep.
The world was sort of blurry. The sunlight was dappled, filtered through tree branches and far-away clouds. There were bird songs, a soft wind, and kind laughter in the distance.
The picnic was laid out on a gingham blanket on the lush green grass. Salads of fruit, salads of potato, sweating pitchers of sweet lemonade.
There was the unlikely image of people dancing around a maypole, though instead of carnival strangeness, it was comforting and natural. A fiddle played, and people sang old songs with indistinct lyrics.
There was a love there, somewhere and everywhere. The love of family and friends. Held hands and jokes that weren’t cruel. People ate and drank, but not to forget, only to fill themselves and enjoy.
More people arrived in a pretty red car. Candy apple red convertible that didn’t make him jealous. It only made him happy. Pies and ice cream and smiling children ran around in tall grass. Games with no losers and spinning around dizzy until the world was a kaleidoscope.
Cicadas in the distance and the smell of rain that would never come.
The clock read 8:15 am in ruby digits. Sydney blinked and breathed slowly. He turned to see the box on the nightstand; the machine. He’d slept for ten hours. He vaguely remembered the dreams, and when he did, they filled him with peace.
That morning the guard at the bank asked Sydney Moore if he’d lost weight. He hadn’t. In fact, he’d gained a few pounds in the last month, but he was standing up straighter.
He took a walk at lunch and felt a prickle inside of his chest, excitement like waiting in a line for a rollercoaster. Something big was happening, and he couldn’t wait to see what it was.
After three days, the machine had completely changed his life. Food tasted better, the air smelled sweeter, and he could concentrate at work. It was so wonderful he realized he was dodging Maudette’s calls. He didn’t want to give up the machine. Eventually, he gave in, realizing the next Wednesday was a holiday and the bookstore was closed, and so they would have to plan two weeks of trading back and forth.
He met her in a park, his step light and his eyes bright as he handed the machine to the dark-rimmed-eyed, wrinkle-clothed Maudette. Her anxious energy was contagious.
His nightmares came back after two nights without the machine. They met at a fountain a few days later, and he saw a new Maudette, cheerful and alive.
There was something intriguing about Maudette’s frenetic charm. The way she could talk on and on about anything. Her large expressive mouth and huge eyes. Her exaggerated proportions. Her red hair and freckles. Her inability to stop thinking. Her lack of a filter. Then there were the baser desires. She was, after all, a pretty twenty-five-year-old woman, and Sydney was, in his heart, a very shallow man.
Two weeks after he’d gotten the machine, he found himself walking to a bar near the bookstore to meet Maudette. He wasn’t surprised that he saw her from a block away. She wore a green mini-dress, a cardigan, and a scarf. As he got closer, he saw beaded necklaces, white go-go boots, and a dozen bangles on her wrists. She fidgeted as she stood there, biting her lip, twirling her hair, exuding some immature sexuality, unaware and clumsy in its potency.
“Hi, Sydney!” she said, waving and then running to him to give him an awkward hug. She smelled of incense and rose petals, and toothpaste.
He mumbled a greeting, and they went into the dark bar, where he procured drinks and a booth for them.
“An Amaretto Sour? That sounds, um, sweet,” he commented into his beer as he watched her drink the concoction in a few sips.
“Super sweet! I’ve never had one before. Someone in this book I was reading ordered one, and it sounded good. I like it! Let’s order some more!” she said, spilling a wad of crumpled $20 dollar bills from her purse on the table.
“Oh? Um, I can get you drinks. Geez, where did you get all this money? You should put it away before you get mugged,” he said, helping her gather it all up and then put it back in her pocketbook.
In a rush to put it all back in, her pocketbook somehow overturned, pouring the detritus of makeup and trinkets and candy and tampons that she had stored in it. Sydney’s brows were set in a worried furrow. Maudette’s were wide and happy.
“I feel like a new person now that I’m sleeping again,” she said with a blissful smile.
He smiled and agreed. It was like they were new people. As they both sighed, they realized they were new people, but still awkward people.
“Sydney, do you think I’m pretty?” she said, her lashes fluttering. Sydney shifted in his seat as if he had to badly go to the bathroom.
She was beautiful in a unique sort of way. She had a pretty face, though her mouth was very large, as were her eyes. As she leaned forward, he was also aware of her rather generous cleavage. She noticed him looking and moved both her eyebrows up and down in a ridiculous approximation of flirting.
“You are, um, too young for me. We should go. I appreciate your help with the machine, and I’m sure it will be a great benefit to us both,” he said as he put a few bills under his glass and made for the door.
Maudette sighed into her empty glass and then followed him out.
“Okay, Sydney. I understand. I just thought our shared misfortune might bring us together. That we could, like, find solace in each other’s arms and turn our sleepless nights into nights of endless passion,” she said as they walked to the bookstore, a group of homeless men staring confusedly at her rather animated soliloquy.
“Oh, well, that sounds nice, but I have to work in the morning,” he said, turning the corner and stopping as he saw the dark empty bookstore.
A sign hung on the window.
“Due to UNFORESEEN circumstances, the INSOMNIA GROUP will not meet this week the New London Staff AND Doctor Anton von Krapf apologize.”
Sydney’s face went white, and he let out a whimper. Maudette patted him on the back.
“It’s one more week, Sydney, don’t worry. It’s your turn, anyhow. I have some sleeping pills left, so I will probably be okay. Next week you’ll get your own machine,” she promised.
The next Wednesday, Sydney went to the shop at lunch to see if the group was meeting and saw that the windows of the bookstore were covered in newspaper and where the closed sign usually was sat a large document explaining that the store was under new ownership and under construction.
The proprietors of the neighboring stores didn’t know any more than Sydney about what had happened, nor did the people at the newspaper, which Sydney called from his office.
He called Maudette, and she came to his house with the machine.
“I went down to the town’s hall of records. There was only one listing for Dr. von Krapf. He got a work visa and partnered with some LLC called Asterix Communications, the same people who owned the bookstore,” he explained.
Sydney had spent Wednesday evening and Thursday morning frantically researching the bookstore, Dr. von Krapf, and the machine.
“There was no address for von Krapf, no phone number. I tried calling Austria, but um, my German isn’t very good,” he said with his voice cracking a little.
“The machine works really well, but if I don’t use it, the insomnia comes back pretty quickly,” Maudette said somberly.
“Yes, my dreams–I have these horrible dreams about–well, never mind. They come back after a day or two,” he admitted.
Maudette looked up with a smile that worried Sydney.
“Well, maybe instead of scheduling all of these picks up and handoffs, I could…” she trailed off, looking intently at Sydney.
“Stay here for a while?” Sydney finished her sentence with the worst possible ending he could think of.
“Could I? That would be perfect! Maybe I could even, like, use the machine and sleep during the day, and you could use it at night, and then we wouldn’t miss a minute of good dreams!” she said, nearly knocking him off his chair.
He frowned at his knees, but knew she was right. His need for sleep was paramount, eclipsing even his desire to be alone.
Thus began their odd domestic arrangement.
Sydney was actually a bit surprised at how easy it was. He’d only ever lived with Beatrice, and that was a constantly stressful state of bliss. He was happy, but constantly worried he would mess things up.
Sydney was not worried about messing things up with Maudette. In fact, he was somewhat hopeful he would. Still, she ended up being a good roommate. She was asleep most days when he got home, only to awaken, give him the machine, and busy herself with random hobbies and books and documentaries.
They fell in love, perhaps, or something like it. They were safe and well rested and settled into their new life. And the sex was rather remarkable, when they remembered to have it.
In the cold distance, past the cliff where cars zoomed down a road that curved and twisted like a birthday present ribbon left forgotten on the floor, was the ocean.
Sydney shifted in his bed, though his dream self probably didn’t realize it.
He was behind the wheel of a cherry red convertible, the wind whipping around him. He was driving smoothly around the mountain, not trying to get anywhere particularly, just enjoying the ride. To his left, the ocean called in sad, hungry cries in the distance. It shouldn’t be. This was a happy dream. There was no going back.
The murky ocean was far beyond the sun-drenched morning. The deep ocean. Unfathomable and unknowable. The waves that went on into infinity. The sun only reached down a few feet below the surface of the water, then the blackness came. Blackness for miles down.
Like a camera zooming in, Sydney’s mind pushed forward, past the grassy hill he sat on, past the perfect cars and the cliff. He tried to turn, tried to get back to that happy place, but the sea was pulling him back. Then, as if the store-bought dreams never were, he was there.
The waves were huge. One coming right at him. Slate gray waves of ice-cold water. They pounded against his head, and he was down. The uncontrollable vertigo of being pushed into the sea. Not knowing which way was up.
The saltwater stung his eyes, but he kept them open and looked down, down into the depths. It was there that he saw the inky black maw of the hole beneath the waves. The deepest of deeps. The darkest of darks.
Marianas Trench. Marianas Trench. Marianas Trench.
It pounded in his ears with his heartbeat.
There was the fear that Sydney had always had, and then there was the Marianas Trench. He had first heard about it in some science class in junior high. Off-handedly, the teacher talked about the almost seven-mile hole in the Earth. The deepest hole in the Earth’s crust. Lower than Everest was high. A rip where the tectonics met. So deep, the pressure could crush any man or beast, but still, there was life there. Unknowable life. Alien and incompatible with all we know of sea creatures. Eyeless troglodytic dwellers of the deep hunting blindly with their million jagged teeth.
From far inside the blackest depths of the trench, there was a sickening inhuman wail, some bizarre scream from the abyss.
Sydney awoke in a cold sweat.
The dream was still thick in his head, as if keeping the sea away so long had built up this horrible energy. His body was rigid with palpable panic. Shaking his head and trying to get some grasp on the world around him, Sydney sat up, hopped off his bed, only to hear a strange sickening crack.
The machine lay on the floor, the tape sticking halfway out. One copper-hinged corner was open, and a small bundle of red, black, and green wires protruded from the damaged edge.
The fear that gripped him was almost strong enough to challenge the Marianas Trench. Sadly the two fears had no interest in warring and instead formed some hybrid horror that brought Sydney to his knees.
He righted the machine and gently pushed the tape back in. The usual audible click when the tape was fully inserted would not sound. There was no lock, only still a mechanical failure.
He unplugged the thing and plugged it back in. Still nothing. The tiny LEDs and smooth whirling of the internal gears were all dead, as was his hope.
When he broke, he broke completely. His sobs were coming from not just his eyes but deep in his body. It was a mad wet wale that he tried to drown in her lap. He held her and pressed his face into her legs. She tried to soothe him, brush his hair with her fingers the way her mother once did when she was a child, but he seemed oblivious to her.
“It’s okay, Sydney. It’s going to be okay. We can figure it out. We can find Krapf,” she whispered.
He was raw, all affect and personality stripped away, and only animal need for safety and rest left.
“He’s gone, they’re all gone, I’ll die red-eyed and tired. I’ll never be free of these fucking nightmares,” he sobbed.
On a lark, Sydney put an ad in the paper.
“Searching for INSOMNIA MACHINE or the whereabouts of Doctor ANTON von KRAPF, Oneirologist PLEASE HELP. CASH REWARD.”
Only one answer came. It was a late-night phone call, a raspy voice with an Austrian accent.
“Three sixteen, Maple Drive,” the stranger whispered and then hung up.
Sydney knew the street. He knew there was a mansion there, and so that morning, before Maudette came home from visiting her mother, he walked across town and found the house.
In the driveway was a fancy and spotless sports car. A cherry red convertible. Sydney, who knew nothing about cars, felt some pang deep inside. He didn’t like cars, he had never even learned to drive, but still, he looked with wonder and desire at the sleek and gleaming machine.
“This is the car,” he whispered to himself.
Deep in his heart, he knew it, and he also knew that if that was the car, then the person who drove that car was the dreamer; it was the one who had helped bring Sydney peace and then so abruptly took it away.
Walking up the cobblestone path to the front door of the massive pillared house, he passed nearer to the car and saw the soft tan of the leather interior, just like the car in the dream. There was even a pair of black leather driving gloves on the seat, just like the ones he’d worn in the dream, the gloves that had gripped the steering wheel so tightly as he navigated the smooth turns around the mountain road.
He brought a finger to the large brass doorbell, and before his fear could stop him, he pressed the button hard. A chime echoed in the house, and his heart began to race. He heard someone yell somewhere, but no one answered the door. He rang the bell again to no avail.
Walking around the somewhat overgrown lawn, following a path of shrubs, he saw there was a pool in the back, slightly green water, and a layer of leaves, making it look forgotten. Walking to the back of the house, Sydney found a glass sliding door slightly ajar.
Sydney, who didn’t even like watching action movies, found himself in a situation so tense and unlike the rest of his life; he wondered for a moment if this was some new dream or perhaps a nightmare. Still, the need to sleep drove him on.
Through the glass door, he found a table laden with dirty dishes. He walked through a living room that had various newspapers and manila folders spread over its coffee table and couch. There was a noise above, and Sydney looked over the stairway in the corner, but no one came down.
Further into the house, Sydney found a large study. A table held a variety of tools and instructional manuals. His heart sped up as he saw a few parts that were unmistakably from one of the machines.
As he stealthily looked through the documents and tools, he came upon a glossy picture of the red car outside; the red car from his dreams. It looked majestic and reminded him of good dreams, the dreams he longed for.
A letter was on top of the picture, with a letterhead that looked familiar.
The letter read, “Mr. Hallwood, I have been trying to reach you via phone to no avail. I’m afraid our analysts, while being impressed with the innovative marketing scheme you came up with, can’t find any evidence that this strategy will have any real-world effect on car sales. I’m afraid we are going to terminate our partnership with your company. I suggest you look into funding from the medical field.”
The world contracted for a moment. The weight of the reality of the situation almost made Sydney’s knees give. His stomach churned. His hands grew cold. His eyes moved to various correspondences, words popping out.
“Dream.”
“Marketing.”
“No real effect on sales of our new coupe convertible.”
Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw a shape under a white sheet. Moving quickly, hearing more noise from the floor above, he pulled the sheet off to find the only thing in the world that could bring a smile to his face.
A machine. A machine in perfect condition and on top of it four cartridges.
Without even considering his options, he stuffed the cartridges in his pockets and lifted up the machine. He turned and looked around. Seeing no movement, he made his way back through the messy office and the living room, and finally, the kitchen. He slipped out of the glass door and started to run as fast as he could, past the pool and across the lawn.
As he neared the gate, he heard a shout, then another shout, then finally, the sharp crack of what could only be a gunshot. He was running then, faster than he’d ever run in his life, faster than the one time he’d hit a line drive past the pitcher in high school baseball. He ran until he was far from the mansion and near the center of town. He then took his jacket off, covered the machine, and limped home, hyperventilating most of the way.
His hands were shaking too hard to even set up the machine that night. Maudette calmed him, patted his face with a cool, wet towel, put the strange little hat on him, turned on the machine, and tucked him into bed.
The road stretched out before him, a black line splitting tan hills in half out into the horizon. There was a barely perceivable click as his foot moved off the gas, and his hand shifted the clutch, and then the car roared faster, pushing him back into the leather seat.
The sun shone above and reflected in the red hood. To his side, he saw crossed legs and a summer dress barely covering them. Red hair in the wind and bright eyes smiling back at him.
He rode on, without a care in the world, looking side to side to see nothing but desert sand for miles.
Sydney never told Maudette about the papers or the car. She never pushed when he shrugged away her questions about where the machine came from.
They lived together happily, for years. Eventually, she stopped needing the machine. She found some peace and wisdom Sydney couldn’t really understand. She left one day, kissing him on the forehead and wishing him well.
He went on with his life. He learned to drive. He bought a cherry red convertible, and when he retired, he bought a boat.
The End