flashquake Fiction - Paper or Plastic by Jefferson Moody

flashquake
Paper or Plastic
by Jefferson Moody

You wake up one afternoon. You look in the mirror. Something's different. You thought you were somebody else. It's not that you look different than the last time you looked. It's just that you don't recognize yourself. The thoughts that go through your head are unfamiliar. Different. Not your own. Your own thoughts, like a quiet chorus or a battalion of bats, flutter in the background. But they are disparate, and mute. These thoughts, they slide around your conscience as if on skates and won't slow enough to be caught. It's only the most recent thought that scrapes like gravel across concrete.

The thought is a voice, old, yet full of vibrant energy.

You pull away from the mirror because if you don't, you will succumb to vertigo and fall through the mirror into a glass-skinned-swimming pool. Maybe it would be a good time to get out of the house. Maybe it would be a good time to call a friend. You remember you have lots of friends. You realize you don't like any of them. You realize you never did. Maybe lack of inspiration has led you to make bad choices. Bad choices have led you to more bad choices. Are there good choices? You want to double check the mirror again, but the gravelly voice recommends you keep moving because if you stop, like riding a bicycle, you will fall.

Outside you look out onto a patch of grass surrounded by concrete. The grass fights the good fight. Every dog in the world has discovered this heavenly oasis to take a dump or a piss. And you relate because it's so hard to find a bathroom in the city when you need it.

But then, with all that competition for just a little earthy dirt to live and die, you notice a clump of thick green stalks tipped with yellow. Crocus flowers. You get on your hands and knees and realize you must look like a dog. You examine the budding flower. You put your nose up to it, and it smells marvelous. You realize you must look like a dog. A voice, not your new voice, a voice of a person standing over you yells, "What the fuck are you doing? You sick fuck." You turn to tell this person you are stopping to smell the flowers and no words come from your mouth because your mouth is smart enough not to bother explaining certain concepts to certain people. You get up and walk. You wonder, When did it become spring?

You discover yourself at work and the words, "Paper or Plastic," strangely come from your own lips as if you have said them a million times before and you feel a sharp twinge at the base of your neck realizing that is exactly the case.

Paper or Plastic.

These are the options you offer.

You flip items into a paper or plastic bag or sometimes for some who prefer paper in plastic which is not a problem because you are very very good--you flip items into the bag with total efficiency and know how. The new voice tells you this is a talent and you know it's true because if you've ever had anybody stuff your grocery bag badly, which happens all time, the meat leaks or the bag is too heavy or the eggs break or the ice cream melts.

You've had other jobs but they seem distant and faded. You realize that this is not the first time you've woken up and suddenly heard a different voice--the same voice and a different voice. Both.

You realize you've been an expert at a series of mundane matters and part of you resents even you calling these skills mundane because you were proud of these skills, and you remember how when you were in first grade it was your job to sharpen the pencils for the teacher and you were damn good at it and the smell of the wood and the graphite was like perfume and you were as reliable and consistent as the sun. You smile to yourself because you remember when you got promoted to washing the black board and how the dust clouds floated when you were allowed outside to smack the erasers when the others were stuck in the stuffy classroom. Sometimes those dust clouds were gun fire and sometimes they were bombs exploding on a beach. Sometimes, they were just dust clouds.

You remember real bombs exploding on a beach and it's so vivid you wonder if you saw it in a movie instead. "Paper or Plastic," you hear your own voice say. One day you're gonna travel the world and one day you're gonna learn to ride a motorcycle and tour the country and one day you're gonna read all of Shakespeare and one day you're gonna find the right person.

Paper or Plastic.

You go home and look in the mirror and the eyes looking back at you are your own but the face is never how you remember it and you realize you haven't traveled the world but you've been in a couple of countries anyway and you did do that motorcycle trip after all and you've read most of Shakespeare even though a lot of it didn't make sense.

It hasn't been the ride you thought it would be, but it wasn't a bad ride.

Paper or Plastic.

You remember meeting the right person and it lasted a fleeting moment or thirty years or a fleeting moment. Maybe longer. Maybe not.

Paper or Plastic.

You decide to lie down and the gravelly voice says to keep moving or else.

Paper or Plastic.

The voice says sharks die if they stand still and you say you're not a shark.

Paper or Plastic.

You go to lie down.

Paper or Plastic.

Neither, you answer.

Paper or Plastic.

You smile.

Paper or Plastic.

Neither. Thank you.

Paper or--

Put me a box.