Freshwater Literary Journal 2022

T.R. Healy Slow Shivers of Light Anxiously rapping his thumbs against the steering wheel of his car, Fallows slowly drove toward the large van parked behind the downtown branch of the public library. It was impossible to miss, checkered with small red-and-white squares that made it appear it was covered with a table cloth from an Italian restaurant. For a minute, he idled beside the passenger window and peered inside and saw two chairs on either side of a small metal table.

That must be where the recording would be conducted, he thought, continuing past the van. That was where he was scheduled to be at ten o’clock tomorrow morning, and he still didn’t know if he would keep the appointment. * For the past two and a half months, since the financial services firm he worked for moved to the opposite end of town from his apartment building, Fallows had been riding the train to the office. There was just so much traffic congestion to contend with in his car that he decided to take the train. Though considerably faster, it was quite a bit more expensive. And it was always packed with passengers so he never bothered to bring along anything to read because it was rare that he found a place to sit. Some mornings it was so crowded he wasn’t sure if he had made the right decision. And today was one of those mornings because he could hardly turn around without bumping into someone.

“Do you think it’ll ever stop?” a young woman standing next to him asked, tightly gripping the strap above her head. A soaked umbrella rested against her right knee.

“What’s that?”

She glanced at the raindrops pelting the windows. “It’s been going on like this for six days straight.”

“It’s been a wet month. That’s for sure.”

“I don’t know how many times I’ve told myself I’m going to leave this dreadful weather and go somewhere warm and dry but I never do.”

“I hear you,” he said, sharing her frustration with the constant rainfall.

“One day I’m going to do it,” she insisted. “One day I am—” Suddenly she was in his arms, her head pressed against his shoulders, then together they slammed into a window, causing it to crack in several places. At once, his hands felt damp, and he assumed it was rain seeping through the cracks and looked down and saw blood in his hands. Mortified, he let go of the woman and stepped back from the smashed window and nearly tumbled over another woman who was on the floor on her hands and knees. Beside her was an elderly man whose left arm was so twisted behind his back it appeared as if 63