SPACE / JOHN INGOLD Fiction
We moved in on a Sunday. The haze had lifted just enough so that, from the car, I could barely make out the shape of the house. It looked like a mirage, a glass box falling from the sky and landing amongst all this dying foliage. The house’s sharp lines and floor-to-ceiling windows looked dated, not like something you would purchase nowadays. An investment in the past, as Grant would say, almost too seriously. Like buying a record player, or a camera, or a book. “You’re not worried about the trees over the house, are you?” I asked. “Some look like they could fall at any minute.” I’d never owned a house before. The thought terrified me, all this space to be managed. I already missed our apartment in the city, and the gentle comfort of having all our possessions in one room. Grant looked over at me. “Don’t worry, okay? We’ll figure it out.” This had become a ritual of ours, a perverse magic trick. From my hat I conjured worry and fear, and as quickly as it came it vanished, disappeared by some sleight of hand on the part of Grant. But these things were not gone, only hidden. As Grant directed the car into the garage, I couldn’t help but feel angry with him. It was a misdirected anger that burned nonetheless, growing hotter with each passing second. I sat in silence as the garage door closed behind us, waiting for the automated response that signaled it was safe to get out of the car. Even when the sound did come— a robotic bird whistle that echoed through the empty garage— I did not get up from my seat. In this car, I was still from the city, and this house was not my house. Leaving the car and entering through the front door would confirm that what was around me was mine, and what was behind me was no longer mine. Like I had become two separate people, and opening that door would force some awful recombination. Granted scanned a paper-thin keycard against the handle of the door connecting the garage to 28
the house. He turned to look at me. “You coming?” ————— It unfolded like a dream. There was before, sitting on a blanket, enjoying the sun as it fell like patchwork on our skin. And then there was the sensation of falling asleep, of blinking into existence a dark grey cloud that blossomed on the horizon. Grant said something, but his words have since been smothered by that single image of birds in flight, their wings only capable of taking them so far. Some people screamed, I thought. A toddler began to cry, alone. And all the while there was Grant, tugging at the sleeve of my coat, urging me to run. “What is that?” I asked, but Grant could only shake his head. We tried to run but with each glance backwards we confirmed what we already knew. The cloud was growing. Eventually it would cover the sun and then what? The nearest building was the art museum. We could barely make out the glass wall that extended above the trees. It was too far away, but we ran anyway. Other people were running too, each one of them propelled forward by the column of haze that grew closer with each second. A woman had tripped on a loose piece of gravel, her skirt flung upwards to reveal the hot pink underwear she was wearing. This was the last thing I remembered before the cloud caught up with us, pulling a curtain over my eyes until there was nothing but grey and the sound of Grant whispering my name into the air. Later, there was this: I will sweep away man and beast, I swill sweep away the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, and the rubble with the wicked. I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth. It appeared on televisions and newspapers and the sides of buildings, everyone whispering those two sentences to themselves as if there was a hidden truth to be found between those words.
