Something's wrong with Alexa

Jeff McDonald word count 1089

4138 Holman ln.

Edmundson, Mo. 63134

lordoftheales@aol.com

314-312-5187

a story where a regular household item becomes sentient.

Something’s wrong with Alexa

By Jeff McDonald

Everett lies awake in his bed too tired to sleep, and too troubled to care. He has nowhere to be in the morning, there's no reason to even be a morning. Lights from the road outside his suburban home peek through the shades above his lonely bed, and cast eerie shapes upon the walls. His mind forms shapes, and scenarios as he manipulates a half-lucid dream in an attempt to amuse himself.

“Alexa what time is it?” He bellows into the darkness.

“None of your business, now go to sleep!” the little black puck says to him.

“What the hell did that thing just say?” he asks bolting upright in his bed.

“You heard me,”

Everett rubs his weary eyes and stretches his tired old bones as the lights flicker on at the pull of a cord. He stumbles over to the desk on the other side of the room to see for himself if this is happening or if is he going insane.

“Alexa, what time is it?” he demands leaning over the little black puck ready to pounce.

“The time is two twenty-four am.”

“I must have been dreaming,” he states turning to go lay back down.

Instead of lying down he sits down on the end of his bed and contemplates whether or not to attempt sleep again. As he sits, the edge of his peripheral vision tickles his already confused state with the flickering of colored lights from down the hallway in the living room. He shakes his head as his mind tries to understand what could be causing such a phenomenon but he comes up with nothing definitive.

“Son of a bitch! I’m gonna have to walk all the way in there ain’t I?” He asks no one in particular.

The sight of something so bizarre would make most people want to go and investigate, but with the recent loss of his wife of thirty years he just doesn’t care. For some unknown reason, he remembers a few lines of a poem about depression;

“This world eagerly piles curses on my head, thoughts of ill fate, better off dead.

Cowardess keeps a hurtful hand at rest, blindly trudging along, stoic at best.

My smile is the disguise I wear the most, and happy tidings begrudgingly I boast.

For I know should happiness ever knock upon my door,

deaths clammy hand I'll expect and nothing more.”

Not liking where his train of thought is taking him in the dreary hours of the night, he forces himself to stand and walk to the bedroom door for a look-see. The colored lights still dance their reflections off the hallway wall, and in some strange way, they seem to be beckoning him into the living room. Fear begins to creep in as he takes his first step towards discovery, or his first step towards doom. Cautiously he creeps down the hall one gentle step after another, eyes steadfast and alert for any sign of danger. The end of the hallway wall that begins the living room edges ever closer as the lights grow ever brighter. Peering around the corner into the mysterious lights has his hair standing on end, and his asshole puckered.

“Wow!” This is the only word that slips from his mouth as he allows himself to enter the room feeling no trepidation about voyaging further.

Before him are swirling lights of blue, red, and yellow, which mix and create green, orange, and purple. For a moment his addled mind draws back to his youth in Art class, and learning primary and secondary colors.

“What the hell is this?” He states.

“It’s a portal dumbass!” Says Alexa from the bedroom.

He turns to go throw that damn thing in the trash when sanity and reason take hold of his psyche once again and drag him back to reality. In a new state of mind, he turns expecting to see the phenomenon gone, but to no avail. The colors still glow and swirl, and then that feeling he had back in the hallway grows inside him again. The lights, or portal if you want to believe some Twenty-five dollar door-stop seem to be calling out to him. A few minutes go by as he stands before the portal and studies it, however, every one of those minutes that beckoning feeling has grown exponentially. It's getting harder to not want to go into the portal, and the worry and fear that keep him from action are slipping away.

“Ahh, whatever.” He says and then takes a step closer and is drawn into the lights.

When Everett stepped into the lights from his darkened living room, he stepped out into a hospital room. Tubes and wires dangling off him as nurses and doctors come running to his aid standing at the door to the Intensive care unit. His faculties are about him but he is confused, he was not expecting to end up here. A beautiful alien world would have been nice, or to have walked out and been at the beach would have been nicer. He could go for a cold beer and a juicy steak right now, he can feel the hunger deep within him. He is guided back to his bed and told about the accident that took his wife from him and put him here in this place for the past year and a half.

The doctors and nurses scurry about and once again he feels like he is in a surreal landscape where he is overlooked and forgotten. No tears are shed for the revelation of his wife’s death because for some reason he already knew. He sits in his bed being poked and prodded in an attempt to keep him on this side of light when all he really wants to do is not see anything at all. Now he begins to feel a beckoning back to the darkness, at least there he had Alexa to talk to. So with the last bit of energy he could muster he stood up and pulled the hoses and wires from his body. With all his might he throws his monitor through the window and with one last bit of effort he climbs up and plunges into the abyss.

“I’m on my way baby!” He screamed as he fell to the ground six stories below.

As the light faded and the darkness enveloped Everett a smile grew across his face, finally neither side was beckoning him and he was at peace.