Thanks-taking

      Tony wipes back the sweat in his eyes and runs after his wife. Samantha, he hollers, come back. She doesn’t turn around and continues Beep down the street. Beep she finally stops, and Beep turns around BEEP and says in a beep cold voice to her husband BEEP BEEP BEEP.

           Michael’s eyes burst open as he slams the off button on his alarm clock and rolls over to see his wife, but the other side was empty and cold. He then proceeds to stubbornly get out of bed and walk down his golden-brown cedar wood staircase to the kitchen. As he passes the kids bedrooms, he notices that they are already gone. This is odd, usually he gets the kids up before work. To make things weirder, the morning sounds of his kids cannot be heard and heads into the kitchen. He calls out, “marline, joe, carmen” but to no avail. The kitchen was how he left it yesterday, no book bags everywhere, no crayons on the floor, and no peanut butter knife in the sink. Odd. It is never this clean on a Monday and Michael would’ve heard the tapping of little talons on the floor when his wife got the kids together. He heads to the front room and notices that the soccer bags for his kids are still there.

           I will just run these to the school he says to himself as he collects all the soccer gear and heads to the front door. Both knobs are locked as if no one left. There is something up with today, but he just shrugs it off. “Mondays” he says to himself. He walks outside to collect the mail and notices what time it is: 10:30 and his meeting is at 11. He scurries back to his coop and rushes to get dressed. He throws on his jacket, gobbles up some breakfast, brushes his feathers and puts coffee on. Impatiently he skips the coffee and decides to pick some up at the office and struts out the door.

           Jumping into his black Honda Civic, his French neighbor Càpon waves at him and tries to strike up a conversation. Avoiding eye contact, Michael hurries and throws the car into reverse before he could say good morning. He knows that he will be late if he talks to the rambling man. The traffic that day was absent, weird, but Michael hadn’t any complaints. Vroom, as he pulls up to a half empty parking lot. He excitingly picks his own parking spot, which usually would take ten minutes, “I must be early” he says to himself with a big smile. Even his boss isn’t here, and he constantly complains about tardiness. This causes him to laugh silently to himself as he swings open the large glass door. Feeling like the man, he walks with one hand in his pocket the other flipping the bird to the guard dog. He does finger guns to the receptionist and enters the elevator.

“Welcome Michael, will we be heading to the eleventh floor today”, questioning the elevator in a soothing yet robotic way.

“Si” he replied with a smile. “I’m sorry, please say one of the following…”

” YES” Michael screams cutting the elevator off before it can finish its sentence. Singing to himself “ I’m the man, I’m the man, I’m the man”, he pops a mint and waits for his stop.

Ding “have a great day”, as the door slowly slides open, chaos can be seen erupting throughout the office. Panicked Michael grabs the nearest person and yells, “what’s going on?”  “It’s too late, the taking is upon us, the thanking the taking, the taking the thanking…” he mumbles and then proceeds to throw himself at the office window. The glass cracks and he gets up to go for another try. Michael grabs him and shakes the hell out of him. “What is wrong with you man, get your shit together!” The man stares deep into Michael’s eyes and says in a soulless voice,” they can’t take me alive”. He rips out of Michael’s grip and charges to the window again. He goes through it and falls eleven stories. No one else notices this and it causes Michael to panic. He goes into his assistant’s office to see her boarding up the windows and doors. He doesn’t have to ask what’s wrong; the news channel is on. Many are being kidnapped and killed for celebration by an alien race. Humans he reads, what are those? His assistant Clair whips her head around and says, “don’t just stand there, help me!” He picks up some wooden planks but doesn’t know what to do with them. He can hear the fear in her voice, but he doesn’t know what is causing it.

Tell me what is going on. Clair looks at him in confusion and sits down. She murmurs, “The pilgrims, the Indians, the slaughter, the mayflower”.” What about those things? “he questioned. “The 1800s the giving of thanks, ha more like thanks taking”. She tells him about the holiday, the celebration, the feast, the murder, the betrayal, the lies. “They tell their kids that it’s all about brunch between the natives and European peoples, but it’s all lies”. Michael sits back in disbelief and a cold feeling runs down his spine: where’s the kids? He runs out of the office, jumps down the stairs, and hops into his car. Vroom, he speeds to the kids’ school to see it shut down. Closed for the holiday. He turns the car around and races home and forces the key into the doorknob. Almost breaking the door, he pushes it open.

He calls out for his family, but no answer. He runs throughout the rooms in the house and finds no one. He sits on the couch with his head in his hands and cries. Booo, says his wife jumping on him. In disbelief he grabs, and bear hugs her. Rawr, she says to him biting her lip. “The kids are at school, so let’s go upstairs and…”

” NO, THEY AREN’T” he interrupts. “The school is closed, everything is closed”, he’s shaking. She runs to the phone dialing the school, but the phone doesn’t work. “What is going on Biddy” she says, as a bright white light peers through the window. She opens the blinds and is sucked through the window. No, he yells but is too late. He walks outside, it’s silent, no sounds of cars, kids aren’t chirping, nothing, just silence. He goes inside the house, flops on the couch, and turns on the TV. Netflix added a new episode of BoJack horseman, but he is too stunned to feel anything. He closes his eyes and hears beeping. The beeping gets louder and louder, but he tries to ignore it. He can feel the beeping in his chest and cannot take it anymore.

Michael’s eyes burst open as he slams the off button on his alarm clock and rolls over to see his wife, but the other side was empty and cold. He was back in bed, weird. This time he hops out of bed and runs down his brown cedar steps to the kitchen. His wife is in there making a mess with the kids. He releases a sigh of relief and hugs them all. It was all a dream. Carmen runs up to him and asks if he can play the duck song. “Yes, I can, my little princess”. He opens his phone and realizes it’s Sunday. The day before Thanks-taking. He drops his phone, falls to the floor, and weeps; he realizes what is going to happen the next day. His wife shrugs it off believing it’s work stress and goes back to cooking. She doesn’t know the severity of this situation. She doesn’t know that this is her last moments, alive.        {end}