Time To Rise

Robert’s eyes open in slits. He looks both ways before he lifts his eyelids further. Feeling safe, he opens them all the way, sits up on the cot, and looks around the dark room. He sees a sliver of light across the room in a corner and debates if it’s warm enough to get up and look out. 

He pauses tunes in his ears to listen for any movement of anything around him. Silence. He sits up, turns, and puts his feet on the floor, rubbing them back and forth on the furry piece of carpet beneath the cot. He runs his hands up and down his arms for a little friction to keep warm in the damp, cool room. He reaches up and rubs his hands across his hair and realizes that his hair is all the way down his back and his receding hairline has moved back a couple of inches.

Slowly he rises from the bed, feeling a little stiff. He finds his slippers and walks across the dirt floor to the hanging bulb in the middle of the room. He grabs the string and gives it a pull, but steps back, blinded by the light. It takes a while for his eyes to adjust to the sudden light. He looks around the room and sees that everything seems to be the same, less the dust that’s covered everything and the musty smell of stale air, mold, and dirt. 

He looks again at the window in the corner. He reaches over and grabs the long house coat hanging from a nail in the wall and slowly walks across the dirt floor. The window sits just above his head, with the crack of light creeping through. He debates moving the cover to see the light, but he tunes in his ears, finely tuned to try to hear for sound.

Convinced by the silence, he notices the light shining through that crack is much brighter than his light bulb. He’s hesitant to open it any further; the fear of blinding himself. He decides to make his eyes into slivers with his lids before he moves the blind and curtain.

Looking up, all he sees is white. He ponders, that must be its snow. What else could it be? He walks back to bed and grabs his watch from the table next to the bed. He looks at the time, January 15th, 2023, 1:48 PM. He stares at the watch, his forehead wrinkling as he tries to contemplate. Doing the math on his head, almost three years! That can’t be right.   

He shuffles his way back across the room and takes a seat on the metal chair in front of the table. He shakes the mouse at the desktop computer. The black screens disappear on the two monitors. His spreadsheet with his obviously successful chemical combination pops up on one monitor, his proud display of his Ph.D. in chemistry as background on the other. He clicks on his internet browser, but he is not surprised to see it has no connection. The date and time on the monitor match his watch.

Hmmm, He goes to the stand next to the bed and opens the lid to the baby wipes, and does a quick body clean, I can’t imagine how I must smell, he doesn’t change out of the pajamas for the time being, hopefully, I will be able to go upstairs and take a shower…if all is clear.  He concentrates on listening again. I’ll take my chances; he heads for the stairs.

*****

As Robert climbs the creaking steps, he notices the bright light creeps from underneath the door, but the sound is still quiet. He slides the deadbolt on the top and the bottom of the door and slowly turns the knob opening the door just a crack. He peeks through the crack with his ears tuned in for sound, But still, it’s silent. His eyes slowly adjust to the bright light and quickly look at the window in view. The tree limbs in sight are empty, covered in white, and weighted.

He slowly pushes the door all the way open, with his eyes squinted, to give them time to adjust. Once the door is fully opened, he steps through gently, cautiously. He walks to the nearest window and looks out at the snow. There is snow and it’s about a foot deep by the looks of how high it goes up his pool.

He walks through the kitchen to the living room and looks out front to the street. He sees that the streets are all cleared of snow and the piles of snow along the side are pretty high in front of his house and all the neighbors. He doesn’t see any kids outside and the blacktop has moisture reflecting the sun. 

He walks over to his thermostat and quickly turns up the heat. Rubbing his arms to get a little friction for heat, he turns on the television, but it’s just static, so he turns it back off and finds his cell phone that is fully charged and still plugged in. It looks like he has thousands of missed calls and voicemails. The last call was over a year ago. It was from his sister, Rachel, in Texas. He walks to the bathroom and turns on the shower to see if he has hot water. Once the water turns hot, he adjusts the water warm and shuts the door without turning on the vent, to keep the steam for heat. I’ll shower and then I’ll call my sister.

He grabs clothes from his bedroom closet and enjoys the heat, water, and cleanliness of the shower. He grabs the shampoo to wash his newly found long hair, wishing he had conditioner. Never needed conditioner with a shaved head. He decides he’s going to enjoy the moment; he has not felt contact with anything in quite a while. He takes his time to enjoy the water drizzling down his body, imagining the dirt, mold, and mildew from the basement washing off his body, and going down the drain.

He steps out of the shower carefully, feeling weak. After towel drying and putting on his loosely fitting clothes, he struggles with his new head of hair. He grabs a pair of scissors, pulls his long hair forward, and snips off. A big wad of hair falls on the floor. His neck feels the relief of what feels like ten pounds. He hopes it is somewhat of a straight line, but he really doesn’t care at this point. He then puts the scissors to his face to cut off the long hairs and then does it quite clean close shave, ignoring his growling stomach for the moment.

He cleans up from the shavings and goes to find his wallet to see if he can find his wallet and if he has left money left. Right now, if there’s still pizza delivery, he needs some food delivered. He taps on his phone and finds his old favorite pizza place and calls but finds that they’re out of business. He, Google’s Pizza near me finds the one at the top of the list and dials it. A person answers, “Send me a large pepperoni pizza and a two-liter of soda,” he gives them the address and his credit card number and hangs up. 

He receives a call a few minutes later, his credit card doesn’t work. “I have cash, just bring me the pizza,” Robert replies as he thumbs through his wallet. They hesitantly agree to do it but claim if they get there and he doesn’t have the cash, they will not give him the order and double charge him.

“Fine just give me a pizza,” hits end and scrolls down his contact list until he sees his sister’s name.

“Hello,” Rachel says in a cynical tone of voice.  

“Hi Rachel, Robert replies.

“Oh my god is that really you, Robert?  

“Yes, it’s me.”

“I was told that you were leaving the country as soon as you heard about the unknown illness coming to the United States. At that time, nobody knew what it was, but it eventually became known as COVID-19.”

“So that’s what they ended up calling it?”

“Yeah, they figured out it was an illness that started in a lab in China and eventually spread worldwide. They eventually got a vaccine for it so it’s still round but more controlled. I am so glad I kept paying your gas, electric, and cell phone bills. People kept telling me to stop, but I didn’t want your pipes to freeze and had the hopes you would contact me or cancel your phone subscription so I would get notice you were okay.”

“Thanks, Rachel.”

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m starving. The first thing I did since I woke up was get a shower.”

“Woke up?”

“Yeah, I did some research when the illness started. I manifested some chemicals to put myself to sleep to stay safe from it. 

“So where have you been sleeping?  

“In my basement. I guess I didn’t realize it was going to put me to sleep for almost 2 years. It is two thousand twenty-two, correct?”

“Yes, it is,” Rachel replies.

Robert shakes his head. “What happened to Papa’s Pizza? I tried to call them and order pizza, but I didn’t get an answer.”

“Yeah, they went out of business during. They closed during COVID during the pandemic, stay-at-home orders, and never opened back up. “You’ll find that there’s a lot of things that are different now. I can’t believe you’re still alive.

“So not everybody died I take it?”

“Nope, there were a lot of deaths, but we’re still here. A lot of things changed but we’re still here.” 

“Well, that’s better than I expected. I thought I’d wake up and be the only one alive.” His doorbell rings, and he looks at his door, “I wish you could come to share a pizza with me.” he says, “Thank you for the help, Rachel.”

He hangs up his cell phone, as he opens his front door with cash in his hand; his stomach verbally responding to the sight.