The Big Reality

(I'm sorry, I accidentally submitted this story to the wrong prompt- supposed to be in 'Write a story set in the hottest day of the year.' But can't change it now! Sorry again! Please consider it for the intended prompt!)

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Simon listened to the radio as he washed the dishes. The young weather girl with the soothing voice told him today would be the hottest day of the year, 'tropical', she said, and told him to stay hydrated, and not to stay in the sun for too long.

She reeled off some mumbo jumbo about warm air trapped in the atmosphere, plus a bunch of meteorological numbers Simon didn't understand. He didn't much care for numbers. Data, statistics. He was decidedly an arts guy, and today he was especially happy with himself for finishing Crime and Punishment, a book he'd long wanted to read but never had the time. Now that Isabel had left him, he could indulge in those longer, more intellectual novels. Just one of many positives, he was sure.

Not wanting to squander the sunny spell, he decided he'd go to the bookshop and pick out a new book, and spend the afternoon on the lounger, reading and sun tanning his back... If, of course, Daisy would make do of the heat in the back garden, and stop being such a nuisance and shitting all the time.

Simon stood the last plate on the draining board and marveled at the sudsy phalanx he'd created. A job well done. He put on his sunglasses and bundled Daisy into the back seat of his little fire red Mini Cooper. Daisy whined and fidgeted on the hot sticky leather.

'Oh, shush,' he said. 'We'll be back before you can say Dostoevsky.'

                                   ***

The air conditioning at Milly's Bookshop hit him in the face like a snowball. He breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his eyes, and hooked his sunglasses on the collar of his green tank top.

Almost a decade he'd been coming here. It was a snug little building tucked between a bakery and a second hand jewellery shop. For its size it had a splendid repertoire, displayed in rows upon rows of bookshelves on every wall, top to bottom. In the back corner furthest from the till, under a large aquarium that twinkled with Guppies and Cherry Barbs, sat a little rosewood table and two armchairs in Cambridge blue sheepskin, set there for patrons who wished to sit and read a chapter before making their purchase.

The till was unattended. They were probably out back enjoying the sun, thought Simon, and proceeded to browse the center aisle. He ran his fingers across the shiny book spines, inhaling the earthy fragrance of the paper. Any book. He could now read any book he chose to. He drew one from the end of the middle shelf.

'Ugh. The Handmaid's Tale.'

It was Isabel's favourite book. Simon had read the first few chapters in college, Isabel had nagged him for years to finish it. She nagged him about a lot of things. After the kid was born, she lost interest in books altogether, so he never finished The Handmaid's Tale. He would have, eventually. If she'd stuck around. If she hadn't been so weak.

He put the book back and continued to browse till he found a three-inch thick, important looking tome entitled Swann's Way. He held it at arm's length and jounced it on his palm: it was as heavy as Crime and Punishment. Perhaps not quite. But heavy.

'Cracking the flags out there, ay!' came a voice from behind him.

He turned to see a little blonde girl in a white crop top leaning over the till. He didn't recognise her. She must be new.

'Aye, you could cook a steak on that tarmac,' he said and walked over. 'I'll take this one, please.'

He handed her the book. As she checked the sleeve and drummed the buttons on the till, he tried hard not to stare. She was chewing gum with her pink mouth wide open. Her shoulders were burnt and sequined with peeling skin that glistened under her sweat like pearl. He could smell her body odour scratching at her perfume; a sweet and obliquely vaginal scent, one that would follow him in the decades to come.

'Do you want this gift-wrapped?' she said.

'No. Thank you, it's for me.'

Simon swiped his credit card and scurried out of the shop. The sun dropped its burning heel on him, pinning him to the pavement. He hung his head and clasped his hands behind his neck. How old was that girl? Eighteen? Seventeen? He was about to walk to his car, but glancing into the shop window he saw something he hadn't noticed on the way in: a book he'd recently heard about, propped center-front of the dressing. He turned around and marched back into Milly's.

'Hello, it's me again.'

'Hi! What can I do for you?' said the girl.

'Can you get Milly for me, please?'

'Milly? I think you mean the old owner. She hasn't been here for almost a year, I'm afraid. Me and my Grandad run the shop now.'

Simon shook his head reprovingly. Black circles of sweat were budding on his tank top, on his shorts.

'Sir? Are you all right?'

'That book in the window,' he said. 'I saw that book on Youtube. Why are you selling it?'

'I... I don't know.'

'Do you know what that book is about? That book is a step-by-step guide on how to clean out a man in a divorce! A step-by-step guide. Ten years I've been coming here, I tell my friends to come here, I even told my wife about this place! And you throw that shit in my face?'

'Mister,' said the girl, crossing her hands over her chest. 'I'm really sorry. I don't have a say in what goes in the window. I haven't even read it myself.'

'Of course you haven't. Why would you? What are you? Eighteen? Seventeen? You don't know what a divorce is like! You don't know what parenthood is like! Shit, you don't even know what life is like, do you! But you'll prance around in your short skirts with your breasts spilling out of your bra like you can't wait to find out, won't you! I can't even be me in my bookshop any more, can I!'

The girl took a step away from the till and wriggled a hand into her skirt pocket.

'I'm calling the police.'

'Well, you don't have to find out, girly, because I'm gonna tell you right now. I'm gonna teach you a life lesson- right now. Do you have a dog?'

'What?'

'Do you have a-- Put that fucking phone back in your pocket, damn you!'

The girl screamed and tossed the phone in the air. She backed up and slid down the wall and hid behind her knees.

'Do you have a dog!'

'Yes,' she sobbed.

'What's her name?'

'W, Willow... He's a he.'

Simon mounted the till counter and crossed his legs. He looked down at her. Her tears were spilling over her knees and streaking the fake tan on her legs in little white scars, like an infection spreading.

'Let me paint a picture for you,' Simon said. 'You come home one night after working a straight twelve hours hard graft. This won't be a familiar picture to your kind, I'm sure, but do your best to imagine it.'

'Please! Please don't hurt me...'

'You walk in and nobody's around. Hello? Hello? The house is a mess. Dirty dishes left in the sink. There's no dinner for you in the oven or in the fridge. What has happened here? Willow? Here, boy! You go upstairs to your bedroom. And this is where it clicks, baby. This is where it all starts to make sense.'

Simon jumped off the till counter and knelt in front of her. He slid his nose in-between her shins and pressed his brow on her knees, on her cool tears. She squealed but didn't move.

'You won't even know how you did it,' he whispered. 'But this is where you find the box, this, thisss... is where you lift the lid off and you see, not like Pandora, but like Plato. The big reality. Do you know what you find? Huh? When you pull back the blanket? You know what you find underneath?'

The girl was shuddering violently. Terror screeched up and down her bones like an axe on a whetstone. Simon stood up and rolled back his shoulders and shook the sweat from his hair.

'A big, black, imprint where your family used to be. Combusted. Like a firecracker, burnt into the mattress. And on your side of the bed is Willow: he's scorched the deepest and the blackest into the fabric; his figure is a gaping black hole that you can't take your eyes off. Then the truth hits you and hits you so damn hard, like... like an ant under a magnifying glass in tropical sun. The truth is, they're just shadows, lying together, having the same dream... Nothing more. They've floated right past you, under you, in the tunnels, the brightly lit tunnels that you built.'

Simon put his hand on the girl's shoulder.

'Hey... I'm not going to hurt you, whatever your name is.'

The girl had stopped sobbing. She lifted her head tentatively and looked up at him.

'But I'm not weak. There's no room in the shadows for men like me, because we aren't ashamed to be men. We don't dream, so that you can dream. Dream of whatever it takes to forget about us. Do you understand that? Tell me you understand that... Tell me, damn you!'

Kshhhhk! The aquarium in the corner shattered, water gushed and fish tumbled out and flapped around on the table and in the sheepskin chairs. Simon turned around to see an old man pointing a pistol at him. He looked down his tank top where a black circle was expanding a couple of inches above his hip.

                                   ***

Simon survived the gunshot. After he was taken away in an ambulance, the policeman that first arrived on the scene, Officer Bruley, discovered Simon's Mini Cooper. He broke the window with his baton and lifted Daisy from the back seat as fast and gently as he could. But she had died from heatstroke a while ago. Isabel was notified, she identified her baby daughter's body later that day.

That night in bed, Officer Bruley said to his wife, 'This bloody heat, will it ever end?'

'Oh, stop it and go to sleep,' said Mrs. Bruley. 'Did you let the dog out?'

'Yes I did.'

'Don't be stealing my side of the mattress again, will you?'

'Me?' protested Officer Bruley. 'What about you!'

He sat up and switched on the television. By the time he had to get dressed and go to the station, he hadn't slept a wink. There was so much more work to do than he'd planned on. He loved his wife and his children very much.