Flashes of Speculation

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  • Date: Sunday, December 16, 2007 Time: 8:20 pm Category: Stories Discussion: 6 Comments

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I was sitting at the reception desk, shivering in my thin wool dress and wishing my employer could afford coal delivery, when the phone rang.  It was my Aunt Elyse.  “I found it!” she said.

I tried to remember if she had lost anything.  But other than her life’s savings, which we had all lost in the collapse, nothing came to mind.  “Found what?”

“A way through.”

I glanced toward the hallway where my boss had just emerged from his office.  “I haven’t got time.  What should I bring today?”

“Nothing.”

Mr. McGillen was almost within earshot.  “Right.  Gotta go.” I hung up, but not soon enough.

“That better not have been a personal phone call.”

“No, sir.  Just another question about when we’d have those tires for Best Dairy’s delivery fleet.”

He scowled.  “You’d think those assholes hadn’t heard about the shortages.  Do they think manufacturing-grade petroleum grows on trees?”

I considered pointing out that petroleum had, in fact, once been trees.

“No more personal phone calls.  I can replace you with a dozen girls who’ll work three times as hard.”

“Yes, sir.” I watched him stomp away and wondered, as I often did, if a legitimate job was all it was cracked up to be.  Surely I could find employment on the black market that would subject me to less abuse.

After work I went to three different grocery stores, standing in long lines each time.  Although Aunt Elyse said she wanted nothing, no way was I letting my only near relative starve. I used my scrip to buy a bag of potatoes and some beans.

When I got to her apartment, I found her in good spirits.  Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkling.  She accepted my offer of food with good grace, but said, “This wasn’t necessary.  I found a way through.”

I looked at her sharply.  She hadn’t snapped under the strain of the recent troubles, had she?  “Yes,” I said.  “But we still have to eat.”

“That’s why I made sure to find it.” She pointed to a paper sack on the floor.  “That’s for you.  Enjoy.”

Inside the sack were riches—cans of soup, a box of crackers, a jar of salted peanuts, several cans of condensed milk, and a crinkly blue package that looked like something I should recognize, but didn’t.

“Oreos!” Aunt Elyse crowed with delight.  “And on sale, too!” When I hesitated, she added, “Go on, try one.”

The chocolate cookie was cloying in its sweetness, but left me craving another.  “What did you do?  Trade your jewelry on the black market?”

“No,” she said patiently.  “I found my way through.  To the past.”

“Impossible,” I said through a mouthful of crumbs.

“Maybe so, but you can draw your own conclusions.”

For the next few weeks, each time I went to her apartment she had some strange new bounty for me.  One time it was olive oil, another time it was a box of white sugar.  She gave me tomato sauce in jars and potato chips in crinkly bags that seemed a decadent waste of petroleum.  With Christmas approaching, she offered me gingerbread and a box of candy canes, which I distributed at the office, earning the gratitude of my co-workers and suspicious looks from Mr. McGillen.

Throughout the crazy days of my aunt’s gifts, she seemed to grow younger.  The creases around her eyes softened, her dull cheeks grew rosy and her gnarled and spotted hands became smooth and nimble.  But when I questioned her, she would only say, “I already told you.  I found a way though.”

On Christmas Eve I knocked on her door, shivering in my patched coat and holding a box wrapped in brown paper that I had decorated using pens and ink pads at the office when Mr. McGillen was in meetings.  Inside the box was my gift to Aunt Elyse—a clumsy but warm sweater I had knitted myself.

When she didn’t come to the door, I let myself in but she was nowhere to be found.  On the table was a stack of boxes wrapped in shiny paper and stuck with bows, and on the seat of her favorite chair was an envelope with my name on it.  I picked it up and pulled out the card, dislodging a shower of glitter from a printed image of a snowman.  In Aunt Elyse’s tidy hand were a few cryptic words.

I sat and read the card again.  Then I went to the table and began opening the boxes.  They contained an old-fashioned plaid skirt, an acrylic sweater, real nylon stockings, and soft boots of plastic leather-like material.  And in a small flat box was a string of synthetic pearls on a nest of pink rayon.

I shed my second-hand clothes and dressed in my new petroleum finery.  Then I picked up the card and read it again.  Nibbling an Oreo that I found on a plate by Aunt Elyse’s chair, I made my way to the bedroom.  It seemed like any other room, but the instructions on the card were clear.

I could always come back, right?

I stepped into the closet, an odd little space that had once been a doorway connecting something to somewhere.  I made my way to a dark nook where wallpaper and sheetrock had been torn away.  Still clutching cookie crumbs in my sweaty palm, I closed my eyes and launched myself at the wall as the room tipped sideways and went black.

In the darkness I called out.  “Aunt Elyse!” Then I knew nothing.

I came to, surrounded by warmth and a glow of twinkling lights.  I breathed the heady aroma of roasting turkey, fresh bread, and other wonderful foods that only the rich could afford.  Somewhere there was music and a woman’s laugh, like the sound of happy bells.

“Merry Christmas, dear.  Welcome back to the oil age!”

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