I love the idea, and I sent in a story this time, round two. I found it intriguing that they prescribed the story's opening: "The nurse left work at 5 o'clock." Most of the selected stories - and I assume most of the submissions - picked up on the ominousness of this opening. Why do we care about a nurse unless it's something sensational or requiring the attention of those for whom simple vocational designations may be enough. Lots of cops - hospitals - etc.
My story was equally dark. I could tell from the judges' selections that the story below was not going to fair well - not character-driven enough, a bit too pretentious and with its sketchy symbolism, a tad too much. On the other hand, I didn't like the stories they selected for the most part. Puffs of character sketches, not always well written. Sour grapes are in that statement, but there is something in vinegary insight, too.
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Vector
The nurse left work at five o'clock. Did she look around any differently that day? Could she feel the first flush? We don't know. I do know that I ride the same bus, sometimes the very same schedule, 5:10 downtown route. On that muggy August afternoon, there was an oppressive yellow brown haze, at the tail end of a heat wave and a merciless summer. But the smog and late sun would have softened the silhouettes, made the sidewalk grime seem less like decay, maybe more like dirt. She made the bus and got in.
The bus would have tinted everything blue again, a mockery for tired eyes: bluish fluorescents and purple adhesive filters on the windows. In that light, everything seems foreign and unforgiving, even the seatbacks and handholds glistening from hands and human oils. There were twenty-three people on and off the bus during her ride. Five would later sit where she sat.
Those great panes of glass frame the world for you, despite the disconcerting jolts, while spots and smudges remind you that others have come before. You grow accustomed to two-second stories of this construction worker ambling alone; that couple bouncing out of sync as they walk in a one-arm hug; those kids gathered round a handheld, craps or drugs, you can't be sure. Then the bus stops and you look impatiently at a world of cars and pedestrians still moving, while you wait on a green light or someone to board.
I don't know her name and address. She got off seven stops later. Did she have far to walk? I ride on, but once I did get off. The neighborhood was lifeless, but no longer quarantined; it seemed no different than my neighborhood, maybe nicer. How many did she greet? If we only knew who she was, but it's better you don't, we are told.
The heat aided this vector. It became the most prolific, the most deadly - so many that we lost track, and so much has come since then, it's understandable. Sometimes I feel like her personal historian, even though I only know her from her routine. That one afternoon in her neighborhood, a chill gray October day, I wanted to knock on doors until I met someone who could point to the building and window. I wanted so badly to bust in the front and any subsequent doors until I stood in the doorway to her bedroom, the one from which she never emerged. Is it still, I would have asked for effect, right to have lived?
She might have answered, her strength waning with the reddish sunset: not with what you know, not for this. But it is, I want to say, looking out the open window at the sun's last lip, it is. Just tell me your name.
