All Four Won and One Moor by Mark Blaise

Author:Mark Blaise
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2012-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Sharon did not have another drink since just before sex and has sobered up. Hunter has had a few more. He has invited Warren over to join him by the pool and for margarita. The sun begins to sink in the sky and the air begins to cool. They both eventually pull on t-shirts and cover their legs with dry beach towels.

Sharon does not hear my car pull past the security checkpoint and into the driveway. Neither does Maggie. They play a game in the living room of their own invention involving pots and pans and marbles. I think to start my conversation with Sharon by saying, “A lifeguard down at the beach rapped on my window to ask me if I had been hit by lightning within the past thirty minutes. And I said, ‘Why would you think it was me?’ He said something back like, ‘You’re the only one in the parking lot that looks like he has near-death knowledge.’”

I decide to walk directly into the bathroom rather than join Maggie and Sharon on the floor in the living room. They do not see me walk past. Maggie is busy rolling around on the plush carpeting. I close the door and lean on the edge of the sink. I think to go back out into the living room and start my conversation with Sharon by saying, “I’m all right, Sharon, I mean, I’m hungry. Any doctor will tell you that’s to be expected, especially since my intestines completely emptied. There’s something I must tell you. You’ll never believe who I just met.”

The little irritating noise in my head grows louder when the hum of a car engine or the blast of an air conditioner or the voices of a family are shut out. I let the water in the sink run for a few moments to drown out the noise. Instead of talking first to Sharon, I decide to go outside and walk into the backyard where Warren and Hunter sat drinking all day so I am not alone with the little irritating noise in my head. I practice what I will say to Warren and Hunter by telling the bathroom mirror, “Heather and I were hit by lightning. Of the two of us, I’m the only one that still appears alive. Although even that is an illusion.”

I walk by Maggie and Sharon a second time. They do not look up. The marbles rolling in the pots and pans quiet the little voices buzzing in my ears.

Hunter asks me to go back in the house and get him a bag of garlic and onion flavored potato chips from the cabinet next to the refrigerator. I return with the chips and Warren asks me to go back in the house and fill his glass with water. I return with the water and Hunter says that his water glass is empty too. I return with more water and Warren decides he does not like the chips I got and would rather have the chips that come in a can.

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