The Reservoir by David Duchovny

Author:David Duchovny
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Akashic Books

Ridley awoke, not sure he didn’t dream the whole thing, with a cough at five p.m. “Kashmir,” or a fifteen- second sample of it, had been playing nonstop for hours and hadn’t gotten through to him. That’s the sleep of the dead, he thought, and shuddered; and then he coughed some more, an unproductive, dry cough.

He got out of bed. His knee was swollen tight and trying to scab. His pj’s smelled slightly pungent of shit. He should probably shower; it had been a minute. There were more concerned text messages from his daughter. He’d been seen again, shirtless in a parka in the park at dawn, but this time with blood on his pants and face. It was so extreme an image she didn’t really believe it, but please just text or call and tell her it’s a misunderstanding? Maybe even FaceTime?

He took no pleasure in worrying his daughter this much. She had a family of her own, a husband, kids—it was selfish of him to let her dangle, but he didn’t really want to speak to her or Skype or Zoom or FaceTime where she would force her kids to talk to him and their unwillingness and boredom and outright lack of joy upon seeing their grandfather on their little phone screens was worse, way worse, than out-and-out neglect. So he texted her: Must be a doppelganger … But the fucking phone, the stupid fucking ignorant arrogant phone, would not spell doppelganger, and he wasn’t even trying for an umlaut; it kept correcting him like it knew better, like it knew his own mind better than he did. The effrontery of these things, the gall—that he would’ve come this far in life and learned, no, mastered so many things just to have this shiny little piece of shit correct him! He wound up to throw the phone out the window, but stopped and told himself out loud to calm the fuck down. His daughter was worried about him. He took a deep breath and coughed. He gave up on typing doppelganger and just texted, Must b a double or some other handsome bloke looks like me poor sucker lol. I’m fine all good/you? Love to the kids. Thanks for checking in. Miss u. Daddio.

He tossed in a couple smiley faces and prayers-of-thanks emojis for good measure, pressed send, and threw the phone as hard as he could against the wall. Paint chips flew from the impact, but the phone, he could see, was intact, landing right ways up like a cat, its screen lit up brightly as if to say, Whoa, that was fun! I’m okay! What should we do now, boss?!

* * *

Ridley kept up his vigil the next few nights, but no dice. No lights from across the park, no upturned face beneath his window. He’d fucked it up. He’d been too aggressive going in for the kiss. He should’ve been satisfied with a hug. He’d scared her away, like some novice high school chump.

But then,

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