Fiction: Anxiety, Mi Amor

By Alex Rogers

 

            Off. Off. Off. Off.

            Pete Dwindle checked the stove.

            Off. Off. Off. Off.

            He’d already checked the stove several times before.

            Off. Off. Off. Off.

            The stove had four burners and Pete checked all four of them all over again.

            Off. Off. Off. Off.

            One. Two. Three. Four.

            I declare a thumb war. 

            Knock it off, Pete! he scolded himself within. Stay focused!

            Now, once more, he’d have to check that all four of the burners were turned off.

            He made crucially sure that the notch on each dial aligned with each printed word…

            Off. Off. Off. Off.

            He glanced at the kitchen clock.

            Seven minutes left.

            You got this, Pete, he told himself with kinder thoughts. He straightened his spindly posture, pointed a thin finger at each of the burners, and checked them again, slower now.

            Off…Off…Off…Off…

            This could be maddening. 

            Pete Dwindle had a problem. And he knew it, he just didn’t dare admit it, but he knew that, for some reason, he couldn’t plainly trust what his eyes could clearly see. His eyes reported a factual truth to him: all four of the stove burners were, and had been, fully turned off. Oh, he’d used the left-most burner to cook up some sausages, but that had been an hour earlier, and since then, the left-most burner, along with the remaining three burners to its right, had been successfully, completely, totally turned off. But, for Pete Dwindle and his personal condition, visual facts weren’t often enough. Sure, he could intellectually, biologically, mechanically, even verbally, confirm that the entire stove had been, indeed, turned off, but still! 

            That awful gnawing feeling. 

            Maybe he missed something. 

            Maybe his eyes were lying to him.

            Maybe each time he checked one burner, the dial on the previous burner he’d checked somehow slipped just a few degrees off from the Off position.

            He glanced at the kitchen clock.

            Six minutes left.

            Pete knew he was entering a risky window of time. He really should’ve left the house by now. But here he was, stuck in place, checking this damn stove, again and again and again. Sweat dotted his brow and he voluminously exhaled, now speeding up the count.

            Off-Off-Off-Off.

            Again. Faster.

            Off-Off-Off-Off!

            Again. Faster.

            OffOffOffOff!

            This wasn’t working, either.

            Pete Dwindle turned away from the stove, irritated, even exasperated. After all, he only had six, no, less than six minutes left. Why did his condition have to start acting up now, when he needed to be at his sharpest, most capable, most professional, most reliable self? 

            His team was counting on him.

            They’d deputized him, hadn’t they? They pinned a tin star on the chest of his salmon-colored onesie, didn’t they? That was a tin foil hat they put on his head, wasn’t it? Well, actually, the tin foil hat in question was made of aluminum, not tin, but nobody really cared about that, however, the tin star in question absolutely was made of tin, but nobody really cared about that, either. What mattered was: Pete Dwindle had been recruited, he was part of the team, and he had a mission to accomplish.

            So, finish what you started, soldier! Pete commanded his mind.

            He turned back towards the stove and pointed his thin finger at the dials once more.

            Off. Off. Off. OFF.

            There. Finally. It was done. 

            The stove had been off the entire time, but this time, it all felt and looked right.

            Pete grinned, shaking his head, marveling at how he could be so hung up on checking the stove in the first damn place. Oh well, better safe than sorry.

            He glanced at the oven. He didn’t have to check that.

            He then glanced back at the kitchen clock.

            Five minutes left. 

            Time to make a smooth, if not somewhat hasty, exit. 

            Wait.

            Something else needed checking, too.

            Pete left the kitchen and strode down the hallway, turning right at the open bedroom door.

            He checked to make sure the bedroom lights had been turned off. The evident dimness proved it, but Pete’s condition insisted he should turn on the lights just once more, just to see a comparison, and then he would turn the lights off one final time, for good.

            When his thin fingertips flipped up the switch, the lights came on, and the people who owned this house were right where Pete had left them: tied up and gagged in their own bed.

            A man and a woman. 

            Spouses.

            Prisoners.

            Lights on, Pete took a closer look at the dehumanized couple. He then reached into the right breast pocket of his salmon-colored onesie and took out his phone, swiftly swiping his thumb across the screen until he arrived at what he was searching for, which was a photo of what these two people looked like normally. 

            The faces in the photo on the screen looked healthy, happy, and hopeful.

            The photo’s caption read:

            Ted and Elaine Lelouch, the power couple behind The Seaweed Project. 

            Pete took another look at the pair of lumps in their bed, making a quick study of their tear-swollen eyes and runny noses and bruise-bound limbs, then looked back down at the photo.

            Yeah, he thought. Close enough.

            Then, he noticed the clock on his phone.

            Four minutes left. 

            He turned off the lights and hurriedly exited the bedroom, ignoring the muffled pleas left behind in the darkness.

            Further down the hallway, the open bathroom door snagged Pete’s focus, and he halted. He went inside. He clicked on the bathroom light. He checked to make sure the toilet seat was shut. It was. He checked to make sure the shower faucet wasn’t dripping. It wasn’t. He checked to make sure both the hot and cold handles of the bathroom sink had been turned off. They had.

            As he was about to click the light back off, Pete caught his reflection in the bathroom’s grand mirror. He thought he looked pretty darn neat in his aluminum foil hat—that twisted point at the top was like the spiral horn of a metallic unicorn—and the tin star pinned to the left breast pocket of his salmon-colored onesie looked just like a sheriff’s badge. No, not sheriff. Marshall. That suited Pete Dwindle much nicer. 

            Gazing upon his reflection, peering into the tin star, Pete remembered standing at attention when his team leader had pinned it on him.

            “Our country needs to be cleansed,” he’d been told.

            Pete tapped the hard metal on his chest.

            “The Seaweed Project cannot come to fruition,” he’d been told.

            Pete tweaked the crinkled metal on his head.

            “Only you can prevent it,” he’d been told.

            Pete looked into the mirror image of his eyes and gave himself a curt nod. 

            Down went the switch, off went the light, and out he went from the void bathroom.

            Rounding the corner back into the kitchen, Pete noticed the oven again, but he still didn’t have to check that.

            He then couldn’t help but also notice the kitchen clock, and this time, time had gotten critically short. 

            Three minutes left.

            Only three minutes. 

            That’s okay, Pete rationalized. It’s not great, but that’s okay. Still, I better be off!

            But then…that word…stuck in his brain.

            Off.

            Oh no.

            Off. Off.

            You’ve got to be kidding me.

            Off. Off. Off.

            Was it worth checking once more?

            Off. Off. Off. Off.

            There he stood, in front of the stove, checking it all over again.

            With less than three minutes to go.

            “Fuck!” Pete Dwindle shouted.

            What I need is a witness, he rapidly thought. If I could just call someone, someone who’d just confirm with me that the stove is really off, then I wouldn’t have to keep checking it!

            But who could Pete call? He was far too embarrassed to call his team leader, let alone his fellow teammates. And to call his family was out of the question. 

            Wait. 

            He thought of someone.

            Pete whipped out his phone and thumbed the most cherished app on his screen:

            goddesswhore.com

            He was auto-logged-in. His thumb tapped the icon titled ‘favorites’.

            And he found who he was looking for.

            Johana_Squirt. 

            She was online. What a relief!

            Johana_Squirt was the absolute favorite of Pete’s favorite webcam models.

            Her user icon depicted her standing alone on a Brazilian coastline with her yellow bikini top losing the soft battle against gravity as it slowly slipped from the swollen fringes of her plump purple nipples.

            Pete tapped that. 

            Next, his phone screen revealed Johana_Squirt, in real time, deep at work in her office. 

            Now, for a webcam model like Johana_Squirt, an “office” looked more like a bedroom. In fact, it was a bedroom—a gaudy boudoir of garish colors and guilty pleasures—and laid back though it appeared, this was just one of many goddesswhore.com offices in a large building peopled with many goddesswhore.com employees, and these ladies hustled those bedrooms better than any Wall Street tycoon could ever wetly dream upon.

            And Johana_Squirt was a top earner. 

            She knew how to play.

            She performed with brilliance for the unblinking eye of the omnipresent computer. 

            For this evening, Johana_Squirt was merely attired in a pair of torn denim short-shorts and a high-rising orange crop top. Hair up, wisps down. No makeup. And she was shaking her delightful curves to the swing of a rock-n-roll song blaring from her bedroom-office’s speakers—a rock-n-roll song that’d been recorded one hundred years ago that very night.

            This was just how Pete Dwindle liked her.

            However, Pete was not alone in his appraisal of Johana_Squirt. An unseen global audience of mostly-masturbating men were also here, online, to get lucky, to sneak a peak, or to take Johana_Squirt into a private chat. Endless writing. Endless urging. Endless jerking.

            On the side-bar of his phone screen, Pete could see the scrolling mayhem of messages that all the other users were sending her:

            <Show tits!>

            <Show ass!>

            <Show feet!>

            <Shaved?>

            <Pee?>

            <Vomit?>

            <Blood?>

            Assholes, thought Pete.

            Everybody has a proclivity towards a certain body part, and Pete was no exception. In fact, Pete was partial to belly buttons, and he’d learned it was classier to keep his partiality just between Johana_Squirt and himself, to be explored in the private chats they’d enjoy alone together. He now tapped the icon to take her into a private chat, but alas, this time it wouldn’t be for the benefit of the usual navel-gazing, so to speak.

            There were only two minutes left, after all.

            And that’s exactly how many credits’ worth of time he had left in his user account to give to Johana_Squirt, anyway.

            “Hiiiiiiii, babyyyyyyyy!” she greeted him in her super friendly, heavily accented voice. “Welcome back to my room!” Johana_Squirt liked Pete. They’d shared plenty of pleasant interactions together, which often made her daily grind just a little less stressful. Of course, she didn’t really know Pete beyond his being a loyal and polite client, but loyalty and politeness were often hard to come by in a world of men who often come too hard. 

            Pete held up his phone and set it to camera-mode, so she could look at him as well as he could look at her.

            “Hey, darling!” Pete said. Time crunch aside, he was truly glad to see her.

            “How are you?” she asked him, and she sounded sincere about it.

            “Not too shabby,” he matched her sincerity despite the circumstances. “You?”

            “I’m fiiiiiiiine, my love, thaaaaaaank you!” 

            Johana_Squirt then leaned in closer to the cam, observing Pete’s image.

            “Aí, you look so handsome in your tin foil hat.”

            “It’s aluminum.”

            She didn’t care, neither about being corrected nor about the elemental truth of the matter.

            “Listen, darling,” he told her. “I’m only here briefly, and I need your help.”

            “What is it, Pedro?”

            He was momentarily taken aback by that. Pedro? Who the hell was Pedro? Then, Pete remembered that his chosen user name on goddesswhore.com was Pedro. Pedro_Hung.

            He returned his focus to the moment at hand, and said, “Just…listen to my voice…and…pay attention to what I say. Okay?”

            She looked concerned. “Okay, Pedro.” 

            “I’ll make it worth your time. Promise.”

            She looked intrigued. “Okay, Pedro.”

            One minute left.

            This needed to count. Lastly and for all.

            Pete pointed off-camera and clearly spoke to her what he saw:

            “Off…”

            With his other hand, he thumbed his phone screen and tapped an icon in the shape of a red heart, which activated a one-second vibrational surge through a specially hidden device tucked inside Johana_Squirt’s preferred spot.

            She shivered and gasped.

            “Off…”

            He tapped the red heart a second time.

            She trembled and hissed.

            “Off…”

            He tapped the red heart a third time.

            She quivered and groaned.

            “Off…”

            He tapped the red heart a fourth and final time.

            She shuddered and moaned.

            After a short, respectful silence, he asked her, “Did you get all that?”

            Being four heart tokens richer, she replied in a coolly refreshed tone, “Off, off, off, off!”

            Pete sighed in giant relief, because now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, he finally knew that the fucking stove was off, off, off, fucking OFF!

            He told her, “Thanks, darling. I really needed that. I know it probably sounded weird, needing you to hear me say such nonsense back there. But it helps. It helps me. I get…I get scared sometimes. I mean, I-I-I’m not crazy, or anything, I just…I get…I get…”

            “Anxiety, mi amor,” she said.

            “Yeah,” he said.

            He felt very understood.

            Thirty seconds left.

            “I gotta go.”

            “Oh,” she pouted, pointing at her bare midriff. “No belly button?”

            “Aw, not this time, darling, so sorry, but thank you, again, I needed this, bye!”

            “Okayyyyyyyy, babyyyyyyyy, byeeeeeeee!”

            He logged off, pocketed his phone, gave the kitchen one final sweeping glance while still ignoring the oven, then opened the front door, and, at last, made his exit. 

            If Pete Dwindle had dawdled for even one second longer, then he might have been incinerated along with the rest of the house, as it suddenly exploded into a booming fireball directly behind him.

            Right on time.

            His fellow teammates had been waiting outside for him. Similar to Pete, they were all dressed in onesies, different colors each, and each man wore an aluminum foil hat. They hooted and hollered, cheering Pete on as he came racing down the driveway to regroup with them. The elbow patches of his salmon-colored onesie were singed and smokey, and for a moment, he was too dazed to comprehend his own victory. 

            Pete turned back towards the flickering inferno that only sheer seconds ago had been a nice-looking house that belonged to a Ted and Elaine Lelouch, with said Ted and Elaine Lelouch currently cooking to a crisp inside of it. 

            He felt his teammates clap his back and pat his shoulders, jostling him back and forth the way a sports team will congratulate one of their players on a win. 

            “You did it, Pete!” they shouted. “You did it!”

            Yeah, he slowly thought. I did do it, didn’t I? 

            His mission had been simple: locate this house, neutralize the people who lived there, and then, put a timed explosive device inside their gas oven. 

            Piece of cake. Simple as pie.

            Now granted, Pete had been fully aware that the mission would require him to commit:

            Conspiracy.

            Breaking and Entering.

            Kidnapping.

            Physical and Emotional Abuse.

            Arson.

            Terrorism.

            Murder.

            Et cetera. 

            And he still accepted the mission. Gladly.

            Yet, if there was one thing Pete couldn’t stand, it was when his condition got in the way. Sure, he was perfectly willing to be a criminal, but he would not abide any light switch, sink faucet, shower nozzle, or stove burner to be left on. That would have been intolerable. Had he detonated the Lelouch residence without first making absolutely sure that everything had been completely turned off, it would have worried him sick til dawn.

            So, with a little help from a special lady, he’d beaten his own condition.

            For now.

            For now, everything was up in flames and out of his hands. 

            Mission accomplished. 

            The team leader, wearing a lime-green onesie and an extra pointy aluminum foil hat, went up to Pete, grabbed his palm, and vigorously shook his arm up and down like it was made of spaghetti. 

            “Congrats, Dwindle! Didn’t think you had it in you. Came down to the wire, but you blew those elitist shit-bags to smithereens!” The team leader then held up his radio and added, “I’m going to mention in my report to HQ that you’re a daredevil, too, waiting til the last second to come out of an exploding building, all Mr. Action Movie Star right here. They’ll love that!”

            While the team leader radioed HQ, Pete grinned at his approving teammates. 

            They were a group of men in the darkest of night, united by a fire that burned the sky, each aluminum foil hat twinkling red-orange-yellow reflections, every face excited, all hearts set.

            “Good news, team,” the leader announced. “We made it to the semi-finals!”

            The team in unison made the sound that most adrenaline-pumped men will make when things are going well, which was a high-pitched utterance of, “Woo!”

            “I’ll show you what we do next,” the team was told by their leader. “Fall in.”

            Swiftly and softly, they marched in single file away from the blaze-ruined street.

            They followed the leader up into the hills that overlooked the entire city. 

            On their way uphill, they looked back downhill from where they’d come, and new fiery plumes of demolition could be seen erupting among the razed neighborhoods. 

            The competing teams were catching up.

            Pete didn’t care about the competition. He felt so wonderfully connected to his own team. One fellow teammate, a hefty man wearing a stars-and-moons pattern onesie, nudged him and said while bouncing up and down, “Isn’t this exciting? We get to stay up late and blow up shit!”

            At the top of the highest hill they arrived at a ravine, and at its edge, at this time of night, one could look far out and just marvel at the electric sprinkle-sprawl of the city. 

            Parked along the ravine’s edge was a row of highly coveted vehicular machinery.

            “No way!” the hefty stars-and-moons onesie teammate exclaimed. “Warblers!”

            Warblers were essentially sleds, but instead of sliding down snowy hills, they soared across windy skies. They were faster and more agile than the average consumer hover-car, and, unlike such civilian flying vehicles, warblers were equipped with long-range laser weaponry, not to mention stocked with packages of napalm. 

            Warblers were designed by and belonged to the government.

            The team did not belong to nor was affiliated in any way with the government. 

            “Okay, team, now listen up,” the leader told them. “We’ve eliminated the masterminds behind The Seaweed Project. Good job. But, to win that grand prize cash money, we need to eliminate the underlings who would serve such despicable masters.”

            The leader waved his massive lime-green arm out across the glittery cityscape. 

            “They’re down there, gentlemen. In the city. Kill as many as you find. The more you kill, the bigger bucks you get. And guess what? Whoever kills the most gets two free tickets to Orlando!”

            The group of grown men in varicolored onesies unanimously made a rollercoaster sound of, “Ooo-OOOO-oooh!”

            “Now, fly, team!” the leader barked his final orders. “Fly!”

            One man per warbler, each teammate hopped aboard and slid down the ravine.

            The sudden rush of sliding down and then the sudden whoosh of soaring up caused everyone’s aluminum foil hat to go spinning off and away and get lost forever in the night wind.

            They were an airborne flock of bounty killers. On their way to score.

            When they approached the scarred skyline of the city, the team split up, each man acting individually in his own warbler.

            Pete Dwindle, strapped in a kneeling position atop his warbler, coasted over a particular patch of the city that had devolved into an unsolvable pit of total squalor. 

            Downtown.

            This was where he could score big.

            From way up here, it was pitch black down there, this time of night. 

            But he knew they were down there.

            So many of them.

            For this, Pete wasn’t interested in the lasers. He wanted the napalm.

            So, his thin fingers flipped a switch on the warbler’s console and he selected what he wanted. Then, as he flew above the darkness below, he pressed an orange button multiple times, and each time the orange button was pressed, down went dropping a heavy package of napalm.

            From way up here, so high in the sky, Pete wouldn’t be seeing any of the damage he’d be causing, not up close. From his viewpoint, he’d simply watch some pretty puffballs of fire and smoke. Nothing more.

            But if he had been at street level when the napalm hit, then for a flashing burst of illumination he might have glimpsed at who he was exterminating. He might have seen the faces of the families who lived down there, not so much living as surviving. Men, women, and children, all covered in filth and devoid of health. Hopeless and in need, homeless and insane. 

            And if he had been at their level and looked down at the ground when the bombs struck, then he might have noticed strewn all over the pavement many copies of a major newspaper, not so much used for reading as for sleeping. 

            And if he had knelt down to pick up one of these newspapers and read the front page by the harsh light of the volatile petrochemical, then he would have learned something.

            He would have learned that Ted and Elaine Lelouch were generous people who had dedicated their lives to the actual betterment of countless individuals, at home and abroad.

            He would have learned that what Ted and Elaine Lelouch had been working on—The Seaweed Project—was a grassroots initiative that proposed a humanistic program that would give aid to those of lower socio-economic stature, especially to those who were extra vulnerable to mental illness and homelessness.

            And he would have learned that one of the staunchest opponents of The Seaweed Project was the President himself, who was quoted as saying the project was “a waste of resources” and “un-American” and, furthermore, “the faithful ought to do something about it…”

            But Pete didn’t need to read anything or watch anything or learn anything. 

            He was already one of the faithful.

            Besides, the President said it was okay.

            When this is all over, Pete Dwindle thought, I’m taking Johana_Squirt on a date to Orlando.

            He flew on, raining hell as he went.

 

 

 

 

 

Alex Rogers, after reading Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, figured, “How hard can this writing thing really be?” Rogers is a satirical fiction writer whose words range from goofy to grotesque, weaving narratives that are equal parts surreal speculation and comedic commentary. He’s the author of Rogue Helicopter Pilot, a novella you haven’t read yet that bends all genres in a psychedelic journey best described as “Dante’s Inferno meets Hesse’s Siddhartha for a Digital Generation." He lives in Los Angeles with his two cats, Merlin and Osha (the Tuxedo Twins!).