This is a slightly different version of the original that was posted--it is still not complete. I will finish it soon. Sherry Headnoise gets credit for the inspiration after sharing her story of finding a tooth in the laundry. Remember, however, that no resemblance to her life or her husband's is implied in the fictional work that follows. The Mystery of the Molar 1 Sheryl never considered herself the inquisitive type, and stories of private investigators sniffing about oily trails in square, gray, urban landscapes didn’t appeal to her, but one never knows where the tracks of one’s life will take one. On a rainy Saturday morning, her otherwise straight path in life took a sharp turn. She had intended to take a walk, literally, down a familiar path that morning--the two mile trail in the park across from her suburban ranch style home. Although the weather was rarely an impediment to her routine of walking four mornings a week, the rain had arrived with ominous clouds and fierce thunder. The trail was in the open and Sheryl had no desire to make herself a target for lightning. Her dad, an avid golfer, had been struck once and was lucky enough to survive. Ever since that event, she had been cautious when there was thunder. On that morning, the clouds were charcoal and lightning streaked across the dark sky every few seconds. The eternal pragmatist, Sheryl decided to get some work done in the house rather than read or enjoy sitting on the love seat and looking through the sliding glass doors at the stewing storm. Laundry was something she normally reserved for evenings, but that morning she made it her first job. She did take time to read The Herald and drink a cup of tea while the first small load ran. The phone rang at the moment the buzzer signaled the end of the wash. She answered and gripped the phone with her chin and shoulder while she transferred laundry from the washer to the dryer. It was Mona, her younger sister on the phone. Mona was recounting the events of the night before while her sister listened and tended to her domestic business. “And this guy stared at me the entire night and didn’t ever talk to me. I don’t know what his problem was. I mean the eye contact was there hot and heavy”. Mona continued with more snippets about the company party she reluctantly attended and when she was saying something about them getting together for shopping later, Sheryl interrupted her. “Mona, hang on a second.” Sheryl thought she heard something drop from the clean wet towels into the washer. It was a clanging sound which she assumed was metal. If clothes had been in there, change would be a likely suspect, but she had done nothing but towels, and most of them had come from the guest bath that her husband Mike used on days when they both had to shower early. They had fairly flexible schedules, but a couple of mornings a week, they left about the same time and Mike used the guest bath. Towels from that bath were washed and changed only twice a month at most. Sheryl couldn’t see anything after hearing the sound, so she ran her hand under the rim of the agitator. She felt something she couldn’t identify by touch and clasped it in her fingers and pulled it from under the agitator. It was still unrecognizable briefly and then she realized what it was. “God, a tooth!” She interrupted Mona who was rambling on about where they would shop that afternoon. She repeated herself, “A tooth--Geez Mona, I found a tooth in the laundry.” “You found a what?? Did you say you found a tooth?” Mona often answered questions she asked herself. “Who lost a tooth? You and Mike didn’t lose any teeth, so where did it come from? Was it in one of Mike’s shirts??” “No,” Sheryl answered. “I was doing towels, and they came from the guest bath. I wish Mike was here so I could ask him if he knew where it came from.” Sheryl looked at the tooth carefully and rolled it around in her fingers. She felt a tiny chill go up her spine. “Mona, let me call you back. I want to see if I can reach him on his cell.” “OK call me as soon as you know anything and let me know if you wanna shop later if the weather gets any better.” The weather didn’t get any better and in fact, the winds bent trees and sent the rain shooting sideways down the streets along with metal trash cans and everything that wasn’t nailed down. She imagined Mike would be in his tenth story office viewing this spectacle. His secretary would be gone and he wouldn’t hear the office phones, but he would answer his cell unless he left it in his car which he often did despite her protests. * * * * * * * * * * * * 2 Late at night, when it is still and only the sound of breathing or a humming fan coats the silence, he would sit and gaze into some space only he could see. She might be there, even inches from him, but she wouldn’t see what he saw, or ask even think to ask. These were his waking dreams, and their forms and shapes were no more visible to her than the air she breathed into the dark night. Trying to tell her about what he saw would be like trying to describe what it was like to smell saddening sounds or hear hissing heat. In those dark times, his senses weren’t in synch with hers or anybody’s. The night before had been one of those nights, when he would stare at the black ceiling, seeing things he should forget but wouldn’t allow himself to. Usually, in the day, when the light brings so many things into specific relief, he wouldn’t go to those places that were both as distant as the stars and as close as the heart. That day, however, something had taken him there--perhaps the lack of sleep or the hypnotic waves of rain he watched wash the wide windows in his office. Whatever it was, the walls that usually kept him from drifting in the brightness of the day had been breached for a few moments and he was back there, until his cell phone rang. For a moment, like a weight on his arms, something tangible pulled at him and kept him from answering the first ring, the second, and the third. On the fourth, he looked at his right hand, and almost as if he commanded it like a remote control mechanical appendage, he said answer the phone. “This is Mike.” “Honey, I was just chatting with Mona and doing the laundry. Didn’t walk because the weather was so bad. Is it really awful down there too, raining buckets and really strong winds?” Sheryl waited for him to respond. “Yes, wicked winds and rain.” He thought for a second. “Giving our windows a good cleaning.” “Mona and I are going shopping if it ever dies down. Wanted to ask you something while I was thinking about it. Found the strangest thing in the washing machine.” She paused long enough to sip her tea and for m Mike to ask, “What did you find?” “You’re not going to believe it. It was a tooth! You have any idea how it got there?” She waited for his response. Mike tried to answer, but his words were stuck in his throat like gravelly hunks of ice. He managed a slow deep breath and said, “A tooth. Hell, how would a tooth get in the laundry?” “Well that’s sure what I wondered honey. I was doing the guest bath towels and since you’re the only one who uses those, I though I’d ask. You suppose we have a homeless person with periodontal problems living in our house when we’re gone.” Sheryl giggled but only briefly. For some reason, she felt anxious asking and thought her giggle was almost nervous laughter. “Perhaps I belong to a fight club and that’s a trophy.” Mike surprised himself with his comeback. Again, he forced a slow deep breath. “You think I really spend all this time at the office now that tax season his over?” He was feeling a bit confident and surprised he was able to keep up the banter. “As long as you’re not seeing another woman who has great boobs and a tight butt. You can be in a fight club if you want. If Brad Pitt is in it, I want to come watch.” She felt a little more at ease and sipped her tea. “You have great boobs and a great butt and what if I told you that was Brad’s tooth? Sheryl laughed. “I would tell you I didn’t believe either statement. If it’s Brad’s tooth though, I’ll have fantasies about it.” “And you call me strange--fantasies about a tooth? You’re bizarre, sweet wife of mine.” “Not any tooth--Brad Pitt’s tooth. I bet you’d get turned on over Angelina Jolie’s toenails.” “You may be right on that count. I better get back to work. Want to get something done if we’re going to have an early evening.” Mike walked toward his windows while Sheryl said, “Yep, get back to work and tell Brad I’ll take any part of his body he wants to lose.” “And if Angelina happens to be around, I’ll grab a couple of her body parts as well. Bye Babe” Mike closed his flip phone and put it back on his belt before Sheryl could respond. By then he was standing by one of his office windows. He placed both palms on the cool glass, took a stance one would take to move a heavy object and pushed on the pane for a very long time. * * * * * * * * * * * * 3 Sheryl didn’t call Mona back after she finished talking with Mike, but sat in the loveseat and watched the waves of rain roll across her deck and backyard. She let the hypnotic power of the gray rolling rain lull her to a place between sleep and consciousness, that place where fact and fiction and symbol, sight, and sound don’t collide but dance among themselves. The tooth, on the end table beside her loveseat, slid on the glass surface silently, endlessly toward her. Her eyes would open and the pearl white molar would slowly come to a halt at the beveled edge of the table. Over and over again, her eyes would close for a few slow, shallow breaths, but open again as if to command the tooth to stop, which it did, although reluctantly, each time. Finally, the ritual ended with a crack of thunder and Sheryl sitting erect on the loveseat, grabbing the tooth and going to the kitchen for water and the phone she had left on the counter. She speed-dialed Mona’s number but pressed the stop button--she did the same with Mike’s number. She held the phone while she took a long drink of water and tried to decide if she should call her sister. When she glanced at the display on the microwave and saw it was 4:00, she was surprised Mona hadn’t called her. She was also wondering why Mike wasn’t home. “Maybe,” she said aloud, “maybe he is home and in the study.” Sheryl made her way down the stairs to the study, a dark hovel of a room behind the garage in their split level home. It had only one small rectangular window facing the back yard, and the Virginia Creeper which grew graciously along the wall and fence had begun to obscure the light of the window as well. On this sunless gray afternoon, the dark mahogany study was as dark as night. Sheryl cautiously moved across the room to the desk to turn on the light. The overhead incandescent bulb had been out for months and the only light came from a desk lamp and the glow of the monitor, now on standby and dark as the room. Before turning on the light, for some reason, she thought of a line from a song or a poem, breathe deep the gathering gloom, watch lights fade from every room. She looked at the outline of the desk, reached down as she had done a thousand times before, and found the button on the lamp. For several seconds she held the switch and imagined Mike was dozing in the recliner and she would turn on the light and wake him from an undeserved nap. When the light did come, it revealed nothing in the recliner but the universal remote. The cell phone, tucked in the hip pocket of her loose jeans, played its song. “Hello.” “Hey sis, what's up? Guess it’s too late to go shopping. Whatcha been doing? Did you talk to Mike?” “I talked to him, but he’s not home yet.” Sheryl slipped into the swivel desk chair and slid the mouse across the pad. “Yep, want some company for tonight? Want me to bring a pizza and a couple of DVDs?” Mona asked. “Mike and I have some plans.” Sheryl entered her screen name and password with one hand while they talked. She looked at her mail and deleted spam. “Oh, that’s right, Saturday night plans.” Thunder clapped again, somewhere in the three miles between their two houses, for the sound hit both their houses with equal intensity. “Wow, that was a loud one. Bet it hit Shadow Mountain.” “Probably so--if it did, Mike’s parents will be deaf after that one” Sheryl started reading an email from someone she knew. “If you change your mind about tonight, let me know. Bye sis.” Mona hung up. Both sisters sat in their homes and listened to the tireless drone of the wind and rain, a solemn breathing sound punctuated only by thunder. Mona thought of her sister in her home across town, and Sheryl was taken to a completely different place by the email she was reading. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 4 Mike pushed against the glass for several minutes before he sat in his comfortable office chair and put his feet on the window ledge. The rain cooled glass had felt good but his arms had actually begun to ache. He hadn’t realized how hard he was pushing on the pane or for how long. He watched the rain filled sky and abandoned any hope of getting something accomplished. The call from Sheryl had robbed him of that privilege. He couldn’t identify something rumbling inside--anger? frustration? sense of impending doom? a combination of all these? He sat for several minutes before calling but rehearsed what to say many times before he finally punched the speed dial number on the key pad. The ringing caused a churning deep in his gut. His thumb was on the disconnect when she answered. “Hello.” “Hi.” The feeling in his stomach was now akin to an ache. “Where do you think we are? Do you think we should go much further right now?” “You have been calling the shots and setting the pace so far. Why are you asking me now?” “I don’t know.” Mike rubbed his abdomen as if this would settle the acid his stress had stewed up. “Are you having second thoughts?” “No. No--I just want to make sure everything is right.” “You’re the one who says there are no guarantees in life.” “Except death and taxes.” He said this in a volume just above the threshold of hearing. “You would know about that for sure, Mr. Accountant Man.” There was a long pause during which the two thought they heard no sound but the other breathing . If the storm was still producing thunder, neither noticed. Both held their cell phones tightly and listened to the soft hisses of breath against the cell mikes. Neither wanted to be the one to make the next utterance. Neither wanted to take another step forward even if just in the world of imagination, where all things are possible and accountability and consequence can be kept at bay. They both waited for the other to take the next step by forming simple words that could set in motion more events they had planned in excruciating detail. Every breath was a countdown to a zero and lift off that could take them to a distant place where there was a shared dream, one unblemished by the reality that burdened them. Whatever had driven them so far had lost just enough momentum to cause hesitation. For both of them, a crack of thunder--the first or tenth since their last words, neither knew for certain--drew them back onto their well traveled path of clandestine trails into the future. Until now, these had been in the airy world of imagining, but somehow, with the first of the plan actually unfolding, they were aware of the reality of gravity. They both felt its presence and both fought to understand its power. Finally, Mike said, “We know what we had planned to do next.” please see below for additional installments--I got a message that I had exceeded the limit of characters for a post
Thanks--no Pard Diane, I don't know where it's going--I just sit down and paint the pictures (images) I see and recite, on the keyboard, the sounds I hear. I have already seen/heard 5 or 6 possible outcomes, and it's likely those tracks will get washed away by some psychic rain or I'll get distracted by some other tracks that go into thicker or darker woods or a hotter desert--who knows??
Ms HeadNoise--how do we know it is Mike who has done something...?we only know he has plans...and what plans are those???
The Mystery of the Molar , continued... (exceeded the character limit for a post, so it is continued here) 5 Sheryl did not know why, with the dim glow of the monitor on her face, she thought about the first time she saw an image of the devil--it was a bright, warm morning in her childhood. She had heard about Satan and Hell mostly from her brother, Donny, whose eight year old theological sophistication described hell as place to which one was doomed if they committed some finite number of sins. He wasn’t sure about the exact number, but he estimated about a hundred. His religious perspective did not include the concept of redemption. Once one committed that specified number of sins, one was doomed to eternal damnation. Donny wasn’t clear on precisely what hell was except it was hot and unpleasant and the devil was in charge. Where Donny got these ideas was never quite clear to Sheryl. She assumed a neighbor had told him, perhaps the same one who had the book with the picture of the devil. He hadn’t gotten these ideas from her parents who only mentioned religion in the semi conscious context of everyday speech with comments like “thank God for that”, or “we better pray that doesn’t happen”, etc. Sheryl remembered being frightened by Satan and Hell into her early adolescence, seeing the visage of the devil when she closed her eyes at night. The picture she saw that warm morning in St Louis, when she was six, formed an indelible image in her mind--glossy half page realistic painting of the prince of darkness with reddish brown hair, two small horns, a pitchfork and a countenance the likeness of the Quaker Oats man, but with a simultaneously endearing and terrifying smile. More than a dozen years later, when they were undergraduates, Sheryl asked Donny about where he got those ideas. He neither recalled telling her such imaginings nor the picture they both saw on that summer morning. Sheryl sat in the dark study, in the waning hours of that rainy day, and wondered why she had been taken back to that morning, which at the time of its occurrence in the 1970s seemed to have little impact on her, but served later to be the sharp edge of fear when the ruddy face of Satan would appear to her in the black ceiling above her head in her room and behind her tiny eyelids she tried in vain to use to protect her from his eerie beguiling stare. She could not recall how many years it had been since she saw that face and wondered if it would keep her awake that night. The email she had read, which coincided with the last blasts of thunder in that stormy, black dusk was terse and disturbing, but the link to those vivid scenes of childhood was beyond her. The email merely read: Hi Sheryl--I have been thinking about you. Please don’t be alarmed, but I have been worried and not just because of your recent stressors. There is something else I would like to talk to you about. I don’t want to put it in an email, because I’m not sure I would get it right and you know how the two dimensional cyber world lacks the richness and understanding we can get in person. Please call me when you get a chance. Your friend and brother in spirit, Reverend Bill Parker Sheryl read the message several times, each time hoping she would come closer to deciphering its cryptic meaning. What was Bill trying to tell her? Why did this man, with whom she had only two or three short conversations, whose church she had only attended a dozen times, presume to have some inside track about her? She only knew that something was wrong, and she knew this long before his email. Reading it, especially given the limitations of their previous communications, made her more anxious than curious, and she attributed this reaction to her general sense of uneasiness she was experiencing but not acknowledging until that rainy afternoon and the discovery of the tooth. She sat for a long time, left leg tucked under her hips, chin resting on her palms, dark hair tucked behind her ears until she noticed on her monitor it was 6:06. At the precise moment she became cognizant of the time, she heard the garage door make its loud labored trip upward and she knew Mike was home. She breathed deeply, deliberately and slowly, trying to calm herself. Her right hand moved instinctively to her sweater pocket where the molar was. She didn’t remember placing it there or even putting on the sweater. Sheryl again rolled the hard grooved soft surface of the tooth around in her fingers, and again felt a chill in her spine. She turned on the desk lamp which she hadn’t remembered turning off and held the tooth up to the burning bulb. What she expected to see or how she expected this examination would calm her spirit, she did not know. After a few short breaths, the door from the garage opened and she turned off the light and slid the tooth into her pocket without saying a word. “Hey Hon, why are you sitting in the dark?” Mike was in the room and Sheryl felt she could not move. What deep force held her motionless and taciturn was beyond her ken. “Mike. How was your day?” The words came from her mouth but she felt strangely disconnected from them. Her hand was again on the molar as she turned to look at her husband, now standing within arms reach of her. She leaned back in the chair and wondered what he could read in her face. She gripped the tooth so hard her nail cut into her palm. She could see Mike smiling and his expression took her back to a St Louis morning and countless nights of staring into the emptiness that was filled with only one haunting image. new in blue 6 Mike walked quickly to the master bath on the other end of the house from the den where he left his wife sitting in the gathering night. He closed and locked the bathroom door behind him and looked in the mirror almost as if he was seeing what, if anything, his expression might be revealing. He took the object from his pocket and put it exactly where he had planned to. He flushed the empty toilet and turned the water on just long enough to appear for him to have had time to wash his hands. When Mike left the bathroom, he almost expected to see Sheryl waiting for him in the bedroom. She was not and he found her still sitting in the chair in the den, legs tucked under her and staring into the monitor which had the AOL welcome page. When she heard him return to the room, she turned slowly and looked at him without saying a word. Her expression seemed to ask an ominous question, but he reassured himself that she couldn't possibly know anything. "Feel like going to eat and then to a late movie?" He asked. Sheryl's response seemed to occur in slow motion with her words trudging through the dark air like a tug in dense fog. "I was in the mood to go out...now I am thinking take-out and pay per view...well, I guess we did have plans...why don't we...uh...what do you want to do...? "It's up to you. I'm OK either way. Want to try the new Chinese on 51st or is Pizza OK?" "I don't care--you decide." Again, her words flowed through thick water and he knew something was wrong. "I'll get Chinese. Might as well try them out. Our new secretary says they're good. Do you know what you want?" "Get me whatever you are having, but not spicy." "Regular rice or fried?" Mike started to breath a little easier with their casual exchange about the food. Maybe she doesn't suspect anything he told himself. "Regular." Mike headed for the door and he could tell her eyes were following him. "Aren't you going to call in advance?" Sheryl's words were now zipping through the room and sounding more like a policeman's tone during interrogation than the oozing self doubting utterances he heard a minute before. "I don't know for sure what they have. I need to take a look at the menu." He said nothing else and went into the garage and had his cell phone out and was dialing before the garage door closed behind him. He rebuked himself for not waiting until he was out of the view of their house before he called. She answered on the first ring just as the Camry pulled onto their wooded residential street, now lined with leaves and even a few fallen branches in the aftermath of the fierce storm. "Hello--what's up? Why are you calling so quickly. I thought you were going out? Did something happen? Did you do what we planned?" "Yes, I did it, but I think she knows something is going on." Mike noticed he was driving forty and he hadn't yet reached the boulevard. "I think she knows something." "Why? How could she possibly know anything?" There was a harsh tone in her voice. "You tell me." Mike notcied the hostile tone in his own words. "Have you ever said anything to anybody?" "Hell no. Have you?" "You know me better than that. I am more cautious than I need to be." Mike was at the stop sign at the end of their street when asked the following. "Have you called me whenever you were even near anybody--somebody you may have thought was a stranger? Have you called me from work when anybody else was there?" He turned the corner and headed towards the light at 51st street. She nearly said no immediately but something kept her from making such a resolute statement. Her pause was unsettling to him, enough so that he repeated his last question. "Have you called me from work when anybody was there?" Lying on her bed, her phone stuck to her ear like a plastic appendage, and her heart beginning to quicken its pace, she said, "Yes, I think I called you a couple of times when someone was at work with me. Not in the same room." "You called me from the church when someone was there." A horn behind him reminded him the light had changed and he slowly pressed on the accelerator pulling farther away from his street in the dark night.
I promise I will get back to this soon--have been side tracked by need to write some other things but will provide more soon--chapter 6 is under construction and the rest is swirling around in my head
OK - you've got me. I'll be checking for more. Already trying to guess what the mystery is! Thanks for the lunchtime stimulation! Now I'd best get back to the daily grind. Terri-Lee
