What Happened on the Corner of Martin Street?

Callahan discovers herself in a town where some things are not quite right. Accompanied by her wife and a boy she has never met, she has to solve her own mystery of how her life changed so suddenly.

 

The Lovers.

At 6:02 pm, July 22^nd of the year 2009, Callahan Vasquez woke up face down on the grimy tile of Bart’s Convenience Store on the corner of Martin Street. Groggy, she inhaled deeply as she opened her eyes, inadvertently vacuuming dust up into her nose.

Rising to her knees, her head immediately protested the movement, pounding from a sudden and intense migraine. Squinting, she pressed her fingers against her temple to null the pain as she stood up. Her knees popped loudly as she stood, and her back felt stiff as a board.

As Callahan came to the awareness of the oddity of how she had woken up, her brain immediately scrambled for the memory of how she had fallen asleep in the first place. She couldn’t recall drinking enough to have blacked out. In fact, she couldn’t recall drinking at all. She hadn’t needed to indulge in alcohol for fun since she had married the love of her life three years ago.

Armed with the logic that her circumstance was illogical, Callahan dusted the dirt off her jeans as best she could before stumbling through the aisles of the corner store. The scuffing of her shoes against the floor felt much louder than it should be. Stopping to stand still for a moment, she became aware of how quiet it was around her. The silence was deafening, as if the entire world had shut up in that moment in order to drown her thoughts.

Reluctantly accounting the sound sensitivity to her migraine, Callahan continued to the front of the store where she found there to be no cashier. On the counter, ready to be rung up, there sat a single box of variety tampons of the same brand that she and her wife always kept in their bathroom cabinets. She rang the bell for assistance then, hoping the cashier could give her bearings as to why she was laying on the floor moments ago.

Her eyes wandered and settled upon a figure standing outside of the window of the store. Immediately recognizing the messy mop of dark hair from the back, Callahan took one last glance at the break room door to see if the cashier would return, before walking out the door and approaching her wife.

“Charlie,” her voice trailed off in confusion as she realized that her wife was holding her head as if she too had a migraine, “what are you doing here?” 

Charlie looked up at her slowly, a questioning look in her eye. She then looked beyond Callahan at the empty sidewalk and street. Considering Martin Street was nestled into the center of the shopping district of Westport, the emptiness of the street at dusk was a rare sight to see.

“Charlie,” Callahan tried again after watching her wife take in the surroundings with a bewildered look as if the sky had suddenly changed colors, “do you remember how we got here?”

“No,” Charlie responded slowly, still trying to make sense of her memories as well.

Suddenly concerned for herself and Charlie’s safety as she watched her usually spunky wife squint at the sidewalk as if she had never seen cement before, Callahan reached into her pocket to pull out her cell phone. Perhaps they had been drugged and robbed. She wanted to inform somebody of their location in case they were in any danger. Her attempted phone calls gave her nothing but dial tones.

“Cal, something is really off, babe,” Charlie spoke from the sidewalk where she had sat down as Callahan fussed with her phone. She held up her hand and started counting off on her fingers the things she had deemed to be wrong, “There’s nobody on the street, we can’t get ahold of anybody by calling them, my head really f*****g hurts, and I’m pretty sure the leaves on that tree shouldn’t be blue.” 

Glancing over at the tree in question, Callahan scratched her scalp as she took in the unnatural sight. Charlie wasn’t joking, the fern tree settled into a planter along the sidewalk did, in fact, have sea blue leaves.

The Chariot.

“Uh,” Callahan began, but found herself at a loss for words. Both her and her wife were tired and confused in front of a gross convenient store with a blue-leaved fern, “Yeah, I think you’re right that something is not right.” She reached into her jeans’ pocket and fished out her car keys, “I think we should go home, Charlie, can you stand up?”

Helping Charlie to her feet, Callahan lead her wife down the street, looking for their truck, assuming it must be parked nearby. They found it a block down, the only vehicle parked along the curb that is usually packed full of cars.

Charlie mumbled oddities that she was noticing out the window of the car as Callahan drove in the direction of their home. Callahan considered that perhaps this was a dream, as there was no logical explanation for Charlie describing the discoloring of all natural plants and the absence of any human life along the city streets of downtown Westport.

When they reached the edge, Charlie spoke Callahan’s theory aloud, “I’m dreaming,” she stated in awe, as the two women looked upon a vast, seemingly never-ending grass field that cut off the road suddenly. Where there should have been a stoplight, there was an edge of town, as if somebody had cut out a portion of Westport and plopped it onto a sea of endless green.

“If I’m dreaming, you would tell me right?” Charlie turned to Callahan and grabbed onto her arm gently, “Cal, this is some weird science-fiction s**t.”

“I agree,” Callahan replied, “and yes, I believe I would tell you if you were dreaming, but I don’t think this is a dream.”

Charlie grabbed the truck keys from Callahan’s hand, tugging her along back towards the truck. She insisted they follow the edge of the town, navigating the truck to dead-end after dead-end roads that all lead to the same sea of green. Callahan sketched a map onto the back of the truck manual, and came to the conclusion that the town had been cut off in a perfect circle, surrounded by grass all around that stretched as far as the horizon.

After hours of mapping their surroundings, she and Charlie found themselves standing on the edge of town. Laying down, Callahan stared at the sky as Charlie settled to lay in the grass with her. It occurred to her that it was dusk when she awoke at the convenience store, and it was still dusk after what seemed like half a day of wandering. Charlie groaned in frustration next to her, catching Callahan’s attention.

            “These grass blades are, like, glued to the ground. I can’t pull any of them out!” Charlie exclaimed, clearly frustrated with the inability to pick grass blades. Callahan attempted to tug on a grass blade, and was met with the same resistance that Charlie had described. She turned to her wife then and asked her if she was scared. As Charlie shook her head and clarified that she was merely confused, not scared, Callahan felt the fear that was creeping up on herself dissipate.

The Hanged Man.

            After stocking up on enough canned food and water bottles for the day, shoving their haul into the bedside of the truck, Callahan and Charlie set out to drive the streets of their circle of town. Callahan continued to map the layout of the town, determining that the circle was about 3 miles in diameter, and centered around a small public park.

            Callahan was astonished to have found another human being sitting on a park bench, staring ahead of himself with bulky headphones covering his ears. He looked young, no older than 20, with a very small build. He stood out in the park like a sore thumb, as he was wearing a solid black knitted sweater that was much too big for his scrawny shoulders. Charlie was the first to approach him, Callahan following behind at a distance.

            Sitting down next to him with Charlie, Callahan watched as the man abruptly took off his headphones upon noticing them. His eyes darted between Callahan and Charlie while his fingers gripped his headphones tightly. Callahan noticed his knuckles were turning white.

            “How did you get here, kid? Do you know anything?” Charlie pressed.

            “No! No, I don’t remember anything, I’ve been wandering around for what feels like forever, there’s no one else around and I can’t find my dog,” he responded quickly, clearly intimidated by Charlie’s questioning. He explained to them that he had been to the edge of town as well, and that none of his calls from his cell phone reached anybody.

            “My name is Max, by the way,” he spoke second-handedly as he trailed behind the couple back to the truck. Callahan took note of the way he walked with a slight limp in his step, and how he wrung his hands together in front of him constantly. He was visibly uncomfortable. “What’s your guys’ names?”

            “My name is Charlie, and that’s my wife Callahan,” Charlie spoke over her shoulder. Callahan waved her hand with a smile as Charlie introduced her.

            “Charlie and Callahan,” Max repeated to himself, “nice to meet you guys.”

            “Likewise,” Callahan replied.

            Once they had all settled into the truck and Charlie navigated them through the ghost town, Callahan gathered from Max that he was 17 years old and living with his older sister in an apartment 10 miles North of the town center.

            “What about you guys, do you like go to school and work or something?” Max inquired, “There must be something that we have in common that would make it so that only the three of us are here in this place.”

            Callahan shook her head, wracking her brain for any connection she or Charlie could possibly have with this boy.

            “I’m 32 years old, I graduated with a master’s degree in mathematics education and I’m an instructor at the community college,” Callahan explained, “so unless you study at Brackford, where I teach, I can’t see how our paths would have ever crossed.”

            “Yea, and I like, never leave the house because I run a graphic designing business from home. So, like Callahan said, I don’t think I’m connected to you in any weird important way,” Charlie mused from behind the wheel, and after a moment, glanced at Max in the rearview mirror as a thought came to her mind, “Unless you go to the gym a lot too?”

            “I don’t,” he replied quietly.

            “Great,” Charlie stated, her tone dripping with sarcasm, “I’m so glad we are making progress with this mystery.”

            “I’m kind of just really worried about my dog,” Max mused after silence had enveloped the truck cabin, “If I don’t get home soon, no one will be able to take him outside to go pee ‘cause my sister works all night,” His voice trailed off as he talked. “It just seems unfair, that when something cool like this happens to me, I’m stranded to a part of town far away from my home and without my dog.”

 

The World.

            After having travelled through every street of the town available to them, it became clear to Callahan that there was not much else they could discover about their situation. Their world was limited to a small portion of a lifeless town. All forms of life aside from the three of them seemed to have vanished and yet, all facilities still worked. Toilets still flushed, power still worked in the buildings, water still ran from faucets. Time seemed to stand still as well, as the sun never fully set or rose, the town in a perpetual state of dusk. With nobody to contact, all telephones giving nothing but dial tones, and all internet cut off, the inevitable conclusion was made that they were helpless.

            There was nothing left to do but live.

            Food seemed to never go bad within the food marts that they had available to them within the circle, and it seemed that every time they left a building and returned to it later, it was in the same condition, restocked of the things they had taken previously. Charlie stocked up on microwavable frozen lasagna meals and cigarettes while Max seemed to want to eat nothing but meat. Callahan herself stuck to a balanced diet, although she was amused at her companions’ antics in the grocery stores.

            As days went by, the trio slept in the furniture department of a local department store. Callahan made sure to keep track of time and to keep them on a reasonable sleeping pattern. Since the sun never went down, she kept track of when night time was supposed to occur. Charlie kept a calendar marking the amount of days that they had spent in this strange existence.

            As days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months, the three of them settled upon pseudo routines. While Max spent a lot of time trying new video games that he could not afford in his past, Charlie seemed to go overboard with working out at the gym, claiming that she enjoyed taking advantage of having the gym to herself. Callahan found herself in the bookstore most days. Reading about daily life in novels where people interacted with society and the world, she constantly reminded herself that the life she was living was not life as it was meant to be.

            In the nights, as Callahan laid entangled in Charlies arms and Max laid across from them on a separate display bed, the three of them would tell stories about their lives before this existence. Callahan and Charlie described to Max what it was like to fall in love, and how they had met at a music festival 7 years ago. Max described to them the love he had for his dog, Nubis.

            On the 42^nd night, Max told them that he had never been happy in his life. Callahan laid awake that night, watching his chest move up and down as he breathed. She squeezed Charlie tighter. The following day, she asked Charlie if she would be okay sharing their bed, and every night following the 42^nd night, Max slept between Charlie and Callahan. The women held hands above his head in their sleep.

Judgement.

            Seven months into their new existence, Callahan found herself reading Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels for the fourth time. She had read countless novels in her hours alone in the bookstore, but she still enjoyed returning to Swift’s satirical fantasy of travel and adventure. She longed to leave the Westport circle, to see the ocean again, to walk through a forest and hear the birds. She suddenly regretted having an indoor wedding in the middle of the city and decided that, if they ever returned to their old lives, she would ask Charlie to marry her again, but this time high up on the mountains or under a canopy of tree tops.

            Callahan’s longing thoughts were interrupted as Max walked into the store, the bell chiming gently to announce his presence. She looked up from her book, brushing her long hair away from her face to see her dear friend. Her eyes widened in horror, though, as she took in the grim expression on Max’s face, as if he were about to be sick.

            “What’s wrong?” she asked urgently, briskly walking to Max and gripping his shoulders in her hands. His eyes locked with hers and he opened his mouth to speak before closing it again and looking away. Callahan’s thoughts immediately turned to the worst.

“Is Charlie okay?” she demanded, gripping his chin between her thumb and forefinger to see his eyes again. Her gaze bore into his eyes frantically, terrified as to what bad news Max could possibly bear in their secluded life. Immediately, Max blinked, realizing what Callahan was thinking.

“Oh, my god, s**t, yeah,” he shook his head to clear his thoughts, taking Callahan’s hand in his and squeezing, “sorry Calla, Charlie is fine, don’t worry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Callahan’s shoulders drooped as she let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding.

“So, what is it?”  

Wheel of Fortune.

            At 4:36 pm, on February 26^th of the year 2010, Max, Charlie and Callahan found themselves staring at a large blood stain on the asphalt of Martin Street in front of Bart’s Convenience Store.

            “Was that always there?” Charlie asked the question they were all thinking.

            “I didn’t notice it until today,” Max began apprehensively, “I got caught up thinking about the day this all began, and I just started retracing my steps for everything I remember being routine. I think I was walking Nubis when it happened.”

            Callahan’s attention snapped away from the blood stain to Max’s face. He was looking down at the asphalt, wringing his hands together in his shirt, “When what happened, Max? What do you remember?” she coaxed gently.

            “Your dog, Nubis, was he one of those Egyptian mythology looking dogs?” Charlie suddenly asked, eyes wide as she looked at Max. Callahan held her breath. Max laughed.

            “You mean a pharaoh hound? Yea, he’s a big ol’ pharaoh hound. His name is Nubis ‘cause he looks like an Anubis actually,” Max chuckled to himself as he explained.

            “He peed on me,” Charlie stated matter-of-factly, looking at Max and then turning her gaze to Callahan. Callahan searched Charlie’s facial expression for an explanation but found herself growing more confused the longer Charlie looked at her.

            “Honestly, Charlie, what in the hell are you talking about?” Callahan begged.

            “Guys,” Max grabbed their attention as he kneeled and ran a finger over the blood stain, “I think we died.”

The silence of the lifeless streets surrounded the three of them in a veil as Max’s words caused Callahan’s sense of reality to come crashing down.

Death.

            Callahan sat on the floor in the middle of the road, eyes wide as she watched her wife and good friend discuss resurfacing memories. Their certainty of the precision of their memories scared her. She could not recall a single thing they were talking about.

            “I was standing here,” Charlie mumbled, moving to stand against the wall outside of Bart’s, “and you walked by with your weird dog, and the dog peed on my jeans!” She gestured to her jeans as she spoke before pausing and looking back at Max. “I got mad,” her brows furrowed as she continued, “you couldn’t hear me and you were walking away so I gra-“

            “You ripped my headphones off my head and you pushed me,” Max interrupted Charlie’s sentence, “and you were yelling at me, and I didn’t know what was going on, so I pushed back and,” his eyes then travelled to the wall behind Charlie, where a small patch of red could be seen stained onto the surface of the wall.

            “I hit my head. I died.” Charlie stated, eyes wild as she looked at Callahan.

            “Where was I during this? I would not have let that happen!” Callahan exclaimed, disoriented from the information being unveiled. The only clue she had to go off of for herself was the convenience store. Standing up off the street quickly, she walked briskly back into Bart’s and her eyes locked onto the pink box of variety tampons on the counter. Like a wave, the memory hit her.

            She was buying tampons, and Charlie was waiting outside for her. She had noticed the commotion, left the box on the counter, and ran outside to her wife dead on the sidewalk next to a young man on the phone explaining to an operator that he had been in a fight that got out of hand.

Turning around in the doorway of the store, Callahan looked at Max.

            “I blamed you and shoved you into the street.”

            “And you collapsed next to me crying and wouldn’t let go and the car,” Max’s gaze searched the asphalt and fixated on a barely noticeable tire skid mark that curved perfectly in the direction of the stain. “Oh, my god.”

            “So you’re telling me,” Charlie’s voice sounded tired and she spoke slow as she recanted the events, “Max accidently cracked my skull against a wall and then you two got hit by a car?”

            Callahan placed her hand over her chest in appalment.

            “That’s it? We all died because your dog peed on me? That’s it?!”

Temperance.

            At 6:00 pm, on July 22^nd of the year 2009, Callahan Vasquez woke up while standing against the cashier counter at Bart’s Convenience Store on the corner of Martin Street. As she came into awareness, her eyes snapped open and looked into the face of a stranger. The stranger wore a polo shirt with a nametag with the name Eric etched into it. In Callahan’s hand was a box of variety tampons.

            Callahan locked eyes with the cashier in front of her, who was beginning to look incredibly uncomfortable from the prolonged eye contact. She then turned her head to the left to see her wife looking back at her through the front window of the convenience store. Charlie’s hands were pressed against the glass, an expression of disbelief and disorientation on her face.

            Stumbling backwards a few steps, Callahan placed the tampon box on the counter before walking out of the store. The cashier called after her just once as she closed the door behind her and found herself standing in front of a young man walking a dog.

            “Callahan?” The young man, Max, questioned incredulously.

            Max tugged on Nubis’s leash to get him to sit still and Callahan admired the exotic breed for a moment before the dog walked the few feet over to Charlie and lifted his leg. Charlie made a disgusted face for a moment and shook her leg before realization dawned on her.

            Callahan looked at Max, then at Charlie, then at the street, where traffic was backed up from people traveling home after their late afternoon shifts. She looked down the sidewalk, where a sea of people bustled, going about their daily lives. She was acutely aware of the green leaves on the trees, and the birds in the sky and her wife and new friend beside her as she continued down the sidewalk to live her summer.

            

Author's Note

Written as an assignment for a creative writing class so it had a 12 page limit. I'm wondering what you think of the characters and their interactions with each other. Also, I would like to hear input as to what you view the themes of the story to be. Did Callahan feel like a well-rounded character?