Short Story

A Chat ‘Round the Table

Donovan took another swig of his cold beer; his hand loosely gripped around the tanned, glass bottle. He let out a sigh of content after he felt the chilled beverage wash down his throat and slammed the bottle down on the wooden table, shaking the tiny drops of condensation that hugged the bottle for dear life. His ears were filled with the loud, lively laughter of four other friends that surrounded the table sitting in their bright, maple chairs. Using the back of his wool sleeve to wipe the side of his mouth, he leaned over and threw down a combination of cards from his hand.
“Full house.” he said.
“Ooooh, trip kings?” David, one of his friends, exclaimed, “Can’t beat that, pass.”
The others shook their heads in agreement and he put the next cards down. As they played, he heard delicate thuds against the window that displayed the dark void of nothingness that was the sky of a late evening. Looking closer, Donovan quickly realized it had started to rain, making him remember that there was something out there, clouds and trees and earth, but the lack of light sure made it hard to tell. Beep! Beep! Beep!
“Aw yeah, pizza pockets are ready!” yelled Kevin, red in the face from the couple of beers he had already thrown back.
Red was actually an understatement in Kevin’s case. He was one of those guys whose face became remarkably comparable to a perfectly ripe tomato given a little bit of the devil’s brew. He half walked, half fell over to the microwave and pushed a button. The door flew open and the heavenly scent of Pillsbury diabetes washed over all of them like the wave from the Trident Splash gum commercials. They were all handed their pizza pockets with unnecessary, courteous bows as they accepted them gratefully. Donovan took the plate and picked up the pizza pocket. The warm, soft, processed crust that enveloped the pizza innards swelled generously in his palm. The heat seemed to emanate from the pocket like radiation and slowly engulfed his hand, converting it from its recently cold state caused by the bottle. This was bound to be an amazing pizza pocket. He raised it to his mouth and bit down, his teeth piercing the golden shield guarding the crimson, tasty treasures beneath it. Almost immediately, a searing, white-hot shock shook his tongue as lava erupted from the pocket and poured pain onto it. His tongue recoiled as he felt the cells singe right off.
“Ah FU*K! It’s hot!” berated Maverick as if he’d just been betrayed by his fellow snack.
Donovan also let out a howl of angered pain at the hot pocket. Why? Why couldn’t this one hot pocket not do this, he thought, just this once, why couldn’t the hot pocket just have been delicious like it was supposed to? Then he thought, but why would it be different, I mean, it was bound to happen, I always get burned badly, no matter how promising the pastry looks. He took deep gulps from his beer and rubbed his tongue against his front teeth much like what the others around the table were doing after evidently sharing the same experience.
“It always does that,” Nolan said.
“I know! Now I won’t be able to taste anything for a week with my tingly tongue.”
“Anyways, as I was saying,” slurred Maverick, “I was riding my lion in a coniferous forest, right, and then I saw a stream that ran gold water, but it was opaque you know? Like, it shone really bright and it looked just like water, but it was gold… I can’t explain it. So then I went to the stream and I looked into it, and for some reason there was no reflection in the water, if it even was water. I then brought some of the water to my mouth and drank it. Suddenly, I felt myself getting weaker and my hands grew old and wrinkled. I started to panic and I clutched my face only to feel loose skin and my cheekbones. That’s when things got messed and I started to turn to dust as I watched myself disappear with the wind. There was nothing I could do about it,” he took another swig of his beer and continued, “as if I’d never existed.” He failed to find a clear spot on the card and chip covered table to place his bottle and settled with putting it on the floor.
“You know, sometimes, it scares me how easily and how fast we can stop existing,” said Tanner, “There are so many people from high school that, honestly, just stopped existing to me, as if I’d never known them, and I’m probably the same thing to them.”
“Yeah, I know what you’re talking about. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I just poofed out of existence,” Nolan twinkled his fingers as he said “poofed” and gave a suddenly jolt as he almost swayed off his chair. “Would it matter at all? Would it mean anything?”
“Well if you could stop existing and have it mean something, would you do it?” Donovan’s voice took the others by surprise. They sat, blinking, with blank, perplexed looks.
“Ok, ok, look at it this way,” said Donovan as he readjusted in his seat, “you know how in a bunch of TV shows or movies they have this thing where there’s a bomb that’s about to blow up a city, so a guy with the power to fly takes the bomb and flies so high up that the explosion doesn’t kill anyone but him?”
“No, what are you talking about?” said Nolan.
“Oh yeah! Like in the show Heroes!” burst Maverick, a large grin on his face.
“Yeah, exactly. So I was thinking, what if you or I were in that situation. There’s a huge bomb that’s gonna blow up the entire World, and you have a jetpack that’s strong enough to bring you and the bomb high enough. Would you do it?” Donovan said.
“What kind of a question is that, of course I’d do it, gotta save the world, man!” said Tanner.
“Yeah ‘kay, but no. ‘Cause there’s another guy called Carl, and you don’t know him, and if you don’t take this bomb up he’s gonna do it for you… oh and he’s completely impartial about doing it. He doesn’t care.”
“Hmm… I see…” said Kevin, his face buried in his hands, “so what you’re sayin’ is that if Carl blows himself up… I have a free jetpack.”
“What?” Donovan said incredulously, “yeah, I guess, I don’t know. C’mon, the point is would you want to die saving the world.”
“Well if I could have Carl do it then I’d just let him do it,” stated Nolan.
“Yeah, but you’d be passing up a huge opportunity,” said Donovan.
“What opportunity?” laughed Tanner, “the opportunity to not experience the life that was given to us by our parents, or the opportunity to blow up?”
“The opportunity to not die on a hospital bed with cancer, or a heart attack, or freakin Alzheimers , I don’t know!” Donovan raised his voice.
There was a moment of silence. They looked uneasily at their beer bottles while Kevin slowly bit into his pizza pocket.
“Well a long time ago, warriors from all around the world wanted to die in battle to honour themselves and families. To them not dying for something was just shameful and a waste of their life, not that I’m saying it is, but I can see the reasoning in it,” said Tanner, “if you died to save the world, you’d be remembered forever, no exceptions, I don’t think honour or glory gets any higher than that.”
“Isn’t that for the wrong cause though?” asked Kevin, “doing it just for the personal satisfaction of being famous and having statues of you put up? That sounds a little selfish to me. I would just let Carl do it because I want to live my life and experience all it has to offer. I’m only twenty-one, man!
“Well there you go, there’s no getting around the selfishness of either decision, because you’re putting yourself before the lives of everything on Earth,” said Maverick, flipping a bottle cap on his thumb as if it were a coin, “but, I’d still have to agree with Kevin on his decision, I wouldn’t do it. Still too much I gotta do.
“Look, all I’m saying is, is anything we do in our life truly gonna be worth it? What are we once we die? No matter what your religion is, what are you to the world once you’re no longer on it? People always wonder, who’s gonna remember me when I’m gone? They’ll say to themselves, hey, I might not be something big, but my family will remember. Of course they will, your wife, your children, your grandchildren, but what then? Do any of you guys know the name of your great grandparents, or great-great grand parents? We’re just a flicker of a light that sparked for a second. So in the end, did we ever really exist at all? What are we but a memory? For those of us who aren’t gonna find a cure for AIDS or world poverty, it would be a chance to be something. To be more than just fleeting speck of dust, but to have your life mean something. To go out not in a whimper, but with a bang!” said Donovan, eyes glaring at his bottle, his knuckles white with the force of his grip around the circular glass.
His friends all looked at him; their cheeks rosy, but the smiles had left their faces. Tick, Tick, Tick. The clock that hung above in the kitchen ticked on. Donovan had the feeling that it was ticking faster and faster, but he knew it was just his imagination. The rain kept tapping against the dark window as if it were beckoning him to go outside. A noise suddenly drew his attention. It was Kevin’s laughter.
“What were we even talking about again?” he laughed leaned back on his chair.
“I have no idea” Donovan said. His hand loosely gripped around the tanned, glass bottle, he took another swig of his cold beer.