A Life Transparent (7 page)

He went to bed early and tried to sleep away his trouble. His thoughts kept him awake, and he laid there for an hour before Donna crawled into bed beside him. She usually kissed him goodnight, but for the last two nights she had not, and tonight was no different. If his suspicions were correct, he could not blame her for this, but it still stung him.

Donovan needed his wife now more than ever. Throughout their years of marriage she’d always been his right hand, his navigator, and closest friend. Even though her sudden inability to acknowledge his existence gave credence to his earlier fears that he was slowly being omitted from the world, it did not make the rejection any easier.

He spent the next hour crying into his pillow.

•  •  •

Friday morning was much like the three mornings before it. He woke, experienced the gut-pulling transition between color and gray realities, and saw creatures that should not exist outside the realm of fiction. Donna ignored him, as did his co-workers. By eleven o’clock he’d made it through a block of automated calls, and so far it seemed those total strangers were the only ones who paid him any attention.

It made little sense to him that they could hear him when those around him could not, but by this point Donovan didn’t care. He was happy to have some form of interaction, whether they were shouting, screaming, crying, or simply talking to him. Even in their hatred for an annoying sales rep, Donovan found some kind of hope in their frustrations. He welcomed them.

In an effort to connect with his audience, if only for a few moments, Donovan abandoned the standard Identinel sales script. Instead he interacted with his potential customers, engaging them in all manner of conversation. What else did he have to lose?

All topics were fair game. If he connected with the right person, the conversation could last for up to an hour. One call went to a woman in Iowa named Eileen Carmike. For forty-seven minutes and fifty-three seconds, she and Donovan held a conversation about philosophy and the proper way to bake a turkey. Another call went to an elderly gentleman in Oregon named Zachary Rosen who had a passion for old cars and The Grateful Dead.

Though he enjoyed these conversations, Donovan grew increasingly depressed as he realized what he was missing from life. Here were people living their lives, with their own quirks and faults, and yet they were still somehow perfectly content. After a call with young Jimmy Frank, and their strange conversation about the nature of first and last names, Donovan removed the headset and checked his watch.

It was 4:30. He had time for one more call before braving traffic for another silent night at home. He rubbed his eyes, yawned, and put on the headset. The automated dialer generated a new phone number with a single keystroke.

Click. Beep.

A sharp hiss of static surged through the earphone. He cringed. It reminded him of an old dial-up modem. The surge devolved into the normal series of rings, followed by an abrupt connection. No one spoke on the other end.

Donovan paused. The monitor revealed no name or address. All information fields were blank.

“Hello? Anyone there?”

More electronic interference shot through the line and took shape as a man’s voice. It was a steady voice, confident but soft-spoken. A whine of digital noise hung in the background.

“Hello. Who is this?”

Donovan cleared his throat. “My name is Donovan Candle, and I’m a sales rep for Identinel Security Services. You may have seen our commercials—”

“I have not. What is the nature of your business?”

“We offer identity theft protection. Do you mind if I give you a sales pitch?”

“I find it ironic that a man of little identity is offering to protect the identity of others. How ...
noble.
”

Donovan said nothing. He wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

“In lieu of a sales pitch,” said the nameless man, “I would not mind hearing a life pitch from you.”

A life pitch?

“I’m sorry,” Donovan said, “but I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

“Please forgive my poor manners. You just sound like a man who is not getting all he wants out of life. Tell me, Mr. Candle, what do you want out of your life?”

His mouth was parched. It was rare a customer turned the tables on him so effectively. He had years of experience in dealing with this sort of thing. There were ways to direct a conversation back on track, but Donovan suddenly found he lacked the desire. Something about the man unnerved him, but his curiosity pushed him to answer.

“It’s not every day I’m asked that question. Let’s see ...”

“You do not have to answer that now, Mr. Candle. It was rhetorical.”

“No, sir, it’s perfectly fine. My life has taken a strange turn these last few days. To be honest, I’m not really sure what I want out of life anymore. Today, after talking to other folks like yourself, I’ve realized just how much I’m missing.”

“Missing?”

“In life. There’s not much that defines me anymore. I guess if something interesting doesn’t happen to me soon, I may disappear for good.” An uncomfortable silence followed his words. The static on the line rose and fell, accenting a low chuckle from the strange man beyond it.

“Do you really think so?”

“Yeah,” Donovan said. “I do. Just a feeling, really.”

“Actions birth definition, Mr. Candle. Good luck finding your way.”

Click.

•  •  •

“So how are things?”

Donna Candle juggled the phone and a mixing bowl. She set the bowl on the counter. Her sister, Amanda, waited on the other end of the line for a response.

“That’s a loaded question and you know it.”

“Oh, please. It is
not
. You’ve bitched about Don all week.”

She reached into the cupboard and retrieved a bag of flour. “I haven’t
bitched
. I’m just concerned, is all. He’s never behaved like this.”

“I don’t know, Donna. From what you’ve told me, it seems pretty damn suspicious.”

Donna sighed. She regretted ever saying anything to her sister about Donovan’s odd behavior.

“I trust my husband, Amanda, so don’t go putting any ideas in my head. There’s something going on, but I doubt it’s what you think it is.”

“If you say so. You know the man better than anyone.”

“I do,” Donna said, and trailed off.
I thought I did
. She’d run the gamut of emotion and suspicion in response to Donovan’s silence. At first she wondered if there was someone else, but he wouldn’t do something like that. Not the man she knew, anyway. In recent days, however, it was difficult for her to keep those agonizing doubts at bay.

“Donnie’s no cheat,” Donna said. She smiled. “He knows what I’d do to him if he ever did.”

Amanda laughed. “Out come the scissors. Oh, hey—I should get going. Quinn just got home.”

“Give my love to my favorite nephew,” Donna said.

“I will. And hang in there, okay? Call if you need me.”

They said their goodbyes. Donna hung up the phone and looked at the mixing bowl. After spending most of the day in a restless fervor, she decided she would bake a chocolate cake—from scratch, with peanut butter icing. It was Donovan’s favorite, and would serve as her olive branch. She couldn’t stand for him to be mad at her. She’d gone over every possible reason as to why he would act in such a manner toward her, and their argument was the only logical solution.

It didn’t help that she had been plagued by sporadic migraines all week. That was another odd thing. The headaches came out of nowhere, in strange, buzzing surges that filled her head with a dull, blinding pain. They made it hard to concentrate on anything, and always erupted at the most inopportune moments.

She’d tried explaining it to Donovan, but he was distant and quiet. Some nights she thought he was with her in the living room, but when she would look over, his chair would be empty. Sometimes, when he was there, he said strange things that didn’t make sense, but she couldn’t remember what they were. She went to bed alone, and her concerns grew as the days went by.

Had she gone too far? The more she strained to remember the details of their argument, the more they seemed to slip away. She remembered her tone, and regretted it. She remembered the gist of what she’d said, and that it was honest. She was tired of always saving, always scrimping for a goal that he kept pushing farther back. It disappointed her, seeing her husband slowly transform into the man he was, when she remembered how vibrant and lively he was in college.

Donna smiled. Those were better days. She loved Donovan with all her heart—always would—but she admitted to herself that this week tested her resolve. It simply wasn’t like him to ignore her. That morning he hadn’t even said goodbye. She’d called her sister to vent, and now suspected Amanda was already on the phone with their mother, spilling the latest gossip.

One of the headaches crept into her forehead. She winced, steadied herself against the kitchen counter, and waited for it to subside.

When the migraine passed, she looked at the clock. Donovan would be home in an hour. She turned on the radio and went about preparing his cake.

There came a knock at the door. Donna turned down the radio, listening. They were quick knocks, paced evenly in threes.

Knock-knock-knock.

She wiped flour from her hands and left the kitchen. There was a man at the door, his features distorted by its segmented windows. He wore a suit.
Great
, she thought,
a salesman.

Donna unlocked the door, and pulled it open. When she saw the look in his eye, she caught the door with her foot, wishing she’d not opened it. There was something wrong about him, the way he looked at her, and it was even more apparent when she saw his clothes. He wore a large, green coat over a tattered suit. His tie was torn in half and hung limp, its threaded entrails stretching the length of his stained, white shirt. His hair was long and matted, peppered with slick, silver strands. The thick lenses of his glasses were smudged, giving his large eyes a cloudy appearance. He could’ve been a salesman, if he wasn’t so dirty.

Her breath caught in her throat. The smell was terrible. The man looked beyond her, into the kitchen. Donna tightened her grip on the doorknob.

“Afternoon, ma’am.”

“Can I help you?” She forced a smile. The stench made her eyes water.

“Are you Donna Candle?”

“Yes,” she said. His eyes darted back and forth, focusing on her and something behind her. She cleared her throat. “Can I help you, mister?”

His lips curved into a nervous smile, and before she could react, his hand was on the door. He shoved his weight against it with such force that it sent her sprawling. The room danced for a moment as she fell, and when she collapsed, the world went dark.

•  •  •

Donovan caught the middle of another interview with Dr. Albert Sparrow while inching along the highway. As traffic ground to another stand-still, Donovan turned up the volume to drown out the surrounding noise of idling engines and horn blasts.

“—sometimes, when we’re at our very limit, we may find ourselves in what I have labeled a
state of liminality.
”

“Liminality?” asked the host.

The line of cars in front lurched forward a few more inches. Donovan flickered, and for a span of seconds he saw the white figures wandering between the rows of traffic.

“Yes, liminality. A state of transition. Think of it as if you were standing in a doorway, with one foot inside and one foot out.”

“So you’re saying mediocrity places us ‘in the doorway,’ so to speak?”

“Something like that, yes. In this so-called doorway, a person stands on the threshold of two states—one of complete, dissolute anonymity, and one of profound activity. In my book, I—”

Here comes the sales pitch
, Donovan mused. He switched off the radio. Traffic eased up, and ten minutes later he pulled into his driveway. He parked the car, took a breath, and approached the door. On a whim, he called out to Donna as he turned the knob and stepped inside.

“Honey, I’m—”

His voice failed him, his brain refusing to accept the message relayed by his eyes. For a moment, every mental function shut down, and he forgot to breathe. His aborted greeting echoed across the entrance and into the kitchen. He had an unobstructed view of the disarray. Once his mind thawed enough to allow simple thought processes, he began to absorb all that he saw.

The garbage can was on its side, leaving trash strewn across the tile floor. Package wrappers, soda cans, and potato peels mingled with an overturned canister of flour and a puddle of milk. Some eggs remained on the counter, while others were crushed into a runny, yellow amalgam on the floor. Donna’s mixing bowl sat on the counter next to a jar of peanut butter.

What the hell happened?

He imagined Donna in the process of baking something when all this happened. He took a step forward and saw the scattered pattern of footprints in the dusting of flour. A cold shard of ice shot down the length of his spine.

It was the ensemble of cutlery scattered across the floor at the end of the room that finally jarred him from his panic. The wooden block, home to all of Donna’s sharp knives, was overturned in front of the refrigerator door. His blood pressure rose as he looked at their chaotic placement across the tile. His heart beat a tribal call in his chest. He knew from the assortment that there weren’t enough knives. Some of them were missing.

In his panic, Donna’s name became a constant thrum, creating an inner vibration that urged him to move.

“Donna?” he called out. He didn’t like the sound of his voice. It sounded too small, too weak, and he realized it didn’t matter because she probably couldn’t hear him, anyway.

Might be best shut your mouth, hoss. S’pose you ain’t alone?

If he wasn’t alone, then who might still be in the house with him? His imagination built the scenario. Donna was preparing to bake a cake when someone—man or woman, it didn’t matter—burst into the room, catching her off guard, and—