Luna Nightmares

From the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Episode 3

Evening found me eating a ready-made meal with whiskey and water. The television show was one I'd seen before but I couldn't tell you what happened next. Finding a picture was tough and I could only get two channels in that neighborhood; it was the land that time forgot.

Outside the window the usual show was going on, shouting and shooting, sirens and horns; how could people live like that? Why did they stay? Why did I, for that matter?

I decided that I stayed because I couldn't find another place to live in that price range and got up to get myself a second drink. Trying one of my theories: I only had two whiskey and water the other night so that night I poured three. More is better, right?

On the TV, the bad guy was taken down and the commercial came on. I turned the television off, then turned it back on but lowered the sound. I was on my way to get the second drink so I couldn't go to bed yet. I got a fresh glass, just so I could keep score.

With three empty glasses in front of me, I looked up to see that the host's monologue was a repeat; he told that joke before and to just as few laughs. I turned the tube off and fell into bed.

In my dream, Ted took a small envelope out of his shirt pocket and went into the dining room. The envelope was from the lab, blue like those that held samples of Luna-B. He opened the envelope and poured some of the powder into the glasses of iced tea. Ted had tears in his eyes. In his hand he held a piece of paper, white with thin lines and a ragged corner, torn from a pad at the lab. Across the paper he had written, “I love you and the kids.”

I woke up sweating to the sound of banging on the wall next to me. “You wanna shut up in there? People are trying to sleep!” shouted the guy in the next apartment. I held still, gripping the sweat-soaked sheets, hoping he'd shut up.

“It's not like when you live in a house,” I whispered to myself, “where you can scream in peace.”

After a few minutes of quiet, I got up to get a glass of water then returned to bed, looking at the ceiling, trying to think of anything to stay awake. I couldn't think of anything at all other than my dream and my own deplorable situation. I got up and turned on the television. A sexy woman was licking her lips inviting me to call her. She said she was waiting just for me. I laughed, “Not if you could see me,” and turned to the other channel. The late-late-late show was just wrapping up.