Because of the smoke and the panic, it’s not clear who is the first to seize Bob. But someone does, and then we all grab hold, and we hoist him over our shoulders and begin to carry him toward the window.
He does not struggle or even object. Charlotte does, screaming and swatting at us from behind. “Stop!” Marlene shouts over and over. We barely hear her.
Someone opens the window and pops the screen, and out he goes.
We close the window and watch.
Bob picks himself up off the ground and limps around to the front of the building, creeping toward the mob with his arms raised, and for a few seconds they just stare. He says something to them. We can’t hear, but it’s working—people lower their torches and signs, and we swear a few of them smile. Then Cayla grabs a torch from someone and sets him ablaze. His suit goes up like flash paper.
Only Jeremy has the fortitude to watch further, reporting what he sees: the rest of the mob, horrified, like they didn’t really expect her to do it; Cayla staring blankly as Bob writhes on the asphalt, as if she doesn’t understand what’s happened; a state trooper tackling her. The rest is chaos: the parking lot full of squad cars, fire engines, and flashing lights.
Bob isn’t moving by the time they put him out. We stare at the smoldering heap until the EMTs zip him into a plastic sack and drive away. Then, we think, when Bob comes back tomorrow he’ll have quite the story to tell.
We show up to work uneasy and fretting, though we make no mention of the reason.
Marlene is locked in her office, lights out, head in hands in the shadow of her computer screen. The contractors have already put in a new glass door, and by the time we step over the threshold, two men from Karpet King have almost finished laying down the new rug, a dark jewel-blue number with a bubble pattern. It is, we agree, one hell of a nice carpet. This is what we discuss as we pour our coffee and prepare for the day.
At 7:55, we all look up at the clock. No Bob. No Charlotte, either, though she usually takes her sweet time. For all we know they’ll come in together, Charlotte laughing as she drapes her arm over Bob’s, singed bits peeling off as they go. We will take comfort in this and forget yesterday’s unpleasantness.
By a quarter after, we are still waiting. It is unlike him to be late. Our eyes drift toward the new glass door that Bob will eventually walk through, then down to the new carpet, glistening like a sapphire in the morning sun. We have to remind ourselves to exhale. And we keep thinking, as the seconds tick away, it really is a fine carpet.
Stemming the Tide
Simon Strantzas
Marie and I sit on the wooden bench overlooking the Hopewell Rocks. In front of us, a hundred feet below, the zombies walk on broken, rocky ground. Clad in their sunhats and plastic sunglasses, carrying cameras around their necks and tripping over open-toed sandals, they gibber and jabber among themselves in a language I don’t understand. Or, more accurately, a language I don’t want to understand. It’s the language of mindlessness. I detest it.
Marie begged me for weeks to take her to the Rocks. It’s a natural wonder, she said. The tide comes in every six hours and thirteen minutes and covers everything. All the rock formations, all the little arches and passages. It’s supposed to be amazing. Amazing, I repeat, curious if she’ll hear the slight scoff in my voice, detect how much I loathe the idea. There is only one reason I might want to go to such a needlessly crowded place, and I’m not sure if I’m ready to face it. If she senses my mood, she feigns obliviousness. She pleads with me again to take her. Tries to convince me it can only help her after her loss. Eventually, the crying gets to be too much, and I agree.
But I regret it as soon as I pick her up. She’s dressed in a pair of shorts that do nothing to flatter her pale, lumpy body. Her hair is parted down the middle and tied to the side in pigtails, as though she believes somehow appropriating the trappings of a child will make her young again. All it does is reveal the graying roots of her dyed hair. Her blouse . . . I cannot even begin to explain her blouse. This is going to be great! She assures me as soon as she’s seated in the car, and I nod and try not to look at her. Instead, I look at the sun-bleached road ahead of us. It’s going to take an hour to drive from Moncton to the Bay of Fundy. An hour where I have to listen to her awkwardly try and fill the air with words because she cannot bear silence for anything longer than a minute. I, on the other hand, want nothing more than for the world to keep quiet and keep out.
The hour trip lengthens to over two in traffic, and when we arrive the sun is already bearing down as though it has focused all its attention on the vast asphalt parking lot. We pass through the admission gate and, after having our hands stamped, onto the park grounds. Immediately, I see the entire area is lousy with people moving in a daze—children eating dripping ice cream or soggy hot dogs, adults wiping balding brows and adjusting colorful shorts that are already tucked under rolls of fat. I can smell these people. I can smell their sweat and their stink in the humid air. It’s suffocating, and I want to retch. My face must betray me; Marie asks me if I’m okay. Of course, I say. Why wouldn’t I be? Why wouldn’t I be okay in this pigpen of heaving bodies and grunting animals? Why wouldn’t I enjoy spending every waking moment in the proximity of people that barely deserve to live, who can barely see more than a few minutes into the future? Why wouldn’t I enjoy it? It’s like I’m walking through an abattoir, and none of the fattened sows know what’s to come. Instead they keep moving forward in their piggy queues, one by one meeting their end. This is what the line of people descending into the dried cove look like to me. Animals on the way to slaughter. Who wouldn’t be okay surrounded by that, Marie? Only I don’t say any of that. I want to with all my being, but instead I say I’m fine, dear. Just a little tired is all. Speaking the words only makes me sicker.
The water remains receded throughout the day, keeping a safe distance from the Hopewell Rocks, yet Marie wants to sit and watch the entire six-hour span, as though she worries what will happen if we are not there to witness the tide rush in. Nothing will happen, I want to tell her. The waters will still rise. There is nothing we do that helps or hinders inevitability. That is why it is inevitable. There is nothing we can do to stem the tides that come. All we can do is wait and watch and hope that things will be different. But the tides of the future never bring anything to shore we haven’t already seen. Nothing washes in but rot. No matter where you sit, you can smell its clamminess in the air.
The sun has moved over us and still the rocky bottom of the cove and the tall weirdly sculpted mushroom rocks are dry. Some of the tourists still will not climb back up the metal grated steps, eager to spend as much of the dying light as possible wandering along the ocean’s floor. A few walk out as far as they can, sinking to their knees in the silt, yet none seem to wonder what might be buried beneath the sand. The teenager who acts as the lifeguard maintains his practiced, affected look of disinterest, hair covering the left half of his brow, watching the daughters and mothers walking past. He ignores everyone until the laughter of those in the silt grows too loud, the giggles caused by sand fleas nibbling their flesh unmistakable. He yells at them to get to the stairs. Warns them of how quickly the tide will rush in, the immediate undertow that has sucked even the heaviest of men out into the Atlantic, but even he doesn’t seem to believe it. Nevertheless, the pigs climb out one at a time, still laughing. I look around to see if anyone else notices the blood that trickles down their legs.