by Steven Saus
Allaya straightens the cool pearls about her neck, then runs her dark hands down the stiff pink dress. A glance and sniff at the stove assures her that the ham is almost finished. Her lips arc into a tight smile. The vendor had finally programmed a cross onto the wall and a Bible onto the shelf, despite the mullahs’ fatwahs. She teeters only briefly in the heels.
The front door opens, and Robert calls in his fading London accent: “Honey, I’m home!”
He surprises her in the living room doorway, his right arm arcing around her shoulder. She wobbles again on her heels, then leans into his chest as his arm pulls her close. The last remnants of his aftershave tickle her nose while his lips press against hers. His suit jacket sleeves scratch a slight wool discomfort against the bare skin of her shoulders and arms. She presses further into it as they kiss.
The egg timer dings, and Robert pulls back from her lips.
“What’s for dinner?” he asks.
She leads him into the kitchen, turning to face him when she hears his shoes on the linoleum. She gestures to each item on the table as it boils, bubbles, and steams. The table is set, the blue flowers on the plates complementing the lighter blue placemats. She has practiced, but still feels a fluttering uncertainty in her stomach. She resolves to study the women on The Price Is Right more carefully tomorrow.
Robert’s eyes coast over the green bean casserole, the mashed potatoes and gravy, stopping at the honey-glazed ham she draws from the oven.
“Allaya-” his hand is pale on her arm, his eyes a blue that her brown ones will never match “-ham?”
She puts the dish down and stamps her foot hard enough to snap the heel. She pretends that is the reason her voice wavers.
“Here, I am your wife. Here, I stay at home and keep your house.”
Her voice grows louder with every sentence. “Our boys play stickball every afternoon. We live in a ranch-style postwar home just off of Main Street. I am a happy housewife and homemaker, and here we eat ham!”
Her last words distort into visual feedback, cutting a rip of nothingness through her husband’s torso. The walls stretch, warp, and snap. Her ears fill with the impossible whine of malfunctioning VR equipment. She covers her ears as the virtual screech resolves into the real aftershock thunder and screaming whistle of incoming artillery.
Training replaces conscious thought, her thoughts along for the ride as her body moves. Allaya’s hands snatch the VR rig from her head. Heat floods across her skin. She tosses the cool smoothness of the rig aside, letting it clatter to the ground. Blurred shapes swim as her optic nerves readjust to working organically. Her hands find the canvas medic bag, her booted feet find the ground.
Explosions rumble to the south. The blasts vibrate her legs. Allaya is halfway to the door before noticing that both one wall of the stall and Robert are missing.
He is lying on his side, the wires of the rig tangled around his body. The wood slats pound her knees as she drops beside him. A voice in her head starts keening, even as her hands feel the ragged motion of his chest.
She brushes her hair away from her face, fingers leaving an unconscious streak of his blood across her cheek. She tries to block out the stink of melting plastic, the heat from the burning wreckage just outside the demolished door. She offers up a small prayer that he is already in rescue position on his side, then whispers a curse as she finds his wounds.
The holes are a matching pair, one in front, one in back. His blood bubbles pink-red through the cloth of his uniform. A small trickle of dark blood drips from the corner of his mouth, dropping onto the UN insignia sewn to his shirt.
Her hands move in practiced smooth motions. Release the snap, and the field dressing drops into her hand. A twist with both hands and the thick plastic wrapper comes free. One more rip to split the plastic, and she slaps a piece over each hole. Seal the wound. She reaches around him, bringing her arms and the long tails of the dressing around his torso. His sweat and blood smear on her shirt, on her bare forearms.
“And just a minute ago, I held you,” he croaks. A bubble of blood pops on his lips.
She keeps her lips tight, keeps the sudden scream in. A woman outside begins screaming the hysterical laughing sobs of the survivor. Allaya turns towards the doorway. Robert grabs her wrist as she starts to stand. She pulls slightly. She looks at the columns of smoke outside. She stares at the corrugated metal of the roof, examining the rusted spots. She looks at the debris on the floor between them.
Robert does not let go until she looks back at his blue eyes hiding in the sunburned face.
“Why?” he rasps.
She begins to speak, then realizes he isn’t understanding her. She speaks slowly, trying to avoid lapsing into Arabic again. “You have a chest injury. It will leak air. The plastic keeps it sealed.”
He laughs, choking on dust, sand, blood.
“No. Not that.” Robert waves at the wrecked equipment. “This. The VR.”
He coughs again. Allaya sees some of his ribs move out of sync with the others. Over the keening, a trained bit of her brain whispers that the dressing will not be enough. Another trained bit whispers that he already knows this.
“Two months,” he says. “Every pass you get, you drag me here. Always the same program.” More blood comes out of his mouth as he laughs, puddles on the floor. “My mother spent her life escaping that life.”
Robert looks down, then looks up into her brown eyes.
“Why do you keep choosing Donna Reed?”
Her hands take his aid pouch, removing and activating the marcopolo for the UN evac squads. She slings the two canvas packs onto her shoulders. His is still a bright OD green, hers has faded to the color of morning sand. The sensation of his stare crawls across her skin.
She looks up through the blasted wall, brushing her dark hair out of her eyes. She tries to estimate the location of the other artillery strikes from pillars of destruction and smoke that hold up the sky.
Finally, she meets Robert’s gaze. Allaya bends down and kisses him, the first time she has been so bold with him outside. His lips taste different in real life, a salty clove taste she tries hard to remember.
She stands, and looks down at his confused, dimming face.
“I choose it because of all this freedom.”
She sits with him until the light fades from his eyes. She refuses to let the keening scream in her mind take over as she folds his arms across his chest and closes his eyes.
She jogs out of the stall, towards the strikes, the screaming wounded, the wailing survivors.
Her secondhand boots are stiletto heels, the aid bags around her neck are delicate necklaces of pearls.
© 2011 Steven Saus
Original fiction debuting at Residential Aliens.
Tags: flash fiction, Steven Saus, virtual reality