I wrote a new story last night, the first in a very long time. I would like to share it with you here, now.
Angel Integers
Marc Lowe
Suddenly, he awoke.
3:33 a.m.
Groaning slightly, he rolled over onto his side.
The bed was, as always, empty. Save himself.
Just as it had been, now, for three and a half years.
Every night this week, for three nights in a row (or should it be “three mornings”?), he had woken suddenly.
And every night, when he turned on the small bedlight and glanced over at his digital clock, it read:
3:33 a.m.
What in the world, he wondered, could this mean?
Perhaps, he told himself, it meant nothing.
Absolutely nothing at all.
But he had this nagging feeling inside him that there was some sort of message here, some sort of sign that he was being asked to decode.
If so, though, he thought to himself, a message from whom?
And also why was he “being asked” to decode it?
He tried to go back to sleep. Closed his eyes. Breathed slow and deep into the bottom of his belly.
No use.
Useless even to try.
Sleep did not — would not — come, just as it hadn’t come the night before. And the night before that, too.
He was tired. He wanted no more than to sleep.
The pattern repeating itself for three consecutive nights.
3:33, the clock had read.
What time was it now?
3:44.
Apparently only ten minutes had passed. It felt as if it had been much longer.
Ah…whatever, he thought to himself aloud, speaking to no one (or were his words heard only by him, inside his head? Had he actually aspirated them, or only thought them to himself? Did it matter, since no one else was around to hear them, anyway? If a tree falls in the forest… Etc.).
He got out of bed, turned on the light.
I am so tired, he said aloud (or perhaps he only thought it to himself, or, alternately, perhaps, and again, he first thought and then said it — aloud — to no one and for no logical reason).
It was no use overthinking, he told himself.
Overthinking never got anyone anywhere, he said aloud this time (to himself, to no one).
Indeed, someone, somewhere answered.
(No, no. That was impossible. No one else was in the room. He lived alone, had always lived alone. Hadn’t he always been alone here?)
No one answered.
He must have answered his own statement. There was no other explanation for it (he reasoned with himself).
Funny, that, since it wasn’t even a question to begin with, and so required no answer.
Yet an answer (or perhaps a response, at least) had come.
Indeed.
Just this.
Indeed.
3:33 a.m.
What time was it now?
He glanced back at the digital clock, which was still there beside the bed on his nightstand (why would he expect it to be anywhere else, after all…), over on the opposite side of the room, opposite to where he was now standing.
But wait. Where was he now standing? Was he even standing now?
Wait a minute…
No, not just for a minute.
(Slight sense of panic.)
Where was he now? And what time was it?
He opened his eyes. Still lying in bed.
He turned on the light, glanced over at the clock.
3:33 a.m. it blinked.
The man sat up in bed, stiff as a rod.
What’s going on? he thought to himself.
What’s going on? he answered himself (this time aspirating the words, the three words emerging as three separate soundbytes, one after the other in sequence…).
Suddenly, and inexplicably, he began recounting a long-forgotten childhood memory.
(When he had been 11 years old, his father had brought him to a carnival.
At the carnival, he had wanted cotton candy.
The father had said, Son, your mother will kill me if I let you eat that. You know that you are not allowed to eat sweets.
The man (i.e. the boy) said to his father, But Dad, I want it. Can’t I have it?
The father said, Son, your mother will murder me if I buy you that.)
He was awake now. Lying in bed.
The clock was still blinking.
3:33
3:33
3:33
What is the meaning of this? the man now screamed aloud, despite himself.
The walls reverberated with the sound.
The clock continued to blink 3:33.
And now, a siren began to wail in the distance.
At the same time, the man’s phone began to ring.
(Bizarre timing, the man now thought to himself without, however, voicing this thought aloud.)
He thought it best to ignore the call.
He wanted badly to just ignore it.
He let it ring.
And ring.
And ring.
After several minutes (three? or was it more than that?) he gave in to the incessant buzzing and answered.
Here is your sign, a rather hoarse and broken voice (male or female, it was difficult to tell) at the other end intoned.
Before the man could respond, the line went dead.
The ambulance siren had long gone silent.
The man got up from the bed, walked over to the window.
He opened the blinds to reveal that the glass behind it was now frosted over with a thin sheet of frosty white icing.
Here is your sign…
What could all of this mean? he thought to himself.
(And why was his window frosted over? Wasn’t it still summer? Or had the seasons changed and he had merely not noticed until this moment?)
Returning to bed the man closed his eyes, pulled the covers over his head, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
August 7, 2024
Tokyo, Japan
