Avery Jackson was running through the streets of New York City, a copy of the Times crushed absentmindedly in his sweating hand. He had read through most of it, and was perusing the business section on his lunch break when it happened.
He could barely think, instinct was driving his dazed and swiftly paced march to his apartment. He shouldered the front door open, the doorman nowhere to be seen as the masses bumped, yelled, and churned behind him. He climbed up the stairs, the walls of the building slightly muffling the droning outside. He could hear crying and wailing from several floors as he passed. A door from a floor beneath him burst open, and voices, a man and woman.
“We just need to catch the train out of town, there’s time honey!”
The woman’s voice was breaking as she spoke, and Avery could hear the muffled cries of a babe.
“Darling, we only have minutes-” she wept.
Avery pushed on.
He arrived at his door on the fifth floor, room 504. He was fumbling for his key, and turned the handle in frustration.
The door was unlocked.
Avery froze for a moment.
He’d forgotten to lock it on the way out. Probably absorbed in a meandering thought about work. On any other day, this might have had some sort of consequence.
He stepped into his small studio flat, and looked around.
The couch pointed at a small television set, his hifi against the wall with the apartments singular window. A framed photo of himself holding a diploma, his parents beside him, was sitting on an end table. Ray Charles’ Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music was sitting out of its sleeve, ready to be played once he had returned from work.
Now that he had arrived into a familiar space, the fight was leaving his body.
Where could he possibly run in time? What would he bring?
He gathered some clothes, tossing them into his briefcase, but was slowing, and tears were muddying his vision.
After a minute his hands slowed their packing, and then ceased moving.
Standing there, he felt time ease through him, every second seemed to drag, creeping slowly, almost physically walking before his eyes. But it wasn’t slow enough. Not enough to cling to, to satisfy, to absolve.
He flipped on the stereo, watching the record spin for a moment before slumping onto his couch.
It Makes No Difference Now began to play, the piano tinkering and singing out through his speakers. There was an impossibly bright flash somewhere out of view, but seeing it didn’t matter.
The light was thousands of degrees as it hit his building. Avery Jackson and the newspaper he had held whose headline read Communications Breakdown Between US and Cuba, turned to fire, turned to dust, turned to atoms in an instant. The only thing left, a shadow, and a memory.
Melvin F. Gruschow is a 32 year old software engineer, father of two, and a scholar of curiosity. He likes to obsess over thoughts, his and others, and do his best to jot them down accurately. Bluesky.
Excellent short story! Kind of an alternative history outcome to the Cuban Missile Crisis, yeah? Well done!
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