I've been writing short stories occasionally, and I figured I'd post them here as I do them. There's no schedule at all to it, it's random and whenever I feel like it. I may eventually post something longer, but for now, I'll be sticking to short stories. The first one here was a project for my Creative Writing class, and in the spirit of the coming of 12/21/12, I chose to write an end of the world story.
“Here I go.” I turned away from my Spetz colleagues and approached the open door of the plane. I went through it and down the ramp to the tarmac of the Los Angeles airport. I was slightly shaking, I’d decided to let all of my nervousness out at the beginning, it would be concealed by the idea that the long plane ride from Moscow gave me trouble walking. I would let it in and then push it out when the time came. I turned to my left and turned to my right expecting someone to stop me, to shoot me, but they didn’t. Everything was going according to plan.
I was masqueraded as a doctor; my lab coat went over my blue scrub. The scrub was comfortable, I was glad that I was wearing it, hoping that the comfort of my clothes would somehow stop the shaking once I would get into the airport, especially while I was in customs. The December weather was warm, typical America, making the thin scrubs feel even better, comforting me further.
In ten minutes I reached the doors into the airport, getting through customs would be a breeze; the only luggage I’d brought was a briefcase. The contents of my suitcase were just medical papers, stuff I didn’t understand and would never understand what a great doctor I am. The American at the desk looked pretty serious about his job, unlike most. I’d been told they usually didn’t care. They were sleepy people, the Americans, didn’t put much effort in their job, at least that’s what I’d been told. But the man in front of me didn’t look like the ones in the pictures I’d studied. It wouldn’t be hard though to play my story off right to the customs officer.
“Welcome to America!” he happily said to me, “Where are you coming from?”
“Thank you, from Russia, I got a job at a hospital here in America, better opportunity I hear.”
“Well, good luck with that, may I see your briefcase and passport?”
“Uh, sure.” I hand him my things and glance down at my hands as I gave him my fake ID and case of papers. I blink a bit and then return to normal.
“Sir, is something wrong?”
“No, everything is just fine; it’s just crazy that I’m here. My first time in America.”
“Oh, I see, just can’t believe you’re here, huh?” He takes my passport and stamps it, and puts my briefcase into the scanner. “You can move forward now.”
I move forwards through the scanner and grab my briefcase on the other side and the man hands me my passport back. “I hope you enjoy your time in the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
“Thank you.” I reply. And I walk off into the terminal, where my mission awaits me. People are walking everywhere of every ethnicity and every national origin, speaking many languages, but for the most part English. American ads are everywhere on the walls. They try to sell the Christmas spirit to the travelers, through commercialism. The ads show people opening gifts and other commercial products. There is nothing about the true spirit of Christmas, even though it is just four days away. The capitalistic pigs disgust me.
My target is an American flight attendant from the area of Los Angeles, every time before going to work she stops at the Cinnabon for a coffee, before she would take the flight around the world to spread it. The plan was to buy her a coffee today, I’d been selected both because of my intense training and because of my age demographic, the kind that if they were to buy coffee for a twenty-five year old American women in an airport it wouldn’t be strange. That was the plan, to find her, talk to her, and initiate the attack. They wouldn’t even know what hit them before it happened. Billions of people would be taken down within months across the globe, the extinction of the majority of the human race. Sure, our people would be affected by the outbreak, but we would not, we would be hidden, safe from the monster. Until the monster devoured everyone in its path, then we would come out, after the monster had done the dirty work for us. Everything would go according to plan.
The meeting place was in terminal A, which was right next to the area which I had entered the airport from. It only takes me ten minutes to walk to it. The task was to then identify the victim, she was five foot six, brown haired, very American, and by that I mean that she was not in the best of shape, but she looked attractive to the American mind nonetheless, she was not of Russian taste though. In the crowd of people she was hard to find because of her American normality, nothing odd or anything sticking out about her. I did my best to walk around the area for the restaurant without going in or seeming out of place for a few minutes until I saw her walk up and get to the back of the line which had formed into the airport coffee and dessert shop.
After thirty seconds I got up behind her, for months I had considered how I should initiate the conversation, if this failed, the whole plan would fail and the future of the world would be derailed. I waited until we got nearer to the front of the line. “Miss,” I said in my best English as she turns toward me, “You are the first American I truly meet, I feel it is custom to buy you a drink.” I knew that she wouldn’t know it wasn’t, we learned that she wasn’t culturally educated had never really known a Russian in her life outside of the Cold War blasphemy that she’d seen as a child. What she did know was, that as an employee of the airlines she was to respect everyone’s traditions and cultures.
“Sure,” she replied, “thank you for that.”
“I have left Russia for the first time to come to America, as a doctor.” I knew that the idea of a doctor rang the idea of rich in the minds of Americans and she listened. “What is your name?” I knew the answer to this question already.
“Jane.” She answered. We reached the front of the line and we ordered the drink, she suggested something and I ordered two, one for her and one for myself. We got our drinks and sat down together at a table.
“So Jane,” I said, “What do you do for a living?” More questions of which I knew the answer to already, they’d been engrained in my mind for months.
“I’m a flight attendant; I have a flight for London in half an hour that I have to get to soon.”
“I’m sorry, am I keeping you from that, Jane? Do you need to go?”
“Uh, yeah.” She gets up, it was nice meeting you, Mr. uh?”
“My name is Nikolae. It was nice meeting you.” I hold out my right hand to distribute the package through the injection in my thumbnail. She holds out her left though.
“Sorry, we’ve got to leftie shake.” She holds out her left hand, I look to where her right arm should be and it isn’t there, how could we have overlooked something so simple? I hold out my left hand and shake her hand and she walks away.
I shudder, a plan failed for the Spetz. I let the girl get away, what am I supposed to do now? I sit back down and stare at my right thumb for a few minutes and eventually turn it to myself and push it into my throat.
I was masqueraded as a doctor; my lab coat went over my blue scrub. The scrub was comfortable, I was glad that I was wearing it, hoping that the comfort of my clothes would somehow stop the shaking once I would get into the airport, especially while I was in customs. The December weather was warm, typical America, making the thin scrubs feel even better, comforting me further.
In ten minutes I reached the doors into the airport, getting through customs would be a breeze; the only luggage I’d brought was a briefcase. The contents of my suitcase were just medical papers, stuff I didn’t understand and would never understand what a great doctor I am. The American at the desk looked pretty serious about his job, unlike most. I’d been told they usually didn’t care. They were sleepy people, the Americans, didn’t put much effort in their job, at least that’s what I’d been told. But the man in front of me didn’t look like the ones in the pictures I’d studied. It wouldn’t be hard though to play my story off right to the customs officer.
“Welcome to America!” he happily said to me, “Where are you coming from?”
“Thank you, from Russia, I got a job at a hospital here in America, better opportunity I hear.”
“Well, good luck with that, may I see your briefcase and passport?”
“Uh, sure.” I hand him my things and glance down at my hands as I gave him my fake ID and case of papers. I blink a bit and then return to normal.
“Sir, is something wrong?”
“No, everything is just fine; it’s just crazy that I’m here. My first time in America.”
“Oh, I see, just can’t believe you’re here, huh?” He takes my passport and stamps it, and puts my briefcase into the scanner. “You can move forward now.”
I move forwards through the scanner and grab my briefcase on the other side and the man hands me my passport back. “I hope you enjoy your time in the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
“Thank you.” I reply. And I walk off into the terminal, where my mission awaits me. People are walking everywhere of every ethnicity and every national origin, speaking many languages, but for the most part English. American ads are everywhere on the walls. They try to sell the Christmas spirit to the travelers, through commercialism. The ads show people opening gifts and other commercial products. There is nothing about the true spirit of Christmas, even though it is just four days away. The capitalistic pigs disgust me.
My target is an American flight attendant from the area of Los Angeles, every time before going to work she stops at the Cinnabon for a coffee, before she would take the flight around the world to spread it. The plan was to buy her a coffee today, I’d been selected both because of my intense training and because of my age demographic, the kind that if they were to buy coffee for a twenty-five year old American women in an airport it wouldn’t be strange. That was the plan, to find her, talk to her, and initiate the attack. They wouldn’t even know what hit them before it happened. Billions of people would be taken down within months across the globe, the extinction of the majority of the human race. Sure, our people would be affected by the outbreak, but we would not, we would be hidden, safe from the monster. Until the monster devoured everyone in its path, then we would come out, after the monster had done the dirty work for us. Everything would go according to plan.
The meeting place was in terminal A, which was right next to the area which I had entered the airport from. It only takes me ten minutes to walk to it. The task was to then identify the victim, she was five foot six, brown haired, very American, and by that I mean that she was not in the best of shape, but she looked attractive to the American mind nonetheless, she was not of Russian taste though. In the crowd of people she was hard to find because of her American normality, nothing odd or anything sticking out about her. I did my best to walk around the area for the restaurant without going in or seeming out of place for a few minutes until I saw her walk up and get to the back of the line which had formed into the airport coffee and dessert shop.
After thirty seconds I got up behind her, for months I had considered how I should initiate the conversation, if this failed, the whole plan would fail and the future of the world would be derailed. I waited until we got nearer to the front of the line. “Miss,” I said in my best English as she turns toward me, “You are the first American I truly meet, I feel it is custom to buy you a drink.” I knew that she wouldn’t know it wasn’t, we learned that she wasn’t culturally educated had never really known a Russian in her life outside of the Cold War blasphemy that she’d seen as a child. What she did know was, that as an employee of the airlines she was to respect everyone’s traditions and cultures.
“Sure,” she replied, “thank you for that.”
“I have left Russia for the first time to come to America, as a doctor.” I knew that the idea of a doctor rang the idea of rich in the minds of Americans and she listened. “What is your name?” I knew the answer to this question already.
“Jane.” She answered. We reached the front of the line and we ordered the drink, she suggested something and I ordered two, one for her and one for myself. We got our drinks and sat down together at a table.
“So Jane,” I said, “What do you do for a living?” More questions of which I knew the answer to already, they’d been engrained in my mind for months.
“I’m a flight attendant; I have a flight for London in half an hour that I have to get to soon.”
“I’m sorry, am I keeping you from that, Jane? Do you need to go?”
“Uh, yeah.” She gets up, it was nice meeting you, Mr. uh?”
“My name is Nikolae. It was nice meeting you.” I hold out my right hand to distribute the package through the injection in my thumbnail. She holds out her left though.
“Sorry, we’ve got to leftie shake.” She holds out her left hand, I look to where her right arm should be and it isn’t there, how could we have overlooked something so simple? I hold out my left hand and shake her hand and she walks away.
I shudder, a plan failed for the Spetz. I let the girl get away, what am I supposed to do now? I sit back down and stare at my right thumb for a few minutes and eventually turn it to myself and push it into my throat.