This is a short story submitted to the Undergraduate Writing Contest by WNMU student Chantal Elena Mitchell. Chantal’s work placed first in one category and was runner-up in another. She is a Junior from Truth or Consequences, NM currently taking her General Studies.
On most mornings Renata wanders outside after taking her daily medication, diligently watering her plants and checking the hummingbird feeder she leaves dangling in front of her bedroom window.
Opening her eyes each day, still wrapped warmly in her sheets, she can see the hummingbirds gourging. However that morning, after noticing the hummingbirds dipping their beaks into an empty reservoir, she would be plucked from her usual routine starting when she received an unsettling phone call.
The ringer was loud and alien- Renata didn’t receive many phone calls and often when she did, she expected them. She lifted the receiver and didn’t have time to say hello, immediately hearing a husky female voice pleading “Don’t hang up!” at the other end. She didn’t recognize the voice but instinctively answered “Hello?” her soft voice ringing out like a small bell.
“I don’t really have time to explain,” The woman sounded calm, but there was a seriousness to her tone. “I just wanted to say goodbye,” Renata withdrew completely, she could not muster another squeak. Who was this strange person on the phone? As she stood thinking intensely about who might be on the other end of the line, the hummingbirds began to realize they wouldn’t be fed that morning and one by one, began departing.
Gravely the woman added “I won’t be seeing you again,”
Renata inhaled deeply, she could hear the blood pulsing through her ears as her heart began chiselling a hole through her chest. “Where are you going?” she asked dumbly in response, unsure of why she had been placed in this situation, afraid of what she may have unwittingly done to this woman. She had always been a reserved person and although rationality told her she likely had no reason to worry, it was in her nature to do so. The woman on the phone, suffering from some tumultuous emotional delusion, likely would’ve spoken to anyone in her mental state and Renata, caught in the tension of the moment, didn’t stop to consider the possibility of a wrong number.
“I’ll be gone before I really know, but please.. take care of yourself,” were the last words anyone on Earth would hear from the woman on the phone, although her body would be discovered thirteen days later by her landlord coming to collect on late rent. The woman had a long history of mental illness and despite having taken her prescribed mood stabilizers for many years, she quickly became the victim of her own paranoid delusions once she had stopped.
“Wait!” Renata exclaimed in time to hear the call drop. The dial tone blared rudely from the phone by the time she returned it to its place. Stunned, heart palpitations stirring in her chest, she was overcome with an urge to leave her tranquil apartment and look for the woman on the phone. Thoughtlessly she began to dress and gather her belongings, only realizing once she was out the door that she had no idea where she was headed. After walking aimlessly a few blocks, she crumbled onto a city bench and began weeping silently, suddenly awash with regret for having left her home. What if the woman called again? The woman wouldn’t call again, but Renata was very good at worrying needlessly over things. She remained there until her weeping ceased.
It took some time for Renata to make her way back home, she had wandered without direction or interruption through a seemingly endless night. She wasn’t certain when the sun had stopped shining because she hadn’t paused to consider it. Her legs felt weak and heavy, burning and aching as though she had walked hundreds of miles. She entered her home and felt overwhelmed by darkness. As she reached and frantically switched on the light, she recognized that something about her home felt uncomfortably different, tarnished in some way by the confusion left by the strange phone call. Renata slowly began to undress herself, feeling the weight of exhaustion over her entire body. Casting her purse aside, she then began removing her shoes, realizing the leather felt thin and flimsy between her fingers. Her shoes appeared old and worn upon closer inspection of the brown material, although they had been in decent condition when she had departed. Letting her shoes clatter to the floor, she felt perplexed as she attempted to mentally retrace her trek through the city, most of which she could not recall with any real definition.
It was a habit of Renata’s to become fixated on things, which often left her buried deeply in her own thoughts and unable to recall important details surrounding her life, such as deadlines or dates. This strained most of Renata’s relationships, though she would not readily admit her loneliness when pressed. She had thought about the woman on the phone constantly that day, rolling the situation in her head over and over, concluding simply that she could’ve done more to help, which left her feeling inadequate and stupid. Stirring with thoughts of the woman yet again, Renata was slow to notice the other changes throughout her home. These changes were small but numerous, the yellow vase on her table bore dead flowers, her books had been placed back in their shelves haphazardly upside down or sideways, dust had collected on everything and the contents of her refrigerator were all entirely spoiled. It was as if Renata had been gone for weeks, leaving some polite guest to stay entertained by idly admiring her belongings.
Unprepared as any person might be, Renata was again driven to silence in the face of uncertainty as a large green snake slithered into the room. Bewildered, she lept backwards and let out a small yelp when she hit a wall. The snake was very fat, roughly six feet long, appearing more like a sausage than a traditional snake. The snake slithered closer which caused Renata much apprehension, though surely the sight of a gigantic snake was enough to breed anxiety. She tried in vain to pass through the solid wall behind her, realizing the snake would probably leap and bite her in half if she made a sudden movement. The snake came to a halt before her, raising its head until the smooth round body was halfway suspended in the air, allowing her to look over the grotesque creature.
Fearing the snake intended to eat her, she examined the lumpy green body, noticing it did not seem to have scales like most snakes. Instead its body looked like artificial green clay, molded around a tightly encased human body. Had this snake eaten someone whole? Just as this thought struck Renata, gruesomely the sides of the snake split open to reveal two arms pressed tightly against the inner fleshy body of the snake. The arms, which resembled normal human arms with hands, rose out of each side of the snake and anchored themselves onto the ground, lifting the bottom half of the snake upward and suspending it into the air. The snake repeated the display, appearing to grow strong legs before Renata’s eyes, which planted themselves firmly onto the hard wooden floor. As the creature stood before her the fleshy green of the snake began oozing towards the ground in fatty clumps, leaving a naked man without genitals standing there. The new man outstretched his arms and sighed contently, apparently pleased with his physical transformation.
Renata slowly slumped towards the ground, staring dumbly at the creature standing in her livingroom. Exhausted, fearful, feeling overwhelmed, she burst into wailing sobs, immediately her face turning pink and becoming coated in glistening tears, mucus and saliva. Surprised by the sudden noise and not quite familiar with legs, the man jumped, which caused him to slip backwards into the mess of snake he had left on the floor. Groaning, he sat up and looked towards the pitiful Renata who sat, shaking and weeping uncontrollably. Much to Renata’s surprise, the man spoke. “You’re afraid..” he uttered softly as his slid himself nearer to the small, sniffling woman, his tone low and raspy. His unusual voice paired with his strange accent made it nearly impossible for the emotionally frail Renata to understand him. Wide eyed she stared at the large, apparently gentle man, noticing he had not a single hair on his body, his form eerily white. Meeting his gaze for the first time (as some part of her unwittingly feared she would turn to stone), she noticed he had no eyes or at least not any type of eye with which she was familiar. Instead his skull seemed to glow faintly from every orifice, as if he were a physically overflowing with light from within. She began to wonder if perhaps there was another layer to the mysterious snake-man.
The man slowly rose, gently taking Renata’s hands and assisting her in standing before him. Feeling a tug, her gaze fell to his plush hands as they grasped onto her weary fingertips. As she watched, his two hands separated into four hands, two made from flesh and two made from light, all coexisting within the same form. It was as though she had spoken her thoughts aloud. Perceiving the added weight of his fleshy hands within hers, her heart lodged itself like a stone within her throat as she watched his human body topple to the floor, the form crumpling unnaturally into a heap like a piece of soft rice paper as a figure of soft white light stepped backwards from within the mass of person. Outside the sun began to reach the crest of the horizon, filling the sky with brilliant pink and orange hues as the hummingbirds again began their search for nectar. The endless night had reached its conclusion.
Renata stepped over the former man who crunched beneath her feet like dried fallen leaves. It must not be so difficult to do that, she thought, deciding that if she was going to be leaving she needed to say goodbye. Walking towards her telephone, she grasped the receiver and dialed without much consideration.
“Don’t hang up!” she pleaded roughly, her voice ragged from dehydration.
“Hello?” responded a familiar female voice.
“I don’t really have time to explain,” Renata spoke calmly, a particular seriousness to her voice. “I just wanted to say goodbye,”
There was silence between them for some time. Moving her gaze slowly to her own hand, Renata wondered if leaving her body behind was going to be painless. She was stalling as she had often done before trying something new, “I won’t be seeing you again,” she added gravely, deciding it must be time to go. Tenderly, the soft voice asked “Where are you going?” as the gentle light gave off a pulsating warmth, patiently waiting for sweet Renata.
“I’ll be gone before I really know, but please.. take care of yourself,”
The next day her body would be discovered by her landlord coming to collect on late rent.
